Workers Tweak Resumes to Ride the Political Tide—and Get Hired

Job candidates may avoid talking politics in an interview, but subtle tweaks to their resumes can reveal where they stand—and give them an edge with employers who share their views.

Workers are adding and deleting politically polarizing language from their resumes right before and after presidential elections to show that they’re aligned with like-minded employers, a study coauthored by Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Pacelli finds. Those changes can pay off: Businesses often favor applicants who appear to be on the same political page, sometimes choosing these candidates over others with stronger skills and experience, the research shows.

“At the end of the day, firms want to hire and promote the right employees,” says Pacelli, the Gerald Schuster Associate Professor of Business Administration. “But we show that companies chasing the current political trend can actually end up hiring potentially less qualified workers. The companies are sacrificing quality for that alignment.”

American corporations have long adapted to the prevailing political winds of an era, adjusting policies and rhetoric to protect their business interests. Now it’s clear that workers are doing the same, as many add or remove wording tied to environmental and diversity themes to match the political trend of the moment. They’re doing so both to appeal to employers with similar views and to advance their careers, according to Pacelli’s research, “Partisan Resumes: ESG Signaling Over the Political Cycle,” which was updated in August.

“It’s more evidence of politics seeping into corporate life,” says Pacelli. “Partisanship is directly affecting workers and how they sort into firms.”

With US midterm elections coming, the results may prompt business leaders to consider: Is a resume that seems like a perfect cultural fit actually pointing to the right candidate, or is it the result of a well-timed edit?

Pacelli coauthored the working paper with Janet Gao, a professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, and Jun Oh, an assistant professor at the Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. School of Business at Purdue University.

Taking the pulse of nearly 3 million workers

The authors decided to track language related to topics that are often highly partisan: environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Using data from Revelio Labs, they analyzed 2.9 million workers at US public firms who revised at least one past job description between 2018 and 2025. That included the periods before and after the 2020 presidential election, won by Democrat Joseph Biden, and the 2024 presidential election, won by Republican Donald Trump.

The researchers also relied on US voter data to determine the partisan preferences of workers. And to determine public companies’ stances on ESG and DEI issues, the authors tapped into Refinitiv Eikon data to track if and when firms committed to ESG and DEI principles during earnings calls.

Commitments change with the political climate

The researchers found that both workers and companies adjusted how prominently they showed their commitment to ESG and DEI as political power shifted:

Workers added and deleted ESG language around the elections. In the month Biden was elected, about 35,000 workers added ESG or DEI language to past job descriptions, and after Trump's 2024 win, about 12,000 deleted this language. For example, a worker might kill a line like “passionate about sustainability” in 2024. Democrat-leaning workers were more likely than Republicans to add ESG language, and under Biden, the gap between parties was roughly four times larger than under Trump's first term. Many people who added ESG language during Biden’s administration decided to remove it during Trump’s second term, as attitudes among those in power generally turned more negative toward ESG.

Corporate commitments to ESG changed with election results. First-time ESG commitments on earnings calls peaked at roughly 230 firms in the third quarter of 2020, just before Biden won the election. They then declined gradually, reaching only a handful by late 2024 after Trump’s victory.

Workers of both parties added ESG language when prospective employers publicly committed to it. Democrat-leaning workers added specific language, while Republican-leaning workers added mostly vague, symbolic language.

When tweaking resumes pays off

The authors next studied whether workers benefited from repositioning their résumés. They found that those who added ESG language to their CVs were about 2.6 percentage points more likely to change employers the following year and slightly more likely to be promoted internally, compared with workers who edited other parts of their resumes.

Among workers who changed employers, those who had added ESG language had slightly lower predicted job fit—such as having fewer years of experience—about 2% to 3% below average. And in a separate test comparing each hire with five similar job seekers, fit mattered about 10% less in predicting who got the job when candidates had added ESG language, especially during the Biden years. This indicated that these candidates were less qualified for positions based on their skills and experience than other candidates.

“It’s clear companies are willing to take someone that's a lower quality match because they added the ESG language,” says Pacelli. “It also indicates that workers are aware of firms’ political alliances and preferences, and they’re actually taking strategic actions to make that work in terms of getting hired.”

Taking the political temperature down in hiring

As many companies adopt applicant-screening technology, job candidates might consider resume changes the only way to stand out in a crowded pool. But Pacelli says that employers can also take steps to keep hiring focused on what matters most:

Don’t depend too heavily on algorithms to screen resumes

“Just be cautious. It’s easy for people to revise and inflate their CVs with buzzwords to help them get past initial screenings,” he says.

Prioritize experience

“I would advise that employers don’t lose track of a job candidate’s skills,” he says. “Experience and skills are the core competencies that workers need to do the job, right? Pay more attention to them.”

Deemphasize political leanings

“Companies need to think carefully about how much they're being influenced by politics,” Pacelli says. “They need to remember that political swings will occur. Issues important today may be completely gone tomorrow. It's important that you're hiring a worker for the long haul.”

Illustration created with image from AdobeStock.