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I often get questions from clients and from other career specialists about how to navigate chosen names and personal pronouns on application materials like resumes, cover letters, and graduate school applications. No matter who we are, our names are the first thing that someone sees on our application. And in recent years, sharing personal pronouns in a variety of professional settings has become more commonplace. Even professional networking site LinkedIn has added a dedicated field to list one’s pronouns.

If you use a different name than your legal name, you may have asked yourself questions like: Will my application be turned down if I don’t list my legal name? What will a hiring manager think if I have one name on the resume and another in my email address? And if you use pronouns like they/them or if you are often misgendered, you may have wondered how and when to bring that up when applying for jobs.

In this post, I share some general guidelines for how to approach listing chosen names and personal pronouns on your application materials. After reading it, if you’re still unsure how you’d like to approach sharing your chosen name and pronouns, I encourage reaching out for individual career coaching or asking friends and mentors in your career field.

When to include your chosen name

For trans and gender diverse people that go by a different name than their legal name, the question of which name to include on a resume or job application, and whether or not to add personal pronouns, can often pose a dilemma. On the one hand, you may feel uncomfortable presenting yourself with a name you no longer use, but on the other, you might not be ready to come out in your work life.

There is no universal answer for when to start using your chosen name or when to include your pronouns on your resume. What’s important is to evaluate your own comfort with using one name or another given where you are in your coming out process or transition. Generally, I recommend using your chosen/preferred name during the job search if you plan to use it while on the job, but you don’t need to do that if you are not ready.

So you can ask yourself: How would I like to be addressed during interviews, and how would I like to introduce myself at work? Use that name throughout the application and interview process.

But what about legal requirements? Is it really OK to leave your legal name off of your resume? In the vast majority of cases, yes! Resumes, cover letters, and other similar materials are essentially marketing documents, and the majority of the time there is not a legal obligation to use one’s legal name on these documents as part of a job application.

That said, if a job application asks for your legal name, enter your legal name in the proper field on the application form. It is important to follow these instructions and this information is often used for background checks. If you don’t provide current or prior legal names at that point, it can be seen as lying on the application, and grounds for firing. Whether you then also include your legal name on your resume, cover letter, etc. is up to you. Regardless of how you submit an application (email, uploaded form, LinkedIn, etc.), there should be an opportunity for you to make clear which name you’d like to be addressed by.

Later on in the application process, you may also need to provide your legal name for other reasons. A common instance is when an organization offers to fly you out for an interview if you don’t live nearby. Since the organization is booking and paying for your travel arrangements, you would need to provide the proper information for them to be able to do so, including legal name and the gender marker on the state-issued ID or passport that you would be using when traveling.

In short, you can use your chosen/preferred name throughout your job search, as long as you provide your legal name when it is needed, like for a background check or travel arrangements for an interview.

If you’d like to change your name legally, there are resources here in Colorado to help you with the process. The Colorado Name Change Project provides information about and assistance with background checks and filling out name change paperwork. They also can assist with changing the gender marker on Colorado state-issued ID cards and birth certificates.

If you are outside of Colorado, you can check this resource from the National Center for Transgender Equality or contact local organizations in your state or country.

Formatting your chosen name

Since resumes and cover letters are essentially personal marketing documents, and don’t require a legal name (most of the time—see above), you can simply use your chosen name instead of legal name anywhere that your name belongs, like the header of your resume or where you sign your cover letter.

If leaving your legal name off of your application materials feels uncomfortable for you, you can include your legal name or initials as well as your chosen name. Let’s say Kelsey Doe has the legal name John Doe, and she has decided to introduce herself as Kelsey throughout her job search. In the header on her resume, cover letter, and other application materials, she could do any of the following:

  • Kelsey Doe (with no mention of the name John Doe)
  • J. Kelsey Doe
  • John “Kelsey” Doe
  • Kelsey Doe, followed by an email address like john.doe@university.edu (or vice versa)

If your application includes letters of recommendation (such as in a graduate school application), you could ask your recommenders to include something like: “I am writing this recommendation for Kelsey Doe (legal name John) as part of her application for…”

Another option if you want to make sure that your name is not misinterpreted is to use your chosen name on its own, and then put a note about your name within the cover letter or somewhere else on the application where you can provide additional information. This note can be as simple as saying your legal name is X but your chosen/preferred name is Y, and all materials that do not require name X are under name Y.

Adding pronouns to your resume

In a variety of industries, it is becoming much more commonplace for people to list their pronouns on resumes. Over the past year, I’ve had more people ask me how to include their pronouns rather than whether to include them.

Similar to including pronouns in an email signature or on your social media profiles, listing your pronouns on your resume is a way to make clear to the hiring manager(s) how to refer to you. For nonbinary people and other folks that use pronouns other than she/her or he/him (such as they/them or ze/hir), including pronouns can be just as important to them as including one’s name. So if you do decide to include your pronouns on your resume, what’s the best way?

Typically, I suggest including pronouns directly next to or directly below the name, like so:

JESSE LEE (they/she)
jesse.lee@emailaddress.com | (123) 456-7890 | City, ST

AIDEN PARK
he/him/his - apark@emailaddress.com - (123) 456-7890

A note about bias

Before wrapping up this post, it’s important to me to say that sharing your chosen name and/or pronouns can open one up to potential bias or discrimination, especially if they implicitly reveal your identity as trans or nonbinary. Bias against trans and nonbinary job seekers is real, and even as social acceptance and understanding increases, discrimination can be pervasive in some industries and geographic areas. So it is important to weigh for yourself the pros/cons of sharing your chosen name and/or pronouns in your unique situation.

To help you make that decision, here are some considerations to think about:

If you’re in a financial situation where you need any job you can get and you don’t have the luxury of waiting for your ideal job, you may need to remove information like pronouns from your resume. It’s not a fair compromise to make, but it’s one that sometimes has to be made because biased recruiters might not call you for an interview. On the other hand, some people consider not getting called in to interview for a prejudiced company to be a sort of silver lining; having biased employers screen themselves out can save them time and energy, so they always include their pronouns.

If you are concerned about safety or discrimination, there is nothing wrong with using your former/legal name during your job search, leaving pronouns off of your resume, and/or waiting until after you’re hired to come out. And if you’d prefer to not be out at work at all, that is OK too!

On a more positive note, sharing your personal pronouns (whether you identify as trans/nonbinary or not) can signal to an employer that you are familiar with pronoun-sharing as an inclusive practice and may be familiar with LGBTQ+ topics. This can be a boost for your application, especially if you work in a progressive field or are applying to an organization that prioritizes social justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).