Originally found at Quartz, by Lila MacLellan.

As people quit their jobs in record numbers—4 million people in the US during April alone—and many presumably attempt to find new ones, it’s safe to assume that cover letters are being carefully crafted across the country.

For women, that can require the maddeningly difficult task of finding the right language to play into gendered expectations. She may think to herself: Should I sound assertive to break any stereotypes held by the hiring manager? Or should I pretend those assumptions aren’t happening?

A recent study from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management complicates matters even further.

To better understand what’s at play in occupations that remain segregated according to gender, Joyce He, a former PhD candidate at the University of Toronto and lead author of the paper, analyzed the real-world cover letters of women who applied for jobs in male-dominated industries. Her work found that women attempted to ward off gendered expectations by carefully considering their word choices—a common practice, according to a growing body of evidence, the authors write in the Academy of Management Journal paper.

Continue reading the original article at Quartz.

Read the original research in Academy of Management Journal.

Also read this AOM Insights summary citing this research.

Learn more about the AOM Scholars and explore their work:

• Joyce C. He, University of Toronto
• Sonia K Kang, University of Toronto