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Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work – Exposing Institutional Racism and the Scrutiny of Black Professionals in the Workplace
A groundbreaking work challenging the false narrative that diversity equals a lack of qualifications by uncovering the impact of "competency checking," a core issue of workplace discrimination that unjustly scrutinizes Black people and other people of color, forcing them to repeatedly prove their worth, intelligence, and even their right to be in the workplace.
The career advancement of Black and other people of color in the workplace is under attack as there is a turn away from the promise of the "racial reconciliation" of 2020. This period saw Black talent rise in the workplace from DEI managers to CEOs to junior-level hires. Yet, the post-2020 workplace is seeing an alarming retreat from creating workplaces and leadership that reflect the nation’s diversity.
That retreat is characterized by underemployment, cracked glass cliffs, toxic work environments, and claims of "empty pipelines." More concerning, Black professionals and other people of color often face greater scrutiny than their peers regarding job applications, work experience, and qualifications to even be considered for employment or advancement. And that scrutiny has a Competency Checking.
When it comes to hiring Black talent, the leadership pipeline isn’t broken; rather, it is the unconscious bias and assumptions we make about who is competent and qualified. In Qualified, award-winning executive and journalist Shari Dunn combines deep research with enlightening interviews and anecdotes from across the broad spectrum of her career to uncover the history of Competency Checking, how it manifests in the workplace, and what can be done to change it. This systemic racism, Dunn argues, continues to be practiced consciously and unconsciously and is the key reason why Black people and other people of color are underrepresented in so many industries and why there continues to be a revolving door of Black talent even after the hiring surges of 2020.
This urgent and deeply researched book provides the tools to dismantle the systems holding exceptional talent back,
The Myth of the Discover why the issue isn’t a lack of diverse talent but the hidden blockages and biased assumptions within the corporate culture that prevent qualified candidates from being hired and promoted.Competency Checking Learn to identify the three primary ways Black professionals and other people of color are forced to constantly prove their qualifications, from job interviews to performance reviews.Beyond Performative Move past ineffective initiatives by understanding the historical roots of workplace discrimination and how they manifest in today’s office politics, toxic work environments, and revolving-door retention.Actionable Strategies for Find concrete, evidence-based strategies for leaders, managers, and allies to dismantle biased systems and build a truly equitable and innovative workplace for everyone.
The career advancement of Black and other people of color in the workplace is under attack as there is a turn away from the promise of the "racial reconciliation" of 2020. This period saw Black talent rise in the workplace from DEI managers to CEOs to junior-level hires. Yet, the post-2020 workplace is seeing an alarming retreat from creating workplaces and leadership that reflect the nation’s diversity.
That retreat is characterized by underemployment, cracked glass cliffs, toxic work environments, and claims of "empty pipelines." More concerning, Black professionals and other people of color often face greater scrutiny than their peers regarding job applications, work experience, and qualifications to even be considered for employment or advancement. And that scrutiny has a Competency Checking.
When it comes to hiring Black talent, the leadership pipeline isn’t broken; rather, it is the unconscious bias and assumptions we make about who is competent and qualified. In Qualified, award-winning executive and journalist Shari Dunn combines deep research with enlightening interviews and anecdotes from across the broad spectrum of her career to uncover the history of Competency Checking, how it manifests in the workplace, and what can be done to change it. This systemic racism, Dunn argues, continues to be practiced consciously and unconsciously and is the key reason why Black people and other people of color are underrepresented in so many industries and why there continues to be a revolving door of Black talent even after the hiring surges of 2020.
This urgent and deeply researched book provides the tools to dismantle the systems holding exceptional talent back,
The Myth of the Discover why the issue isn’t a lack of diverse talent but the hidden blockages and biased assumptions within the corporate culture that prevent qualified candidates from being hired and promoted.Competency Checking Learn to identify the three primary ways Black professionals and other people of color are forced to constantly prove their qualifications, from job interviews to performance reviews.Beyond Performative Move past ineffective initiatives by understanding the historical roots of workplace discrimination and how they manifest in today’s office politics, toxic work environments, and revolving-door retention.Actionable Strategies for Find concrete, evidence-based strategies for leaders, managers, and allies to dismantle biased systems and build a truly equitable and innovative workplace for everyone.
- GenresNonfictionRacePolitics
317 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 25, 2025
13 people are currently reading
1751 people want to read
About the author
Shari Dunn
1 book17 followersShari Dunn is a polymath, an accomplished journalist, former attorney, news anchor, CEO, and university professor.
Shari brings cross-sector experience from the law, media, education, and social enterprise to create several new “takes” on issues such as “Imposter Syndrome” and original scholarship, giving voice to what has for too long had no name, Competency Checking.
Born and raised in a working-class, blue-collar, African-American neighborhood in one of the most segregated cities in the nation, Milwaukee, WI. Growing up, she witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of racial discrimination on housing, health care, and employment for Black people. As part of the second wave of students bused to suburban schools, Shari understood that others had fought and died for her right to access education and opportunity. Her parents and family instilled in her the knowledge that the struggle for Civil Rights and affirmative action had created programs like the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), which helped her and many other first-generation college students access higher education—not because they were unqualified, but because of historical inequities that provided an opportunity advantage to white people.
Among the most meaningful highlights of her career was the opportunity to interview and thank civil rights icons Harry Belafonte and Julian Bond. These conversations were profound moments where Shari felt it was her turn to pick up the baton and move the country forward.
https://thesharidunn.com/about-me
Shari brings cross-sector experience from the law, media, education, and social enterprise to create several new “takes” on issues such as “Imposter Syndrome” and original scholarship, giving voice to what has for too long had no name, Competency Checking.
Born and raised in a working-class, blue-collar, African-American neighborhood in one of the most segregated cities in the nation, Milwaukee, WI. Growing up, she witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of racial discrimination on housing, health care, and employment for Black people. As part of the second wave of students bused to suburban schools, Shari understood that others had fought and died for her right to access education and opportunity. Her parents and family instilled in her the knowledge that the struggle for Civil Rights and affirmative action had created programs like the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP), which helped her and many other first-generation college students access higher education—not because they were unqualified, but because of historical inequities that provided an opportunity advantage to white people.
Among the most meaningful highlights of her career was the opportunity to interview and thank civil rights icons Harry Belafonte and Julian Bond. These conversations were profound moments where Shari felt it was her turn to pick up the baton and move the country forward.
https://thesharidunn.com/about-me
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 14, 2025
i randomly found this gem on libby but i can’t believe there are only 14 reviews of this book… it’s so good. i enjoyed it immensely.
March 30, 2025
I can’t imagine being this author. Writing this book about racism in the workplace the importance of DEI policies and ending it with an epilogue about Harris taking over the democratic nomination just to have this book published one month into trumps second term where he is ending these policies and the broader culture is watching most large companies roll back their initiatives in this area. It was devastating for me to read as well knowing we’ve lost this future for an indefinite period of time.
The book didn’t offer much that I didn’t already know but for someone ignorant to this areas this is definitely a great introduction to these topics. It’s well researched and well written and it flows well.
The book didn’t offer much that I didn’t already know but for someone ignorant to this areas this is definitely a great introduction to these topics. It’s well researched and well written and it flows well.
January 20, 2026
I found this at a public library on their new reads shelf and I am so glad I read it. It is incredible. There are a lot of things I was aware of, but not at this particular level. I wanted to read it as I have some hiring responsibilities in my job. They are minimal but I wanted to better understand how to have conversations with colleagues and the general issues underpinning a broader understanding of equity at work. I got that and so much more. Shari Dunn has written a generously informative book whose information I will be returning to repeatedly. There is so much information in it. As a consultant, Dunn does the difficult work of DEI all the time and has stories and insights I haven't read elsewhere. Reading at a pace of about a book a day, I have read a lot but few compare to Qualified and its scope, and immediately applicable insights. Also, reading about the author's experiences and that she is a polymath in her jacket bio had me genuinely excited for her writing.
The insights in Dunn's book have given me so much to be aware of in my work, and how to have better conversations. It doesn't happen in my personal life as much anymore, but there have been a few instances where white folks have tried to pull me into the orbit of conversations that sound like "but it's not my fault- why should I have to do all that when it's other people in history who harmed Black people" or "you can't say anything anymore", to name a few. I usually excuse myself from those conversations because when whiteness speaks like this, people often aren't wanting to be informed. They need to feel comforted by another white person because they feel insecure given the departure of privileges they may not have known they had. I won't quote a ton from Dunn's book because you really do need to purchase it, and read it yourself. This quote alone though, gives me a solid way to talk to people when I'm met with conversations with white folks about fairness, competition, and what white colonizers, and Europeans did: White while people have been saying Black inclusion is "unfair" since emancipation, many today will say it's not fair to "punish" them for what their ancestors did. The first problem with that framing is the idea that removing anti-Black bias is a "punishment". This seems to be a tactical psychological acknowledgement that there are unique benefits to being white, and allowing Black people full and fair participation would take away those "unique benefits," which one can assume would be the punishment. There is also a willful ignorance about the ways even those whose families came after slavery ended benefited from a society that provided opportunities based on the color of their skin" (p. 48). It is so powerful because these points usually take cognitive leaps and bounds to address in white folks asking questions like the ones I mentioned above. By defending Blackness anywhere there's a weird way you have to provide proof that it exists, then proof that someone's actions were anti-Black, then cite sources to demonstrate the link between the two, then comfort the (usually) white person who did something harmful. By creating so much work for anyone challenging anti-Blackness, it can be discursively exhausting to address it, educate, and shut it down. She also writes of affirmative action resistance where some white folks might talk about it in terms of “diversity hires” (as has happened at workplaces before): “If you believe that the “why” of affirmative action is to help supposedly intellectually inferior people access opportunities they don’t deserve, you are going to think that the “pipeline” is broken or that no one is even in there. And if you think you are “giving” people an opportunity, through your benevolence and largesse, from the perch of “ownership” of that opportunity, you will have a different approach than if you understand your goal is to remove artificial blockages” (p.180). Being able to replicate this sentiment with the clarity Dunn lent it gives me a much better way to do the work of challenging white supremacy when it comes up in conversation (not so much in my personal life anymore, and rarely in workplace settings but it has a few times). Chapter 10 goes a long way to helping readers amend their practices after addressing issues of awareness, which I found a helpful flow through the book. I am very grateful for feeling more empowered in a way to advocate for better solutions by starting with the best questions.
There are other points in the book, namely the Impostor Syndrome chapter that would be beneficial for anyone delivering performance reviews to read through and understand. Particularly where Dunn notes that Black women asserting their competence when it is shut down by a leader or interviewer, are too easily labeled overconfident. The reality is that white women (inclusive of some occasional lateral racial maneuvering as Dunn points out) have turned impostor syndrome into a disorder that characterizes incompetence being promoted instead of valuing competence period. It's a weird thing to look back and realize that white women would rely on impostor syndrome to talk down about their accomplishments instead of looking at the systemic reasons why they needed it in the first place. Doesn’t it just uphold patriarchy by failing to liberate racialized women, particularly Black women, as Dunn notes? Why not point out the way that white, cisgender, heterosexual patriarchy has played a commanding role in their view of being valued for their work as it is, not in comparison to their binaried male counterparts at work? Impostor syndrome instead pits people against one another by creating a standard that doesn’t indicate anything reasonable, or collectively liberating. It seems that the only thing it achieves (and has achieved) is a way to talk about self-esteem that is really the result of putting faith in systems that do not appreciate us back, nor appreciate women in workplaces as Black.
It left me with a lot to think about, particularly as a trans man who has some privileges in that I can “go stealth” (though I try to be as out as possible about my identity so that people can confront their own issues with transness before they come face-to-face with me and make that my problem) and stand outside of impostor syndrome conversations now. How much of the rhetoric around impostor syndrome at work actually leaves Black people out while looking like it’s actually doing something constructive because it tends to bring white women together more? Dunn had me wondering whether it is actually impostor syndrome affecting Black women at work (beyond their lived experiences of it- I'm not ever about to challenge someone's understanding of themselves)? I was able to see more clearly that it’s a white supremacist standard. Are Black women just being asked to be more like white women, or live up to standards of whiteness? When they fail to do that, should we instead be making something other than whiteness the standard for excellence instead of asking that someone adheres to the unwritten rules of women and impostor syndrome? Should it not be a concern than when Black women don’t live up to the expectation of impostor syndrome (or “humility” as defined by whiteness), they are viewed as too much, or an excess of a nebulously defined version of a good worker? How much of impostor syndrome as a label or experience allows (mostly) white people to turn against Black people and deploy impostor syndrome to mediocrity’s ends while upholding a veneer of vulnerability that does nothing to actually help promote equity for Black folks at work? Are DEI and vulnerability narratives something that just causes the right neurochemicals to fire in white folks so that it feels like something is being done because something in them shifts, when, as Dunn notes, not much has changed for Black people (if not rolled back altogether)? There is, in other words, a lot of valuable content for reflexivity, and making sense of workplaces in the book. I was left with a lot to consider about dynamics, and how to have conversations that maintain the focus on the issues that matter most when it comes to doing the most equitable thing for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour at work.
Beyond the Impostor Syndrome chapter, Dunn talked about gatekeeping and a few other mechanisms/tools that whiteness uses to either occlude or entirely invisibilize its functioning. I can attest to how many of them function, even though I'm a white trans man. Certainly, I'm not going to claim them as unique to me or talk about my experiences like that here. What I am saying however, is that when you fix the system for Black women, everyone wins. I know that if these mechanisms were resolved and resolving in a large scale way across organizations, the trans community, and 2SLGBTQ+ community would not need to protest as much as we have. We may not have a whole lot to protest about because the same things that make work, and life difficult for Black folks inform the same ones that affect queer and trans community. It remains part of the reason why I'm so confused by anti-Black racism in the 2SLGBTQ+ community. These seemingly small mechanisms that Dunn writes about might escape notice in isolation, but taken together they are the interstices that she outlines early in the book. They are the whole damn thing of anti-Black racism which makes them important for every leader to read. I know that taking a step back after reading Qualified, I have new insights to ensure that in my role as a para-professional outside of middle-management, I'm as aware of as possible, at all times, the ways that the world around me is built to systematically exclude Black people and perspectives. It is on the one hand about systems, but for me it's a consciousness because it is at the level of the soul that white supremacy has taken root in the world we live in. It just gets brought to work because we all go there every day to pay the bills. Dunn's book gives everyone a fantastic tool to analyze the systems that support it.
We cannot change what we do not understand and Shari Dunn has given readers a powerful resource that is a must-read for leaders of all kinds. Thank you Shari, for the visible and invisible labour that went into this book for us at a moment when it is needed more than ever.
The insights in Dunn's book have given me so much to be aware of in my work, and how to have better conversations. It doesn't happen in my personal life as much anymore, but there have been a few instances where white folks have tried to pull me into the orbit of conversations that sound like "but it's not my fault- why should I have to do all that when it's other people in history who harmed Black people" or "you can't say anything anymore", to name a few. I usually excuse myself from those conversations because when whiteness speaks like this, people often aren't wanting to be informed. They need to feel comforted by another white person because they feel insecure given the departure of privileges they may not have known they had. I won't quote a ton from Dunn's book because you really do need to purchase it, and read it yourself. This quote alone though, gives me a solid way to talk to people when I'm met with conversations with white folks about fairness, competition, and what white colonizers, and Europeans did: White while people have been saying Black inclusion is "unfair" since emancipation, many today will say it's not fair to "punish" them for what their ancestors did. The first problem with that framing is the idea that removing anti-Black bias is a "punishment". This seems to be a tactical psychological acknowledgement that there are unique benefits to being white, and allowing Black people full and fair participation would take away those "unique benefits," which one can assume would be the punishment. There is also a willful ignorance about the ways even those whose families came after slavery ended benefited from a society that provided opportunities based on the color of their skin" (p. 48). It is so powerful because these points usually take cognitive leaps and bounds to address in white folks asking questions like the ones I mentioned above. By defending Blackness anywhere there's a weird way you have to provide proof that it exists, then proof that someone's actions were anti-Black, then cite sources to demonstrate the link between the two, then comfort the (usually) white person who did something harmful. By creating so much work for anyone challenging anti-Blackness, it can be discursively exhausting to address it, educate, and shut it down. She also writes of affirmative action resistance where some white folks might talk about it in terms of “diversity hires” (as has happened at workplaces before): “If you believe that the “why” of affirmative action is to help supposedly intellectually inferior people access opportunities they don’t deserve, you are going to think that the “pipeline” is broken or that no one is even in there. And if you think you are “giving” people an opportunity, through your benevolence and largesse, from the perch of “ownership” of that opportunity, you will have a different approach than if you understand your goal is to remove artificial blockages” (p.180). Being able to replicate this sentiment with the clarity Dunn lent it gives me a much better way to do the work of challenging white supremacy when it comes up in conversation (not so much in my personal life anymore, and rarely in workplace settings but it has a few times). Chapter 10 goes a long way to helping readers amend their practices after addressing issues of awareness, which I found a helpful flow through the book. I am very grateful for feeling more empowered in a way to advocate for better solutions by starting with the best questions.
There are other points in the book, namely the Impostor Syndrome chapter that would be beneficial for anyone delivering performance reviews to read through and understand. Particularly where Dunn notes that Black women asserting their competence when it is shut down by a leader or interviewer, are too easily labeled overconfident. The reality is that white women (inclusive of some occasional lateral racial maneuvering as Dunn points out) have turned impostor syndrome into a disorder that characterizes incompetence being promoted instead of valuing competence period. It's a weird thing to look back and realize that white women would rely on impostor syndrome to talk down about their accomplishments instead of looking at the systemic reasons why they needed it in the first place. Doesn’t it just uphold patriarchy by failing to liberate racialized women, particularly Black women, as Dunn notes? Why not point out the way that white, cisgender, heterosexual patriarchy has played a commanding role in their view of being valued for their work as it is, not in comparison to their binaried male counterparts at work? Impostor syndrome instead pits people against one another by creating a standard that doesn’t indicate anything reasonable, or collectively liberating. It seems that the only thing it achieves (and has achieved) is a way to talk about self-esteem that is really the result of putting faith in systems that do not appreciate us back, nor appreciate women in workplaces as Black.
It left me with a lot to think about, particularly as a trans man who has some privileges in that I can “go stealth” (though I try to be as out as possible about my identity so that people can confront their own issues with transness before they come face-to-face with me and make that my problem) and stand outside of impostor syndrome conversations now. How much of the rhetoric around impostor syndrome at work actually leaves Black people out while looking like it’s actually doing something constructive because it tends to bring white women together more? Dunn had me wondering whether it is actually impostor syndrome affecting Black women at work (beyond their lived experiences of it- I'm not ever about to challenge someone's understanding of themselves)? I was able to see more clearly that it’s a white supremacist standard. Are Black women just being asked to be more like white women, or live up to standards of whiteness? When they fail to do that, should we instead be making something other than whiteness the standard for excellence instead of asking that someone adheres to the unwritten rules of women and impostor syndrome? Should it not be a concern than when Black women don’t live up to the expectation of impostor syndrome (or “humility” as defined by whiteness), they are viewed as too much, or an excess of a nebulously defined version of a good worker? How much of impostor syndrome as a label or experience allows (mostly) white people to turn against Black people and deploy impostor syndrome to mediocrity’s ends while upholding a veneer of vulnerability that does nothing to actually help promote equity for Black folks at work? Are DEI and vulnerability narratives something that just causes the right neurochemicals to fire in white folks so that it feels like something is being done because something in them shifts, when, as Dunn notes, not much has changed for Black people (if not rolled back altogether)? There is, in other words, a lot of valuable content for reflexivity, and making sense of workplaces in the book. I was left with a lot to consider about dynamics, and how to have conversations that maintain the focus on the issues that matter most when it comes to doing the most equitable thing for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour at work.
Beyond the Impostor Syndrome chapter, Dunn talked about gatekeeping and a few other mechanisms/tools that whiteness uses to either occlude or entirely invisibilize its functioning. I can attest to how many of them function, even though I'm a white trans man. Certainly, I'm not going to claim them as unique to me or talk about my experiences like that here. What I am saying however, is that when you fix the system for Black women, everyone wins. I know that if these mechanisms were resolved and resolving in a large scale way across organizations, the trans community, and 2SLGBTQ+ community would not need to protest as much as we have. We may not have a whole lot to protest about because the same things that make work, and life difficult for Black folks inform the same ones that affect queer and trans community. It remains part of the reason why I'm so confused by anti-Black racism in the 2SLGBTQ+ community. These seemingly small mechanisms that Dunn writes about might escape notice in isolation, but taken together they are the interstices that she outlines early in the book. They are the whole damn thing of anti-Black racism which makes them important for every leader to read. I know that taking a step back after reading Qualified, I have new insights to ensure that in my role as a para-professional outside of middle-management, I'm as aware of as possible, at all times, the ways that the world around me is built to systematically exclude Black people and perspectives. It is on the one hand about systems, but for me it's a consciousness because it is at the level of the soul that white supremacy has taken root in the world we live in. It just gets brought to work because we all go there every day to pay the bills. Dunn's book gives everyone a fantastic tool to analyze the systems that support it.
We cannot change what we do not understand and Shari Dunn has given readers a powerful resource that is a must-read for leaders of all kinds. Thank you Shari, for the visible and invisible labour that went into this book for us at a moment when it is needed more than ever.
October 22, 2025
I really enjoyed reading this book, and recommend it 👍🏽
Shari’s writing feels grounded and conversational…approachable without losing depth. The book comes at such an important time, when so many DEI efforts are being peeled back or written off as performative. It’s a needed reminder of why this work exists in the first place and of the foundation so many people have built to make workplaces more equitable and inclusive.
Shari was one of my professors during my MBA, and her class (Social Venture Enterprise) has always stood out to me. Reading this, I could see her same clarity, warmth, and charisma come through on the page. A thoughtful, timely read I’d recommend to anyone who wants to reconnect with the “why” behind equity work.
Shari’s writing feels grounded and conversational…approachable without losing depth. The book comes at such an important time, when so many DEI efforts are being peeled back or written off as performative. It’s a needed reminder of why this work exists in the first place and of the foundation so many people have built to make workplaces more equitable and inclusive.
Shari was one of my professors during my MBA, and her class (Social Venture Enterprise) has always stood out to me. Reading this, I could see her same clarity, warmth, and charisma come through on the page. A thoughtful, timely read I’d recommend to anyone who wants to reconnect with the “why” behind equity work.
February 25, 2025
As a journalist, I rely on reporting that is factual, accurate, and enlightening. Shari Dunn's new book QUALIFIED couldn't be more. timely and insightful. White cynicism about Black employees' abilities, and “competency checking,” assumes Black inferiority. It's a false and racist trope upon which the war on diversity is based. Black employees are subjected to increased but baseless scrutiny -- and in some cases, employment is even terminated. Citing studies that show the prevalence of racism in the workplace, Shari Dunn's book is a must-read for anyone focused on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace or in any setting.
August 23, 2025
I was initially captivated by the title, anticipating insights into professional life that might prove beneficial. However, the content diverged significantly from my expectations.
While it touches on professional themes, the focus centers on racism and gender-based inequalities, primarily in Western contexts, particularly the United States. The author articulates compelling arguments from her perspective, making it a valuable read for those in relevant regions.
For me, however, it offered limited personal relevance or practical value. This is by no means a reflection of the book’s quality, which remains commendable.
While it touches on professional themes, the focus centers on racism and gender-based inequalities, primarily in Western contexts, particularly the United States. The author articulates compelling arguments from her perspective, making it a valuable read for those in relevant regions.
For me, however, it offered limited personal relevance or practical value. This is by no means a reflection of the book’s quality, which remains commendable.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 26, 2025
Really, really excellent coverage of the newly-coined (by Dunn herself!) but centuries-old phenomenon of competency-checking. This book is not mere coverage, either, but offers a guide - particularly to the people in positions where they have the power to change things. The amount of grace Dunn has for those uninformed in her audience is truly commendable; she explains things so well and patiently.
Her chapter on "imposter syndrome" (and the fact that it probably doesn't exist - just insecurity and competency checking do!) was so incredibly eye-opening to me. I'm going to be thinking about it and this book for years to come.
Her chapter on "imposter syndrome" (and the fact that it probably doesn't exist - just insecurity and competency checking do!) was so incredibly eye-opening to me. I'm going to be thinking about it and this book for years to come.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews