Judging applicants by their name?

xHannahx

Carry out your own experiment. Apply twice for a few jobs using your maiden name and your married name. If both are offered an interview decline for one of them. You can legally use both names so no issue as far as doing that is concerned.

A friend of ours who is in her 60s was looking for part time work and didn't get a single interview when her date of birth was on the applications, she stopped putting her date of birth on the forms and got an interview for every job she applied to.

shortcrust

I was involved in the recruitment of an IT developer for a training company a few years back. It was blindingly obvious that the bosses had no interest in the applicants with foreign names, despite them being the best by a massive margin. We ended up with a white English chap who'd exaggerated his skills and experience. He couldn't do the job and I had to sack him despite not wanting him in the first place! I didn't stay with them for very long.

GlasweJen

I think it does happen.

In my current job we have rejected a few applications where people have disclosed disabilities - one of the reasons why I never disclose mine until I turn up at interview in a wheelchair.

mustang121

What kind of simple minded moron judges people by their name?


I have never heard of that one before..oh great, that's all we need "nameism".

InsideInsurance

Fireflyaway wrote: »

I know its illegal to discriminate based on such things

Its not illegal to discriminate on name itself. If you could prove the reason they dont progress your application is because they assume your black due to your name then you have grounds. As others have said though, they may well equally discriminate against "chavy" names and that would be perfectly legal as your name is not a protected characteristic.

Does it happen? Without a doubt but proving it is going to be next to impossible. Even doing A B testing with two different names isnt really conclusive. When I am reviewing CVs I have a benchmark of X to start with but if I start seeing lots of very strong CVs then X may go up as I get further through the pile. Similarly if things arent going well I may lower it for the later CVs but only if its really bad would I go back and rejudge all the earlier CVs by the new lower standard (though one or two may have stood out and I go back to find them to put them into the interview pile)

Hell, read the same CV twice whilst you're also trying to listen to a conference call and type an unrelated email and you will pick up different things so even if nothing else changed one CV may be selected and the not the other.

My wife hasnt applied for jobs since we got married nor since she became british. Her first name isnt english at all but can be abbreviated to an english name. Certainly her intent is to use the anglicised version of her name

DKLS

mustang121 wrote: »

What kind of simple minded moron judges people by their name?


I have never heard of that one before..oh great, that's all we need "nameism".

Potentially all sorts of employers, but then again its why its called unconscious bias, because people aren't aware of their ingrained biases, whether thats a name, the university the candidate went to, where they worked etc etc.

I know my fiend whose name is Mihal struggled to get a job, but when he changed that to Michael the english version he had 3 interviews in a week.

shortcrust

mustang121 wrote: »

What kind of simple minded moron judges people by their name?


I have never heard of that one before..oh great, that's all we need "nameism".

I don't judge, but I can't help but form a mental image of a person based on their name. If I'm seeing two clients in an afternoon called Elizabeth Fowler-Bowman and Destiny-Lea Budge I have two very different images.

barrymung

I can tell you that a surname does have an effect. a previous employer would throw cvs in the bin from anyone sounding at all 'foreign'.


I did investigate landing them in it but I couldn't prove anything so didn't in the end.

KiKi

Of course it happens - all the time.

I, personally, wouldn't make a judgement on someone if they had a 'foreign sounding' name. However, I do admit that this post...

shortcrust wrote: »

I don't judge, but I can't help but form a mental image of a person based on their name. If I'm seeing two clients in an afternoon called Elizabeth Fowler-Bowman and Destiny-Lea Budge I have two very different images.

...is true of me. I would still interview the latter if they have the right experience I'm looking forward, but it certainly conjures up two different images. Of course - I've then interviewed and taken people on ability.

Wow, I sound like Katie Hopkins. I'm really not!!
KiKi

Fireflyaway

Thanks everyone its interesting to hear about your experiences. The situation with my own applications is that quite often I don't even get an acknowledgement that I have applied, let alone offered an interview . I know this will happen sometimes anyway but its now worse since I have a new name.
I feel that using my maiden name is sort of bowing down to prejudice but if its a way to get an interview guess it has to be done. Then when I get the job I can change it back.
Yes unconscious bias - makes sense. With all this immigration stuff in the headlines at the moment and people being wary of Muslims it must be a hard time for many people.
GlasweJen - Yes I have a former colleague who spent ages looking for a job. She was such a lovely person and really great with customers. However when people clocked she is a wheelchair user the job was suddenly filled or she just didn't hear back. She has been looking for a job for a year!
It doesn't seem right that these things happen in 2015.
I am interested to do a little experiment of my own and see what happens!