A recent survey on hiring practices led by hiring software company Greenhouse found “pretty sobering stats” about discrimination in hiring processes.
Yeah as a female engineer I’ve been told that it’s a double edged sword. You get a lot more opportunities but they’re opportunities working for a misogynist
As a guy with a unisex name I’ve been hired for freelance jobs only for the production manager or whoever to disappointedly say something like, “I thought you’d be a girl” 🙄
Although, this is why I now tell people my pronouns are “they” when they ask and I haven’t met them yet.
Like fuck off, I’m going to leave it a mystery you creep.
I wasn’t aware Mongo is a unisex name…
Now you do!
Well that is super depressing.
Yeah there’s a reason a lot of us become managers or something. Ok there’s several
Wow I never thought of that. So sad.
It’s not misogyny to recognize that certain groups of people are systematically disadvantaged and to want to counteract that.
It’s also not misogyny to pay attention to the growing body of research that shows that having people if different backgrounds on the same team results in better solutions.
It IS misogyny if people are hiring idiots just because they have a vulva. But no one is really doing that because that violates the profit motive and goes against capitalism.
I think you missed the point. Women often change their names professionally to get attention that they wouldn’t have gotten had they presented a more feminine name. I’ve known multiple Christinas who went by Chris for this reason.
OP is saying that doing this is a double edged sword, because if it works as intended, you’re working for a person who would have otherwise discriminated against you.
That’s just it, I’d almost want some discrimination, because it’ll weed out the idiots that I was otherwise about to subject myself to.
Problem is, discrimination is so widespread, that this severely limits the opportunities of many (and is very often an opportunity cost for you). We all have latent discrimination within us, no matter how hard we try to counteract it. Most don’t try to counteract it either, for example there are things that I am subconsciously discriminatory against that I’m not even really self aware about.
That’s why I like the idea of having to scrub resume data before being presented. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been uncertain about someone, quite frankly because of some sort of latent discriminatory thing, and been surprised. Like at this point if I have a red flag about someone, I almost want to act contra and immediately hire them vs someone where I’m like this person is perfect and I inevitably get let down. Hiring people sucks, it’s literally the worst thing to have to subject yourself to, for both the candidate and the employer. Why not just knock down some barriers and try to make that easier on us all, right?
Oh! Yeah, I didn’t get that. Thanks
I’ve considered trying to change my name & ethnicity to non caucasion to get a county job. Seems unethical, but ive never been called for an interview on lvl 1-3 jobs I’ve been over qualified on after a decade of trying. All my fam were civil servants and I cant do it unless I go the nepotism route it seems and I dont want to live there.
Is it possible that they aren’t calling you because you’re over qualified?
It’s not uncommon to be standard practice to filter out anyone who’s over qualified because they tend to get bored, and they’ll ask for a lot more than less qualified candidates will.
It may just well be bad luck or my competitors are just better. I have know way of knowing. I wasnt always as overqualified, the contacts I met always said keep trying as I gained more experience and education. I lost hope, now that I know they probably do assume that I dont want a non public sector career long term. I live in a big diverse city though and after so many attempts without a single call I cant help but wonder if /how I am the problem.
I doubt it’s your name/ethnicity. It’s probably more that you’re over qualified and they’re afraid you’re going to work for 3 months before getting a better job better matching your qualifications. To be clear they shouldn’t discriminate because of over qualifications either.
I say this as someone who works in the public sector, for many years. Every year I have to go to an EEO training and they drill it home what we can and can’t consider. There’s no way they are managing to discriminate against white sounding names for a decade without someone blowing the whistle. I 100% guarantee some fox news watcher there is blowing the whistle for their 20 minutes of fame.
Do it. If you think it’d make your life easier if people assumed you were a minority, then do it. It’s a free country. Go for it.
I brought this up a few years ago where I work. I want to have a team sanitize the applications before the hiring team gets to see them. Remove names, dates that can be used to construe an age, gender, etc. I hope this study helps me get my point across at next years EEO training.
Once I started having to deal with incoming applications, I quickly realized it’s impossible not to be influenced by the info you see. There are specific names that are culturally connoted with being stupid and are used in many jokes. A female name will get special consideration, because I work in a male dominated field and we try to improve the balance. But I hate all that. I want to work with the best colleagues I can get, that’s my sole motivation. So their hard and soft skills matter, but I don’t care about their private life. Sure, how you spend your private time can give indications on your character, but I quickly found I’m loaded with prejudices, and they have been plain wrong more often than not.
Our company sadly doesn’t sanitize applications by default, but I insist on it for the resumes I have to assess, and I managed to convince a couple other team leads as well. Maybe it’ll spread. I let them remove any personal info. Names, age, gender, photos, addresses… Luckily it has become uncommon to include hobbies or family info, so that rarely is in there in the first place, otherwise remove it as well. I’m hiring you to do a job, it’s not a sympathy or friendship application.
And the written application is only the very first selection step any way. If your credentials are sufficient and you manage to avoid egregious typos and lexical mistakes, you’ll have to deal with the interview process anyway. That’s where I’ll see how you present yourself in person and how you communicate, which are important soft skills in my industry.
I had the privately most introverted antisocial folks end up being very attentive and professional at client interactions, and extroverted “volunteer-for-everything” folks being arrogant and selfish at teamwork.
Hobbies and other information are also used in discriminating people, you also should ask to remove that.
I don’t think I have ever read a hobby section of a resume.
When I interview I come up with a list of technical questions about the job. If they get about +70% I recommend them else I don’t.
We have rubrics. Like if we’re asking for an AA degree, but a BS preferred, you’ll get tossed out if you don’t have an AA, you’ll get 1 point for an AA, and 2 points for a BS. But you’ll also get a 2 for a MA or DR.
It gets weird when it’s education and or maybe experience somewhere in the field… some people who write our job descriptions don’t think things through…
While I applaud your efforts and agree with the cause, blind resumes have been studied several times and always lead to hiring fewer minorities. Since most companies now have diversity targets, they are unlikely to implement anything which will negative affect that.
I am sure nothing will go wrong with hiring people based on race instead of merit.
Unfortunately racism is baked into university admission and corporate hiring practises now. Advocates like Ibram Kendi argue that modern day racism is required to address historical racism. The large majority of us in the middle, between the two racist extremes, disagree.
This sort of discrimination is very real. I work in vocational rehabilitation and I’ve had to have these sort of frank discussions with clients, especially if they aren’t getting interviews when they’re well qualified.
And I’m stupid enough to be honest when applying for a job 😓
It’s an age old tradition. If your name looks foreign or ‘other’ they will make up any excuse not to see you.
I wonder how much is current discrimination and how much is due to past discrimination thats since been corrected
