4 ms·

Back in the 90s, my uncle couldn't find a job as a software engineer in Texas - he wouldn't even get an interview, despite having graduated from a top-tier Amer

by JamilD 13y ago

Back in the 90s, my uncle couldn't find a job as a software engineer in Texas - he wouldn't even get an interview, despite having graduated from a top-tier American university. After changing his first name on his resume from a very Muslim-sounding name to an "Americanized" one, that changed completely. Things are changing now, but I wouldn't be surprised if this bias is, at least to some extent, still evident.

steveklabnik 13y ago
There are tons of studies that show this effect. It's still very muh alive and well today. Here's the first one I found this morning: http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf "The results of this study indicate a gender bias for both men and women in preference for male job applicants."
mikeash 13y ago
I wonder if it might become standard to leave your name off a resume, only giving anonymized contact info and such, similar to how it's standard (in the US, anyway) not to include a photograph in order to avoid charges of discrimination.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
acomjean 13y ago
I totally believe this. I'm american, but my name is "Aram". This is not a common American name (Its more common in Armenia, and my dad is half Armenian). Im pretty much a European mutt. People try to figure out who you are by your name. When I moved from Mass to NY for work and was meeting people I had worked with and talked to on the phone (who speak freely), I got three times "You don't look like an Aram". I asked someone what they thought Aram looks like, I was told more middle-eastern. When I do a job search, I wonder if changing my name would make it easier. Being in tech helps though, people are used to odd names.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  It doesn't seem so weird to expect an Armenian to look middle-eastern?
pwnna 13y ago
Is this possible to A/B test?
- stonemetal 13y ago
  Maybe not A/B but researchers have sent out identical resumes with different names on them to see who gets called. http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/spring03/racialbias.html http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/spring03/racialbias.htm...
cottonseed 13y ago
I had the idea for a "blind" job search/interview site that cleans applications of race, age and gender information. I'm not going to build it, but I think it would be great.
- theorique 13y ago
  It's a cool idea, but how do you head off the inevitable reveal of that information face-to-face? Or is it only for the earlier rounds (resume selection, etc).
  - cottonseed 13y ago
    Yes, for earlier rounds. But I think it would already be a huge improvement if you could narrow down to a handful of final candidates blind. I'm also skeptical how much value is added face-to-face. I think the long term strategy would be to apply big data techniques to hiring. If you do long-term tracking of hiring outcomes, you could start to develop a suite of accurate hiring predictors. It is clear at least some current selectors are not very good (e.g. gender, first name). I'm aware of an elite academic dept. that doesn't do face-to-face meetings for hiring assistant professors. Someone in the dept. claimed the application packet was the best predictor of the kinds of success the dept. hires for and face-to-face wasn't useful, if not misleading.
    - theorique 13y ago
      It's an interesting idea. I wonder how it would work in the case of jobs where there's a strong interpersonal component. You could get someone who looks great on paper but who is a bad communicator or doesn't interact well with other people. On the one hand, face-to-face does allow all these preconceptions and prejudices to happen. On the other, it allows the team to assess those things that actually matter in meetings, presentations, and other face-to-face venues. Perhaps for a purely distributed company, this wouldn't matter. But in many existing cases, the face-to-face is still a factor.
      - 13y ago
yesiamyourdad 13y ago
I used to live in TX and a guy I worked for had a story about when he was growing up there was a family who emigrated from Eastern Europe to his down in South TX. They decided to start over with a good American name. So they changed their name to Gonzales.
- dctoedt 13y ago
  > So they changed their name to Gonzales. In the 1960s there was a joke in Readers' Digest about how Teddy Kennedy wanted to change his name because he was tired of being pigeonholed as Jack's and Bobby's little brother. So the judge asks him, "what do you want it changed to?" The senator replies, "Roosevelt."
silencio 13y ago
I don't think I have a problem getting interviews, but random little biases similar to that is why I eventually decided to change my last name to my husband-as-of-Saturday's last name. I also happen to like that last name, but... It was rather surprising to me when I realized the number of people telling me I shouldn't be pressured into changing my name was equal to the number of asian/minority women that changed names giving me not so subtle hints about what they've experienced. It frustrates me a little. But I have friends from all walks of life and everyone from the minimum-wage-job-paying-off-student-loans friends to doctors and lawyers were all telling me variations on the same story from all different settings. They went from sounding like a minority like I did and just getting whatever treatment they thought everyone else got (i.e. it wasn't explicitly racist, it was just...average), to sudden interest and respect that lasts even after people realize what race they are. I do find it sad the other "married" privilege I'm laughing at is that I could be wearing literally anything even a crappy tshirt and yoga pants sweaty after a workout at the gym, and people will treat me differently based on whether or not I'm wearing my ring that has a 1ct stone. Especially when I frequent a store and the same cashier or owner still doesn't remember me but treats me like night and day based on it every. single. time. The effect is even better than walking up to someone to buy lots of things and they're a bit snobby like "you can't possibly want this or pay for it" until I pull out a platinum amex or a wad of 100s from my wallet. This is (among other reasons) why I try so hard not to make buttloads of assumptions and pass instant judgment on others - I don't like being on the receiving end, and we're all guilty of being on the giving end too many times.
- ido 13y ago
  Interesting. I wonder what people think of my name (a very strange and unusual name for Germany). I was once aske if it's Finnish which I guess doesn't really carry much negative stereotypes (if any, I think people generally don't think much at all about Finland). Job wise my resume contains my birthplace and university education (which is from a "safe" first world country people usually think of a "white" - Israel) so if anything it must help (being seen as Jewish in Germany is usually more likely to get one "corrective" positive discrimination for obvious reasons). Of course we can never know for sure which interviews we didn't get due to stereotypes so who knows. But I'm sure I'd have gotten worse treatment if my name was obviously Muslim or African sounding.

by JamilD 13y ago

steveklabnik 13y ago

There are tons of studies that show this effect. It's still very muh alive and well today. Here's the first one I found this morning: http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf http://advance.cornell.edu/documents/ImpactofGender.pdf "The results of this study indicate a gender bias for both men and women in preference for male job applicants."

mikeash 13y ago

I wonder if it might become standard to leave your name off a resume, only giving anonymized contact info and such, similar to how it's standard (in the US, anyway) not to include a photograph in order to avoid charges of discrimination.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

acomjean 13y ago

I totally believe this. I'm american, but my name is "Aram". This is not a common American name (Its more common in Armenia, and my dad is half Armenian). Im pretty much a European mutt. People try to figure out who you are by your name. When I moved from Mass to NY for work and was meeting people I had worked with and talked to on the phone (who speak freely), I got three times "You don't look like an Aram". I asked someone what they thought Aram looks like, I was told more middle-eastern. When I do a job search, I wonder if changing my name would make it easier. Being in tech helps though, people are used to odd names.

thaumasiotes 13y ago
It doesn't seem so weird to expect an Armenian to look middle-eastern?

pwnna 13y ago

Is this possible to A/B test?

stonemetal 13y ago
Maybe not A/B but researchers have sent out identical resumes with different names on them to see who gets called. http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/spring03/racialbias.html http://www.chicagobooth.edu/capideas/spring03/racialbias.htm...

cottonseed 13y ago

I had the idea for a "blind" job search/interview site that cleans applications of race, age and gender information. I'm not going to build it, but I think it would be great.

theorique 13y ago
It's a cool idea, but how do you head off the inevitable reveal of that information face-to-face? Or is it only for the earlier rounds (resume selection, etc).
- cottonseed 13y ago
  Yes, for earlier rounds. But I think it would already be a huge improvement if you could narrow down to a handful of final candidates blind. I'm also skeptical how much value is added face-to-face. I think the long term strategy would be to apply big data techniques to hiring. If you do long-term tracking of hiring outcomes, you could start to develop a suite of accurate hiring predictors. It is clear at least some current selectors are not very good (e.g. gender, first name). I'm aware of an elite academic dept. that doesn't do face-to-face meetings for hiring assistant professors. Someone in the dept. claimed the application packet was the best predictor of the kinds of success the dept. hires for and face-to-face wasn't useful, if not misleading.
  - theorique 13y ago
    It's an interesting idea. I wonder how it would work in the case of jobs where there's a strong interpersonal component. You could get someone who looks great on paper but who is a bad communicator or doesn't interact well with other people. On the one hand, face-to-face does allow all these preconceptions and prejudices to happen. On the other, it allows the team to assess those things that actually matter in meetings, presentations, and other face-to-face venues. Perhaps for a purely distributed company, this wouldn't matter. But in many existing cases, the face-to-face is still a factor.
    - 13y ago

yesiamyourdad 13y ago

I used to live in TX and a guy I worked for had a story about when he was growing up there was a family who emigrated from Eastern Europe to his down in South TX. They decided to start over with a good American name. So they changed their name to Gonzales.

dctoedt 13y ago
> So they changed their name to Gonzales. In the 1960s there was a joke in Readers' Digest about how Teddy Kennedy wanted to change his name because he was tired of being pigeonholed as Jack's and Bobby's little brother. So the judge asks him, "what do you want it changed to?" The senator replies, "Roosevelt."

silencio 13y ago

I don't think I have a problem getting interviews, but random little biases similar to that is why I eventually decided to change my last name to my husband-as-of-Saturday's last name. I also happen to like that last name, but... It was rather surprising to me when I realized the number of people telling me I shouldn't be pressured into changing my name was equal to the number of asian/minority women that changed names giving me not so subtle hints about what they've experienced. It frustrates me a little. But I have friends from all walks of life and everyone from the minimum-wage-job-paying-off-student-loans friends to doctors and lawyers were all telling me variations on the same story from all different settings. They went from sounding like a minority like I did and just getting whatever treatment they thought everyone else got (i.e. it wasn't explicitly racist, it was just...average), to sudden interest and respect that lasts even after people realize what race they are. I do find it sad the other "married" privilege I'm laughing at is that I could be wearing literally anything even a crappy tshirt and yoga pants sweaty after a workout at the gym, and people will treat me differently based on whether or not I'm wearing my ring that has a 1ct stone. Especially when I frequent a store and the same cashier or owner still doesn't remember me but treats me like night and day based on it every. single. time. The effect is even better than walking up to someone to buy lots of things and they're a bit snobby like "you can't possibly want this or pay for it" until I pull out a platinum amex or a wad of 100s from my wallet. This is (among other reasons) why I try so hard not to make buttloads of assumptions and pass instant judgment on others - I don't like being on the receiving end, and we're all guilty of being on the giving end too many times.

ido 13y ago
Interesting. I wonder what people think of my name (a very strange and unusual name for Germany). I was once aske if it's Finnish which I guess doesn't really carry much negative stereotypes (if any, I think people generally don't think much at all about Finland). Job wise my resume contains my birthplace and university education (which is from a "safe" first world country people usually think of a "white" - Israel) so if anything it must help (being seen as Jewish in Germany is usually more likely to get one "corrective" positive discrimination for obvious reasons). Of course we can never know for sure which interviews we didn't get due to stereotypes so who knows. But I'm sure I'd have gotten worse treatment if my name was obviously Muslim or African sounding.