4 ms·

I do a lot of hiring. It drives me crazy that applicant names (which signal gender and ethnicity) are literally the first thing I see in our candidate screening

I do a lot of hiring. It drives me crazy that applicant names (which signal gender and ethnicity) are literally the first thing I see in our candidate screening system. So I wrote a GreaseMonkey script to replace candidate names with dictionary words. It isn't perfect -- names show up on resumes, and every other stage if the hiring process. I wish name-substitution were a standard feature of these systems!

IkmoIkmo 12y ago
Awesome. In the Netherlands there have been quite a few studies where they'll send exactly the same resume and application to different companies but change the name, and they'll see Mohammed invited a lot less often than say John, or whatever, despite again exactly the same application. On HackerNews, iirc, there was an article a while ago about someone writing a script to automatically respond to housing ads, as he had a lot of trouble finding an apartment somewhere in Germany, Munich I believe. Ah I found it. So what he'd do is send out applications where he could just change out the name and see which ones get the best response. Here's the quote I wanted to highlight: > The conclusion from this little study, is that a girl with an italian name, gets an 90% answer rate, a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets, 1% answer rate. The master of all, is the young munich guy who is around 25 As someone with an Arab name, this can get a little bit depressing :p And while I try to stay away from conjuring up victimization plots against me (I'd absolutely hate to go through life feeling as if my ethnicity is holding me back and that any trouble finding an apartment or a job must be at least in part related to this), I can't help but say that it feels familiar to personal experiences, as much as I hate to say it about myself. So what you're doing is absolutely awesome :) Thank you.
UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
Great thinking. Perhaps its me but I know for me, a woman in software engineering, I constantly worry about what my name signals to potential employers. I wish my gender could be erased while being evaluated as I don't wish for it to be unintentionally or intentionally a factor in evaluating my job qualifications. Or the quality of any work I might publish online. No matter if it works out in my favor or not. I am kinda disturbed by the trend of LinkedIn profiles because I believe you are (apparently? I think...) encouraged to upload a picture of yourself. We did away with including a picture with your resume for a reason, now it seems to be coming back? Seems as if employer tend to hire "potental friends" over potentally over more qualified applicants [http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/12/03/employers-hire-potential-drinking-buddies-ahead-of-top-candidates/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/12/03/employers-...] which I think is part of the gender/race/ethnicity divide. People want to surround themselves with others like them. As an aside, my experience seems to be that many employers of middle class jobs seem to expect candidates to come from a middle class upbringing and perhaps don't understand the opportunities that weren't available to some candidate due to growing up poor. Just my opinions and thoughts on the matter.

IkmoIkmo 12y ago

Awesome. In the Netherlands there have been quite a few studies where they'll send exactly the same resume and application to different companies but change the name, and they'll see Mohammed invited a lot less often than say John, or whatever, despite again exactly the same application. On HackerNews, iirc, there was an article a while ago about someone writing a script to automatically respond to housing ads, as he had a lot of trouble finding an apartment somewhere in Germany, Munich I believe. Ah I found it. So what he'd do is send out applications where he could just change out the name and see which ones get the best response. Here's the quote I wanted to highlight: > The conclusion from this little study, is that a girl with an italian name, gets an 90% answer rate, a guy with an arab name and is younger than 25 gets, 1% answer rate. The master of all, is the young munich guy who is around 25 As someone with an Arab name, this can get a little bit depressing :p And while I try to stay away from conjuring up victimization plots against me (I'd absolutely hate to go through life feeling as if my ethnicity is holding me back and that any trouble finding an apartment or a job must be at least in part related to this), I can't help but say that it feels familiar to personal experiences, as much as I hate to say it about myself. So what you're doing is absolutely awesome :) Thank you.

UrMomReadsHN 12y ago

Great thinking. Perhaps its me but I know for me, a woman in software engineering, I constantly worry about what my name signals to potential employers. I wish my gender could be erased while being evaluated as I don't wish for it to be unintentionally or intentionally a factor in evaluating my job qualifications. Or the quality of any work I might publish online. No matter if it works out in my favor or not. I am kinda disturbed by the trend of LinkedIn profiles because I believe you are (apparently? I think...) encouraged to upload a picture of yourself. We did away with including a picture with your resume for a reason, now it seems to be coming back? Seems as if employer tend to hire "potental friends" over potentally over more qualified applicants [http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/12/03/employers-hire-potential-drinking-buddies-ahead-of-top-candidates/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/12/03/employers-...] which I think is part of the gender/race/ethnicity divide. People want to surround themselves with others like them. As an aside, my experience seems to be that many employers of middle class jobs seem to expect candidates to come from a middle class upbringing and perhaps don't understand the opportunities that weren't available to some candidate due to growing up poor. Just my opinions and thoughts on the matter.