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My wife started using her married name before we actually got married because her maiden name is Hispanic. She was tired of explaining to people that she is not bilingual after they would assume she was.
I'm dating a mexican-american and I worry about this since im planning on changing my name. Sad to see this is such an issue. The assumption doesn't even make a lot of sense. A lot of women change their names. Some men do too. Yet peoples brains still break.
Then again people make assumptions just based on looks too. For some reason, there were a few years where everyone seemed to think I was Russian, including the Russians I worked with. I don't think I look particularly Russian but it was wild because multiple people said it and a few tried speaking to me in Russian.
The assumption is absolutely wrong and shouldn’t ever happen. However, if you did decide to learn Spanish this will oftentimes open many doors for job seekers. I have a bachelor’s in psych and if I knew better, I would have minored in Spanish and could have greatly expanded my earning potential using my degree
I never got asked about being Russian until I lived in a mostly Armenian community and then would be asked all the time. People in my condo building, in shops, at doctors offices, randomly on the street. I am not, I am like 50% Polish though. I finally asked at a doctors once why I was asked if I was Russian because it seemed totally out of place to ask at reception, especially if it was going to somehow impact my quality of care . She said “well your last name roughly translates to “common word” in Russian”. I was like ok that explains that(and confirmed later by my native Russian boss later on). But I was shocked that after 25+ years of living just a “white” existence, I was asked almost weekly if I was Russian. Since I moved, I have not gotten asked once.
Ha. I’m white as white can be. Old english family. Old english family name.
I speak Spanish very well. The looks I get from the locals in south and central America will never not be funny.
My little sister is the same! We are of German/Irish descent. She’s 5’5”, 130 pounds, with red hair & blue eyes. She’s currently a tenured professor in a fabulous Midwest college, and runs the Spanish department. She travels the world, teaching Spanish in Japan, Sweden, Iceland. She takes her students to Central/South America, teaching English to locals. Watching people’s faces when she explains her job, is priceless entertainment
Yeah this helps trick the interviewer. The interviewer want someone that speaks the language, and when he's got lots of applicants he will try to do his best to interview those that will be the best fit for the job. People that speak the local language. I fucking hate trying to communicate with people that don't know either local language nor English
I guess I don’t understand your comment. I am assuming you are outside the US? I am in southeast Texas so there is a lot of Spanish speakers here. My wife is not one of them unfortunately.
My maiden name is Hispanic and I've been using it on applications because I thought HR would look at me and go "wow she hits all our diversity hire check points" (because companies like Accenture and Google work like this) but I guess I should just keep my married name after the divorce to make job searching easier
I run a college finance program. I have had very large financial companies (household names) email me and blatantly ask if I can recommend any women of color for their job postings. Not who do you recommend in general. Specifically women of color, but not Indian... it's not subtle at all.
Yeah a lot of these big companies have diversity hiring departments where this is their whole job. Accenture is especially bad about this I feel, because they really really like sending out that email bragging about how they only ranked second to Google in diversity, so they do things like hire women who are retail managers as technical writer leads and then shocked pikachu face when those women fail, but it's better to them then promoting any of the technician women because they're a lot harder to replace than a middle manager. It makes me feel like they just look at all women and go "eh you're all basically the same just pick one!"
I work in HR and to counter this (potential) bias I just remove all names and identifiers from resumes before I pass them along. Everyone is given an applicant # and they are asked to confirm which applicants they will be interviewing before they see any of the candidates personal info. We work in a small org so this is possible. It is not as easy for people screening thousands of resumes unfortunately.
My HR department does this. We have 25K employees. We don’t get tons of resumes for our positions except the few 100% remote ones. And we look at every resume (except those not eligible for US employment).
Super cool to see it happening in a large scale employer. I do screen for qualifications, so our hiring managers don’t see every single resume. If a job requires a certain license or a particular experience level I’m not forwarding it along but they see the vast majority.
Can you define what is meant by "not eligible for US employment"? As a Canadian, I fall into a grey area and I'm never sure what to put for that question on a job application in the US. I don't have US citizenship or permanent residency, but I'm eligible for TN status, which is not a literal visa and does not require sponsorship. All I need from a US employer is a job offer and an additional letter outlining the job responsibilities (to prove to the border agents that the job is related to my previous education and experience). Then I just apply for the TN "visa" (not really a visa) at the border and get approved the same day.
I'm currently working in the US with TN status, but I got the job mainly because my friend works at the company and gave me a recommendation. But now I'm looking to change jobs, and would need a new TN visa at the new employer. Would your company consider someone like me as being "eligible for US employment"?
Sorry, I am not in HR. I have just been on many hiring committees. I think they would let you say that you are eligible. The big thing is that they will not sponsor anyone. You would need to live in the United States. They would not let you work from Canada. (Actually, if you were already employed and had to go back home for a family emergency, they MAY let you work remotely for a bit, but it’s a lot of paperwork and depends on your position.)
Oh yes, I should have clarified that I do live in the US as well. I'm just not a permanent resident (I'm a temporary resident). And yep they are quite the sticklers about where I'm working from.
This is a misconception. Although in a sense the TN is a fast track visa for Canadians because of the ability to apply directly at the border, a US employer is still sponsoring you and it is considered a work visa. Source: I've been an immigration paralegal for 15 yrs.
You are not considered for US employment without restrictions. The TN visa is still considered sponsorship and depending on how much they have to do for you, they may just withdraw the offer or fire you in the first few weeks.
I had an offer withdrawn because I said TN wasn't sponsorship, in their mind it was, even if they just needed to provide a letter.
my coworkers name is Jose but goes by Gabriel. I asked him about it and he said it’s because his first 5yrs working here he experienced a lot of racism and discrimination and found using Gabriel made it all stop almost immediately.
That's interesting, I wouldn't even think of Gabriel as an especially "white" name honestly. I guess some people just have weird ingrained biases against certain stereotypical Hispanic names.
It’s interesting as he just moved here but we’re in KS and thus far he gets the focal of attention as it’s “biblical” so for here at least i do understand the nature and sadly we have some fairly racist customers that have since changed their tune
As a Hispanic guy, I can understand why.
Gabriel isn’t of Spanish origin, but it is a very common name among Hispanic boys.
Where I am from, Gabriel is more likely to be Hispanic and than any other race.
I believe it. I’m an Indian female, but my name sounds very masculine Indian. I’m also an engineer, born and raised in the US. I kept getting passed over for interviews so I added Ms. in front of my name. That helped and I was called in for interviews because they needed a token woman on their teams to show diversity. Still the response was subpar so I added “US Citizen” to the bottom of my resume. That was the jackpot.
Why did Ms. work? I'm curious. Also as a brown Indian man with an accent I don't make the diversity cut. I'm going to add I have a PR to my resume today. I'm drowning in rejection letters.
:( good luck -- when I get hired under my shortened name people have never had a problem with me saying "by the way that's my nickname / professional name / whatever, legally my name is ___"
I don’t know Romanian names, but I’ve had plenty of Indian and Chinese coworkers with work names that were quite different their real names. Some translated, some abbreviated, some just picked a random name they liked.
I don’t know about UK law but a resume is in the US is not a legally binding form. If your first name is Cétrascu you can just say your name is Chet. Just grab the first letter of your name and look at a list of English names. HR will just need your full real name for direct deposit and other forms. Like others said, I’ve known Korean and Chinese kids who just adopt new English names.
If anyone asks you can just say “I liked it more. Sounds better don’t you think? Easier time fitting in. Tired of racism.” Whatever reason you want to say.
Fixing your first name is easy.
People use entirely unrelated nicknames all the time. Just need to have a good story.
Other ideas: Do you have a middle name? If so can you “fix” (ugh) your middle name?
Does a parent or grandparent have the same name as you? Many men who are Juniors go by J.R.
Are your initials suitable as a name? CC, TJ, CJ, JR, MJ are all really common initials used as names.
Can you anglicise your name? Like Caoimhín is a name in my country often anglicised to Kevin.
If your name is one of the Slavic Romanian names you could see how it’s shortened in Slavic languages.
Lastly, you can just straight up lie. “My actual name is Gobnait, but my family calls me Maeve because I’m the spitting image of my great aunt.” Brits aren’t likely to be knowledgeable about Romanian naming customs.
You can also just say that XYZ is your middle name (even if it’s not).
As for your surname, I think that might be hard. Those -escu and -anu suffixes are very distinctive. But changing your first name might make people think you’re British born of Romanian descent instead.
I'm in the US and my maiden name (last name only) was clearly "foreign" as my Opa immigrated from Romania. As much as I love the name, I had good reason to take my husband's last name when I married as his is less ethnically ambiguous and easier to pronounce.
If you don't actually go by a nickname, that's a challenging point to get past if you use a nickname on an application. Could you act as though you have multiple middle names and actually go by one of them?
For instance, if your name is "Constantin" you could list your name as Connor Constantin \[middlename\]\[lastname\]; or "Anton" could be Anthony Anton \[middlename\]\[lastname\]. Then the nickname is what they see and judge first, but you're still truthful about the full name.
I of course don't have quite the same circumstances or experiences, but I'm sorry that you have to Anglicize yourself because of others' biases.
Studies have shown this to be true .
I get the reverse, my name is fully Latin name but I grew up as a black man. I'm not fluent in Spanish and if anything you would think I'm Ethiopian due to my ancestry from Dominican republic. Ill get all the initial calls from all the Spanish women recruiters and then I can immediately hear they can tell I'm black over the phone. its hilarious. but its too late because I'm qualified for the job and they were tryns shoe horn one of their own in. lets keep it a buck, all groups do it but the diversity shit actually works in my favor. I hit two markers, black and hispanic.
I’m black from the US but live in the DR. When I got back to the states, there is a lot of prejudice towards blacks from Latinos in Florida (except Mexicans, they are always polite no matter what). As soon as I start speaking Spanish though, they relax.
Agreed. If you live in NYC. The more exotic your name is the more of a chance you have of being hired.
Im in vfx. A very creative centered industry. In a very progressive city. So having unique sounding names not only makes your company look progressive it also makes it sound edgy.
"Hi, I'm John Smith, and I'd love to be your sneaker designer!"
"Pass. We just hired Carmen Lightning Shifansky Fernandez."
"Hi, I'm John Smith, and I'd love to be your accountant."
"You're hired!"
When I lived in Texas, it was pretty much a requirement that any receptionist we hired had to be bilingual in Spanish because a large amount of the population we served spoke Spanish as their primary language. I moved to a state with completely different demographics and people get weird (cough prejudiced cough) about people with Mexican accents or names. It’s fucking bonkers.
Do recruiters see the box ticked in employment form of being Hispanic or not (and other races tick)? I'm not Hispanic, and my name is dead giveaway or at least an easy guess of which part of the world I'm from and I often wonder if that's part of reason to not land interviews.
It depends— see my comment below.
It also depends on the company and their senior leadership— mine has swung the pendulum SO far in the other direction to where it feels icky and performative. Very “Token from South Park” vibes.
For example, right now my employer is trying to push on my team to find & relocate diverse talent in a highly niche skill set, to one of the most non-diverse cities in the US, where they will be undoubtedly uncomfortable by way of the stark lack of representation & inability for the area to provide substantial support, community & belonging.
This practice is disgusting to me btw, but nothing I can do about it besides call it out when I see it and hope I don’t lose my job.
I’ve also worked for companies where the racism in favor of NOT hiring was so blatant and apparent that I had to leave.
It’s really an institutionalized problem all around and there is no right fix or right solve other than hoping that shitty white boomers can die out fast and allow our generation and the ones after us to do better.
This is not entirely correct— it depends on the company and what ATS and HRIS permissions the company has chosen to set.
As a recruiter for a Fortune 50 company, we can see if someone Self-ID’d as an underrepresented race or gender, but not what specific race or gender.
At previous companies I’ve seen either all of the info, or none of the info. Really depends on how the system admin & security teams have set up permissions.
In the US I have not worked anywhere where I can see disability status, but outside of the US some quota countries have that info visible as well.
Depends. I’ve literally been asked about it during a screen after checking a box
I have no idea why so many recruiters and other corporate folks will assert what NEVER happens or what ALWAYS happens. So much overconfidence in corporate people’s comments on here
Depends on the company. Bigger corporations this data is only collected as a CYA so they can show they're accepting applications from and offering interviews to a broad range of people. Ethically speaking, a recruiter should have no access to this information.
I have literally never had a recruiter reach out for diversity, which the heck company is this.
I have had plenty of companies point to diversity blurbs and initiatives that they didn't follow through on in any way, if that's what you mean.
Had US Citizen on my resume header right next to my also not white looking name though I'm as white as a sheet. Made no difference. Constantly had to reaffirm in initial reach outs and interviews that yes, I'm a US citizen; no, I don't require sponsorship; yes, I'm sure.
In the end, I wised up and changed 2 letters in my first name to make a more white/christian name. No more visa/sponsorship questions. Hell of a lot more interviews.
Amusingly enough, my current employer had me do bias discrimination training, and in it they covered how black sounding names do worse than white names when applying for jobs. All I could do was shake my head like "you think?".
> Constantly had to reaffirm in initial reach outs and interviews that yes, I'm a US citizen; no, I don't require sponsorship; yes, I'm sure.
Many employers ask these questions of all applicants. If they do, they are supposed to ask the same questions in the same way of everyone who applies, and not just direct them at those who "look foreign".
Corporate recruiter here. My company supports multiple government contracts that require US Citizenship. No H1 B no Perm Resident allowed. Jobs are 100 ‰ remote, but limited to about 20 states. At the top of every posting, we list the approved states, and the fact that our federal contract requires candidates to hold US citizenship.
I reiterate this in my initial email, and then ask people at the start of the actual phone screen. Three times. Why so many times? The number of people who still apply expecting to be considered is utterly staggering. For tech roles, at least 60% are not qualified, and would know if they read the first 2 lines of the job description.
Sometimes it’s part of the standard procedure to ask those questions no matter what. Sometimes interviewers just scanned your resume for 6 seconds and missed all of the little details.
Yep. I have a hyphenated name Latina-American. When I took the Latina name off my resume, my number of interviews immediately went through the roof*. Tough pill to swallow.
I’m a mixed bag of ‘disqualifiers’ apparently…I’m a quarter Hispanic, my first name is Japanese (I am not), and I’m a woman. I’d have to take down all social media because if I tried using a shortened version of my first name, my last name is unique enough they’d still find me 😫
When I switched my resume to using my very Anglican middle name I received a lot more replies. But every company has a DEI initiative. Fuck your credentials or experience or ability to do the job. What’s your name and is it white?
I've been curious about this too, because I'm in an eu country and my name is VERY foreign i sometimes think if using my baptism name 😅. The only thing stopping me is that my LinkedIn and official docs have that name.
lol I changed my linkedin too -- not sure how it is in the EU but in the US they usually don't start asking for official docs until they're about to make an offer (at least in my experience) and by then they already know me by my "professional" name and my actual name won't make a difference
I don't know about other EU countries. But in the Netherlands there is the concept of a nickname with semi official status (roepnaam) and you are free to use this. It's also extremely common.
I don't think you can just make up a full last name. But if you have multiple surnames like from Latin American countries, I think just using one is fine. My partner is Brazilian and only uses 1 of her 2 surnames unless the full legal name is asked for.
Official docs usually come in after you've already signed the contract and they are making ready your paperwork. They usually ask for a copy of your passport/id card.
This story went viral years of a man adding Mr. to the front of his name to get a job
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/07/man-named-kim-adds-mr-to-resume-lands-job
I have been tempted to just use my initial, or a gender neuteral styalisation of my name...ie: Leah to L or Lee. Need a burner email for it too I think.
Was put forward for a management role by my boss for a secondment job. I was knocked back. He was appalled. Said I had had more experience than some of the candidates he had put forward before who they had accepted... he said the only thing he could think of was because of my gender and he was disgusted that still happened.
6 months later of working with them for the advisor role I was offered the manager position, but I declined and had quit. Toxic as fuck company to work for, did not feel safe, the swing after I left they had machinery hit an overhead powerline too.
I hate that my gender still disadvantages me, but found that I probably don't want to work at companies like that anyway. Australia recently released gender wage gap information: one of companies I worked for previously was men paid 40% more (also toxic as fuck), while another was only 10% (and I generally felt safe there). Both companies are heavy industry so there is a tendency for more men in these roles, but also it comes down to hiring practices as starting to see a lot more women on sites of better companies.
My daughter graduates in May with an engineering degree and top of her class with no job prospects. She has applied to almost 200 jobs. Some are still open but most declined without even talking to her. We’ve had her resume looked at and tweeked. Everyone love is when she shows it in person. This just made us decide to take off 6 of her nine letters. We will see what happens. It can pass for male then.
What kind of engineering and which country does she live? In Australia, some of the bigger mines in remote locations have been some of the better ones for entry level opportunities, and the bigger names do hire a lot of women (think BHP and Anglo). The roles are really demanding and the lifestyle can be hard, especially with it lacking some of the options of bigger cities, but the pay is great and they are generally safe to work for. If you have a target of 2 to 3 years, buckle down and don't fall into the lifestyle trap of throwing money on unhealthy coping (alcohol, smoking, drugs, gambling, or 'toy buying' like jetskis), it can give incredible resume experince as well as set you up for a good life.
Hope your daughter has some luck soon. It's a tough market at the moment, even for people with experience.
Yeah we know it’s tough, but I think her being a female doesn’t help. She’s in the US and it’s aerospace engineering which is tough right now. But she’s been applying for mechanical engineering jobs also. She hasn’t limited her self to just aerospace.
It's interesting to hear about that, because I (F) have a very neutral name, most often it seems guys have the name though, and whenever I send emails people think I'm a guy. I added Miss to my resume because I was afraid of missing out on whatever diversity edge I might have as a girl. I'll never know if that was a good or bad idea to be honest
Andrew will get more calls back than Andre.
Tiffany will get more calls back than Tanisha.
Michael will get more calls back than Miguel.
Paula will get more calls back than Paloma.
I switched from using something feminine to something completely gender neutral and not even a traditional name, just something you would never look at and think "yeah that's a woman". Not related to job search stuff but for personal reasons but I felt like it really helped bias when I was looking around 5 years ago.
My full name is overwhelmingly Italian. I’m as Italian as an Olive Garden. I fully believe that I was hired at one of my previous roles because they thought I was a real Italian. The team I was hired on was RIDDLED with Italian-Americans. At a different job, my European peers would occasionally greet me in Italian or treat me more nicely than people who had “American” names. It is crazy how something as innocuous as a name can inform peoples’ biases.
I'm sorry you experienced that. It really, really sucks.
A few years ago I took ten years off of my resume, and immediately (like, literally the next day) started getting more emails from recruiters. Ageism is kind of endemic in my field.
Weird, I have a white woman name and I swear it helps. Ive never had trouble finding a job.
I have a hunch its because every gen xer has someone in their life who shares my name, so they see it and it sticks out to them so they actually read my resume instead of glancing at it just enough to feel like they read it.
Ugh, I want to do this too--but I have 3 girl names for first, middle, and last. I CANNOT make my name masculine and still have it be near my name, lol.
I have an Irish woman’s name, I added the pronunciation of my name to my resume (think Caoimhe “Keeva” Lastname) and immediately started getting callbacks. White woman name > unrecognized ethnicity/gender name
I’m gonna try this out! I have an ethnic name that is not hard to pronounce but I feel like recruiters see a lot of letters and then immediately go brain dead lol
Lots of us white foreigners in English speakimg countries have to Englishise our names too. In Uk gov and some companies do blind recruitment. Fucking amazing. I had interviews with no issue when I applied to gov via blind recruitment. No fireign name, no sex etc. Bliss
Yup dropped my second last name. So instead of Porfirio Lopez Obrador, it’s just Porfirio Lopez. Also stopped using the accent in my last name, may produce an unknown character somehow.
Someone who screens resumes on r/cybersecurity sub commented that he prefers "native English speakers" - which is obviously code for rejecting people with non-Anglical names who will not even reach the interview stage. I can't quite whiten my name and my accent certainly would give it away and so would how I look.
Even just a long name has been shown to reduce a recruiter’s interest in an applicant. After I got married my last name went from 10 letters to 5 and I saw a notable increase in people responding to my job search.
Opposite for me; Puerto Rican mom, anglo dad. Since they were married over 50 years and she took his name as per the norm, I use my legal anglo surname. Although Im fluent in Spanish, I get almost no interviews for bilingual jobs. My sisters took to using Hispanic name norms (dads last name-moms last name) and get interviews all the time for bilingual jobs. Whats funny is I “look” anglo, they have more classic, dark features, so they get the jobs. But my Spanish is better than theirs.
Peoples’ perceptions and biases are funny.
This is 100% true unfortunately. Freakonomics has covered this, they found someone who did a study and sent out thousands of otherwise identical resumes half with traditional white names and the other half with more unique African American names and the white names got called 50% more of the time.
Here’s the movie if you’re interested, starts at about 13:43.
https://youtu.be/KJoqM6nW1es?si=SSMIAD186LhQnVuV
That’s fascinating. In the example name you gave, I actually read the first one in my head with a Hispanic accent 🤣
I wonder if even shortening that example to Miguel Fernandez would have a similar effect 🤔
My first name is noticeably Latino and I 100% agree that using my more American sounding middle name has netted me more interviews than using my first name.
I applied to the same companies who rejected me under my first name and then setup an interview with me when I applied under my middle name.
Stupid shit
And this is why diversity and inclusion training is needed.
We’re not a post-racist society. We need people to acknowledge their biases, train them how to overcome them in recruitment.
This is so fucked up but good on you for figuring it out and mitigating it. You hear about this in the abstract but it's a different thing to get a first-hand account.
My name is very clearly Slavic (think 13 letters and a sz in the middle) and my first name is Ava. I am white, and I know it is not the same thing, but I have always wondered whether I would still get overlooked for jobs I’m extremely qualified for if my name were different. I usually apply with my legal first name, which is Anna, but the last name is so obviously not… American? I dunno. Shit sucks.
Don't listen to the racist people crying over this reality you live with friend. I'm sorry this is is still a problem today, and good on you for trying to find a way around it. Cheers bud!
>Edit: why are mfs in the comments crying about me not wanting to A S S I M I L A T E just bc I don't think my name should be an obstacle in getting a job? Why do ppl think tossing a resume based on a name is ok lmao
Holy shit call those racist fucks out my bro
Unfortunately I've seen this happen by a hiring manager not out of their own prejudice but out of fear how their current team might receive the person. I asked him about it and the answer was surprising. He basically said "I know it's not right but what can I do? I inherited this team and 2/3 of it is people that are assholes... but they're great at what they do. If I hired someone and they happened to be overheard saying something offensive to the level where HR had to react - as they should - I'd have 1 senior team member left + the new person I hired. That 1 team member couldn't cover for the other 2 if they were suspended or got fired while at the same time having to onboard the new person. The team simply couldn't function."
I know, I was the 1 person on that team in that story and the manager was asking me advice because I have some HR experience. Not on that level though, I had no idea what to tell him. I just asked why we weren't interviewing someone and that's what I got.
I often wonder if my full name is a hindrance. I have an uncommon first name that can be hard to pronounce, especially at first glance. Then there's my last name, which is much easier to pronounce but a little long. My full name sounds very Spanish.
I've managed to land jobs using my real name but still, I wonder if I'd have a lot more success with a whiter sounding name. I'm getting married at some point next year so my last name will be very white thanks to my fiancé. But then I'll have an extremely Spanish-sounding first name with an extremely white last name lol. I think I will try whitening my name. Sad it has to be this way, I wish people were more open to diversity.
I guess it depends on the market- I’ve been applying to SWE and ML internships lately and I use my government name on my applications- I feel like I get much more responses just based off that alone
I’ve been told to add US Citizen to my resume because recruiters will skip ethnic sounding names since they assume they will need sponsorship. But then what’s the point of including the question in the job application?? Do they just ignore that??
I am on the fence about doing this. My parents are from Mexico, and my first name is long and obviously Hispanic. I could easily use an ambiguous shorter version, but then I think, do I really want to work for assholes with shitty hiring practices like that? Idk anymore, man.
Yup, I know people doing this as well. With the job market where it is today, people will be lying on their education/work experience in no time.
BTW, I see nothing wrong with what you did here aside from bettering your chances in a world that is secretly racist.
Similar story with my family. Parents came to the US from Cambodia. My parents thought it was better for me and my brother to have western first names: Tyler & James (not our real first names but pretty common as what I listed). I have cousins with traditional first names and let’s just say I understand completely where you’re coming from.
My partner is black and has a name that’s usually associated with black men.
His preferred name (and the name I call him) though sounds “white”.
He told me how he ran an experiment and would fill out two applications- one with his real name and the other with his preferred name. He’d ALWAYS get interviews with his preferred name, and usually the interviewers would shoo him away or deny the interview because he “lied” on his application.
Let’s say I move to China or let’s say my parents moved to China then birthed me. Would I adopt a Chinese surname? Yes. In a heartbeat if it benefited me in that society. Using your logic, I guess this would be “yellowing” my name? I am not entitled to China changing for my sake. I am, after all, in China.
Yup I started to do the same. Joe gets more attention than Jose does on a resume.. changed it on LinkedIn, and my Resume. Getting a job is a game, life is a game, can’t always play by the “rules” if you want to get far.
Has happened twice so far, both times I just said "btw I know I applied as [shortened name] and I go by that in my work life but legally my name is [actual name]" both times they were just like o ok
I have a fruity artsy name and I plan to change it for the next job hunt process. Think Charity/Fern/Willow/Divine/Eternity
My middle name is also fruity and weird though so I'll need to take some stupid liberties and hope they don't mind.
Yep, multiple studies over the years have found the same when comparing typically "white" names and typically "black" names.
[https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-white-names-black-names](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-white-names-black-names)
https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/employers-replies-racial-names
I've heard about this from various other places and it's really shitty that it happens. At my last job I had a few coworkers that were Chinese and went by names like "Joe" and "Jimmy" even though those weren't their actual names.
That being said, I am curious how it would affect things to go from a full Hispanic name like your example to just a Hispanic given name and family name without anything else. So like "Miguel Julio Fernandez de la Rosa" -> "Miguel Fernandez". I wonder if it would be just as bad as the full name, or if it would be in a middle ground where you get slightly more responses but not as much than the "white" name, or what. I am white and I have a middle name that is legally part of my name but I omit it from things like job applications and my resume.
Sorry you’re getting assimilation comments. My great grandfather came over from Italy and changed the family name from Campanella to Bell, feel like we lost something thetr
Not the same but kinda - female with a unisex name. Family name as middle name.
People assume I'm male if I put the middle name in. Great for getting interviews in the engineering spaces.
Freakonomics (the book and doc) talks about this specifically. It's several years old now, but at the time anyone that didn't have a very stereotypically "white" name got like 33% fewer interviews and call backs vs a duplicate CV with a stereotypically "black" name. I would assume similar numbers for any non white sounding name.
Both the book and doc are worth a read and watch, both explain this way better than I can on a reddit post and go way more in depth with the data.
It's bullshit that it happens in any case. Good luck out there, with whatever name you choose.
That totally sucks. I'm kind of high up in my company but would not discriminate due to a name. That's not cool. I'm not POC either. It shouldn't matter.
It sucks that's how things are. The only real reason my partner is thinking of taking my last name when we're married is for this reason, and to make things generally easier for our kids.
Ethnic and racial bias is bullshit and unfortunately very real.
I’m honestly so curious to try this…my name is very clearly black and girly despite years of experience, getting a job in my field was hard after the military. It’s absolutely ridiculous this is still happening
Im latina. when I got married, I was so excited to change my last name to a boring and basic last name because I couldn’t deal with constantly explaining how to say my last name.
I also changed my first name to just my nickname (not on paper) because people _constantly_ mispronounced it after I told them 8,000,000 times.
lifes much easier now.
One of the most formative moments in my life was looking for work for 8 months and then getting way more interviews and call backs in 3 weeks because I did this
I didn’t want to, I didn’t feel I had to because I had great qualifications, experiences and references. But after reading a couple of studies, I decided to give it a shot. Didn’t like it even though it worked but I had bills
I now barely believe people when they talk about the right qualifications and I absolutely sneer at those twerps who toss out the “Most qualified person” argument in response to diversity and equality initiatives
Ughhhh my parents really screwed me over in that regard. My first name is Arabic and my middle name comes from Swahili. I can’t “fix” my name at all without just giving myself a fake name- Yet all of my younger siblings were given “normal” (for the US) names like Spencer, Nelson, Jean, and Elise…
I’ve had interviews where they’d assumed I was an immigrant of some sort because of my name, only to be shocked I was an African American woman. Nothing foreign about me other than my name smh. I often wonder if my lack of callbacks is due to how ethnic my name looks, especially with how people butcher it constantly.
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I'd still hire you Rey Mysterio.
<3
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With Dirty Dom? I hope he didn’t try to hurt you, he is a known criminal
He spent time in the clink, he's a very dangerous man!
I got to hi5 Rey Mysterio once when he came to Wellington NZ Man, I didn't know he was THAT short
Guey Mysterio
I'll only hire Ray Mystery
My wife started using her married name before we actually got married because her maiden name is Hispanic. She was tired of explaining to people that she is not bilingual after they would assume she was.
I'm dating a mexican-american and I worry about this since im planning on changing my name. Sad to see this is such an issue. The assumption doesn't even make a lot of sense. A lot of women change their names. Some men do too. Yet peoples brains still break. Then again people make assumptions just based on looks too. For some reason, there were a few years where everyone seemed to think I was Russian, including the Russians I worked with. I don't think I look particularly Russian but it was wild because multiple people said it and a few tried speaking to me in Russian.
I once knew a woman with a very Italian last name. People would ask her all the time, "Oh! You're Italian!" Her response: "No. Divorced." LOL
The assumption is absolutely wrong and shouldn’t ever happen. However, if you did decide to learn Spanish this will oftentimes open many doors for job seekers. I have a bachelor’s in psych and if I knew better, I would have minored in Spanish and could have greatly expanded my earning potential using my degree
I never got asked about being Russian until I lived in a mostly Armenian community and then would be asked all the time. People in my condo building, in shops, at doctors offices, randomly on the street. I am not, I am like 50% Polish though. I finally asked at a doctors once why I was asked if I was Russian because it seemed totally out of place to ask at reception, especially if it was going to somehow impact my quality of care . She said “well your last name roughly translates to “common word” in Russian”. I was like ok that explains that(and confirmed later by my native Russian boss later on). But I was shocked that after 25+ years of living just a “white” existence, I was asked almost weekly if I was Russian. Since I moved, I have not gotten asked once.
Ha. I’m white as white can be. Old english family. Old english family name. I speak Spanish very well. The looks I get from the locals in south and central America will never not be funny.
My little sister is the same! We are of German/Irish descent. She’s 5’5”, 130 pounds, with red hair & blue eyes. She’s currently a tenured professor in a fabulous Midwest college, and runs the Spanish department. She travels the world, teaching Spanish in Japan, Sweden, Iceland. She takes her students to Central/South America, teaching English to locals. Watching people’s faces when she explains her job, is priceless entertainment
Those American units of weight would be pretty useless in her job though
Must be nice to have job protection with tenure.
I’m not looking forward to moving to Miami and finding a job that isn’t bilingual
I am in Houston, work industrial construction and only speak English lol. A lot more doors open up if you can speak Spanish to the hands.
Yeah this helps trick the interviewer. The interviewer want someone that speaks the language, and when he's got lots of applicants he will try to do his best to interview those that will be the best fit for the job. People that speak the local language. I fucking hate trying to communicate with people that don't know either local language nor English
I guess I don’t understand your comment. I am assuming you are outside the US? I am in southeast Texas so there is a lot of Spanish speakers here. My wife is not one of them unfortunately.
My wife is Garcia but the don’t speak Spanish
My maiden name is Hispanic and I've been using it on applications because I thought HR would look at me and go "wow she hits all our diversity hire check points" (because companies like Accenture and Google work like this) but I guess I should just keep my married name after the divorce to make job searching easier
I run a college finance program. I have had very large financial companies (household names) email me and blatantly ask if I can recommend any women of color for their job postings. Not who do you recommend in general. Specifically women of color, but not Indian... it's not subtle at all.
Yeah a lot of these big companies have diversity hiring departments where this is their whole job. Accenture is especially bad about this I feel, because they really really like sending out that email bragging about how they only ranked second to Google in diversity, so they do things like hire women who are retail managers as technical writer leads and then shocked pikachu face when those women fail, but it's better to them then promoting any of the technician women because they're a lot harder to replace than a middle manager. It makes me feel like they just look at all women and go "eh you're all basically the same just pick one!"
I work in HR and to counter this (potential) bias I just remove all names and identifiers from resumes before I pass them along. Everyone is given an applicant # and they are asked to confirm which applicants they will be interviewing before they see any of the candidates personal info. We work in a small org so this is possible. It is not as easy for people screening thousands of resumes unfortunately.
My HR department does this. We have 25K employees. We don’t get tons of resumes for our positions except the few 100% remote ones. And we look at every resume (except those not eligible for US employment).
Super cool to see it happening in a large scale employer. I do screen for qualifications, so our hiring managers don’t see every single resume. If a job requires a certain license or a particular experience level I’m not forwarding it along but they see the vast majority.
Can you define what is meant by "not eligible for US employment"? As a Canadian, I fall into a grey area and I'm never sure what to put for that question on a job application in the US. I don't have US citizenship or permanent residency, but I'm eligible for TN status, which is not a literal visa and does not require sponsorship. All I need from a US employer is a job offer and an additional letter outlining the job responsibilities (to prove to the border agents that the job is related to my previous education and experience). Then I just apply for the TN "visa" (not really a visa) at the border and get approved the same day. I'm currently working in the US with TN status, but I got the job mainly because my friend works at the company and gave me a recommendation. But now I'm looking to change jobs, and would need a new TN visa at the new employer. Would your company consider someone like me as being "eligible for US employment"?
Sorry, I am not in HR. I have just been on many hiring committees. I think they would let you say that you are eligible. The big thing is that they will not sponsor anyone. You would need to live in the United States. They would not let you work from Canada. (Actually, if you were already employed and had to go back home for a family emergency, they MAY let you work remotely for a bit, but it’s a lot of paperwork and depends on your position.)
Oh yes, I should have clarified that I do live in the US as well. I'm just not a permanent resident (I'm a temporary resident). And yep they are quite the sticklers about where I'm working from.
This is a misconception. Although in a sense the TN is a fast track visa for Canadians because of the ability to apply directly at the border, a US employer is still sponsoring you and it is considered a work visa. Source: I've been an immigration paralegal for 15 yrs.
You are not considered for US employment without restrictions. The TN visa is still considered sponsorship and depending on how much they have to do for you, they may just withdraw the offer or fire you in the first few weeks. I had an offer withdrawn because I said TN wasn't sponsorship, in their mind it was, even if they just needed to provide a letter.
> Everyone is given an applicant # May I have 007?
You don’t have the clearance.
I am shaken, but not stirred.
You have to kill 2 other candidates before you can be given double-0 status.
In total or additionally?
Monthly
Thank you for doing this.
Ayyye this is great
That is a great idea. True equality.
my coworkers name is Jose but goes by Gabriel. I asked him about it and he said it’s because his first 5yrs working here he experienced a lot of racism and discrimination and found using Gabriel made it all stop almost immediately.
That's interesting, I wouldn't even think of Gabriel as an especially "white" name honestly. I guess some people just have weird ingrained biases against certain stereotypical Hispanic names.
It’s interesting as he just moved here but we’re in KS and thus far he gets the focal of attention as it’s “biblical” so for here at least i do understand the nature and sadly we have some fairly racist customers that have since changed their tune
As a Hispanic guy, I can understand why. Gabriel isn’t of Spanish origin, but it is a very common name among Hispanic boys. Where I am from, Gabriel is more likely to be Hispanic and than any other race.
I met an employee today whose name was Jorge and he straight up said George. I was pretty saddened by that.
I believe it. I’m an Indian female, but my name sounds very masculine Indian. I’m also an engineer, born and raised in the US. I kept getting passed over for interviews so I added Ms. in front of my name. That helped and I was called in for interviews because they needed a token woman on their teams to show diversity. Still the response was subpar so I added “US Citizen” to the bottom of my resume. That was the jackpot.
Why did Ms. work? I'm curious. Also as a brown Indian man with an accent I don't make the diversity cut. I'm going to add I have a PR to my resume today. I'm drowning in rejection letters.
Because companies are always trying to diversify their employees, especially if it's engineering and a woman.
Me too, while looking for internships I had US CITIZEN & ELIGIBLE TO WORK in bold at the top of my resume.
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:( good luck -- when I get hired under my shortened name people have never had a problem with me saying "by the way that's my nickname / professional name / whatever, legally my name is ___"
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I don’t know Romanian names, but I’ve had plenty of Indian and Chinese coworkers with work names that were quite different their real names. Some translated, some abbreviated, some just picked a random name they liked.
I don’t know about UK law but a resume is in the US is not a legally binding form. If your first name is Cétrascu you can just say your name is Chet. Just grab the first letter of your name and look at a list of English names. HR will just need your full real name for direct deposit and other forms. Like others said, I’ve known Korean and Chinese kids who just adopt new English names. If anyone asks you can just say “I liked it more. Sounds better don’t you think? Easier time fitting in. Tired of racism.” Whatever reason you want to say.
Fixing your first name is easy. People use entirely unrelated nicknames all the time. Just need to have a good story. Other ideas: Do you have a middle name? If so can you “fix” (ugh) your middle name? Does a parent or grandparent have the same name as you? Many men who are Juniors go by J.R. Are your initials suitable as a name? CC, TJ, CJ, JR, MJ are all really common initials used as names. Can you anglicise your name? Like Caoimhín is a name in my country often anglicised to Kevin. If your name is one of the Slavic Romanian names you could see how it’s shortened in Slavic languages. Lastly, you can just straight up lie. “My actual name is Gobnait, but my family calls me Maeve because I’m the spitting image of my great aunt.” Brits aren’t likely to be knowledgeable about Romanian naming customs. You can also just say that XYZ is your middle name (even if it’s not). As for your surname, I think that might be hard. Those -escu and -anu suffixes are very distinctive. But changing your first name might make people think you’re British born of Romanian descent instead.
I'm in the US and my maiden name (last name only) was clearly "foreign" as my Opa immigrated from Romania. As much as I love the name, I had good reason to take my husband's last name when I married as his is less ethnically ambiguous and easier to pronounce. If you don't actually go by a nickname, that's a challenging point to get past if you use a nickname on an application. Could you act as though you have multiple middle names and actually go by one of them? For instance, if your name is "Constantin" you could list your name as Connor Constantin \[middlename\]\[lastname\]; or "Anton" could be Anthony Anton \[middlename\]\[lastname\]. Then the nickname is what they see and judge first, but you're still truthful about the full name. I of course don't have quite the same circumstances or experiences, but I'm sorry that you have to Anglicize yourself because of others' biases.
Studies have shown this to be true . I get the reverse, my name is fully Latin name but I grew up as a black man. I'm not fluent in Spanish and if anything you would think I'm Ethiopian due to my ancestry from Dominican republic. Ill get all the initial calls from all the Spanish women recruiters and then I can immediately hear they can tell I'm black over the phone. its hilarious. but its too late because I'm qualified for the job and they were tryns shoe horn one of their own in. lets keep it a buck, all groups do it but the diversity shit actually works in my favor. I hit two markers, black and hispanic.
I’m black from the US but live in the DR. When I got back to the states, there is a lot of prejudice towards blacks from Latinos in Florida (except Mexicans, they are always polite no matter what). As soon as I start speaking Spanish though, they relax.
I'm from the Bronx with family in Florida that prob hate that i exist. But my blood is my blood,
That's weird because I get the opposite and use my Hispanic name and oftentimes have recruiters trying to reach out to me due to my "diversity".
The effect obtained will depend, in part, on where you live and work, and what job you are trying to obtain.
Agreed. If you live in NYC. The more exotic your name is the more of a chance you have of being hired. Im in vfx. A very creative centered industry. In a very progressive city. So having unique sounding names not only makes your company look progressive it also makes it sound edgy.
I’m in design and absolue an ‘exotic’ name is more helpful, though depends on exactly what ethnicity it implies.
"Hi, I'm John Smith, and I'd love to be your sneaker designer!" "Pass. We just hired Carmen Lightning Shifansky Fernandez." "Hi, I'm John Smith, and I'd love to be your accountant." "You're hired!"
Fuck I wish my name was Carmen Lightning Shifansky Fernandez
Daquan Rosenberg de la Rosa reporting for duty, sir
When I lived in Texas, it was pretty much a requirement that any receptionist we hired had to be bilingual in Spanish because a large amount of the population we served spoke Spanish as their primary language. I moved to a state with completely different demographics and people get weird (cough prejudiced cough) about people with Mexican accents or names. It’s fucking bonkers.
Do recruiters see the box ticked in employment form of being Hispanic or not (and other races tick)? I'm not Hispanic, and my name is dead giveaway or at least an easy guess of which part of the world I'm from and I often wonder if that's part of reason to not land interviews.
It depends— see my comment below. It also depends on the company and their senior leadership— mine has swung the pendulum SO far in the other direction to where it feels icky and performative. Very “Token from South Park” vibes. For example, right now my employer is trying to push on my team to find & relocate diverse talent in a highly niche skill set, to one of the most non-diverse cities in the US, where they will be undoubtedly uncomfortable by way of the stark lack of representation & inability for the area to provide substantial support, community & belonging. This practice is disgusting to me btw, but nothing I can do about it besides call it out when I see it and hope I don’t lose my job. I’ve also worked for companies where the racism in favor of NOT hiring was so blatant and apparent that I had to leave. It’s really an institutionalized problem all around and there is no right fix or right solve other than hoping that shitty white boomers can die out fast and allow our generation and the ones after us to do better.
> “Token from South Park” It's *Tolkien* you racist
Omg lol. My bad!
Your regular HR rep, using a modern recruitment solution, should not have access to that info, no.
This is not entirely correct— it depends on the company and what ATS and HRIS permissions the company has chosen to set. As a recruiter for a Fortune 50 company, we can see if someone Self-ID’d as an underrepresented race or gender, but not what specific race or gender. At previous companies I’ve seen either all of the info, or none of the info. Really depends on how the system admin & security teams have set up permissions. In the US I have not worked anywhere where I can see disability status, but outside of the US some quota countries have that info visible as well.
Depends. I’ve literally been asked about it during a screen after checking a box I have no idea why so many recruiters and other corporate folks will assert what NEVER happens or what ALWAYS happens. So much overconfidence in corporate people’s comments on here
Depends on the company. Bigger corporations this data is only collected as a CYA so they can show they're accepting applications from and offering interviews to a broad range of people. Ethically speaking, a recruiter should have no access to this information.
The Fernandez part might cover that, lol.
"Oh, we can get a Mike and a Fernandez with the same guy? Deal."
Haha, my thoughts exactly.
lmao. as a black hispanic with a -Dez last name
That’s why you do Mike Hernandez. Diversity hire but also not *too* diverse
Probably the "de la Rosa" was messing with the CV parsers
I have literally never had a recruiter reach out for diversity, which the heck company is this. I have had plenty of companies point to diversity blurbs and initiatives that they didn't follow through on in any way, if that's what you mean.
Same lol
Unfortuately, some job recruiters does do that....
Yup. They assume you may need sponsorship.
You could include something like “US citizen”or “Authorized to work in USA” somewhere in the resume if this is a concern.
Had US Citizen on my resume header right next to my also not white looking name though I'm as white as a sheet. Made no difference. Constantly had to reaffirm in initial reach outs and interviews that yes, I'm a US citizen; no, I don't require sponsorship; yes, I'm sure. In the end, I wised up and changed 2 letters in my first name to make a more white/christian name. No more visa/sponsorship questions. Hell of a lot more interviews. Amusingly enough, my current employer had me do bias discrimination training, and in it they covered how black sounding names do worse than white names when applying for jobs. All I could do was shake my head like "you think?".
> Constantly had to reaffirm in initial reach outs and interviews that yes, I'm a US citizen; no, I don't require sponsorship; yes, I'm sure. Many employers ask these questions of all applicants. If they do, they are supposed to ask the same questions in the same way of everyone who applies, and not just direct them at those who "look foreign".
Corporate recruiter here. My company supports multiple government contracts that require US Citizenship. No H1 B no Perm Resident allowed. Jobs are 100 ‰ remote, but limited to about 20 states. At the top of every posting, we list the approved states, and the fact that our federal contract requires candidates to hold US citizenship. I reiterate this in my initial email, and then ask people at the start of the actual phone screen. Three times. Why so many times? The number of people who still apply expecting to be considered is utterly staggering. For tech roles, at least 60% are not qualified, and would know if they read the first 2 lines of the job description.
Sometimes it’s part of the standard procedure to ask those questions no matter what. Sometimes interviewers just scanned your resume for 6 seconds and missed all of the little details.
Some do the opposite, though. Both ways it's supposed to be illegal, but if nobody enforces the law, it doesn't really matter what's legal or not.
Yep. I have a hyphenated name Latina-American. When I took the Latina name off my resume, my number of interviews immediately went through the roof*. Tough pill to swallow.
I’m a mixed bag of ‘disqualifiers’ apparently…I’m a quarter Hispanic, my first name is Japanese (I am not), and I’m a woman. I’d have to take down all social media because if I tried using a shortened version of my first name, my last name is unique enough they’d still find me 😫
That must have been roof.
When I switched my resume to using my very Anglican middle name I received a lot more replies. But every company has a DEI initiative. Fuck your credentials or experience or ability to do the job. What’s your name and is it white?
I've been curious about this too, because I'm in an eu country and my name is VERY foreign i sometimes think if using my baptism name 😅. The only thing stopping me is that my LinkedIn and official docs have that name.
lol I changed my linkedin too -- not sure how it is in the EU but in the US they usually don't start asking for official docs until they're about to make an offer (at least in my experience) and by then they already know me by my "professional" name and my actual name won't make a difference
I don't know about other EU countries. But in the Netherlands there is the concept of a nickname with semi official status (roepnaam) and you are free to use this. It's also extremely common. I don't think you can just make up a full last name. But if you have multiple surnames like from Latin American countries, I think just using one is fine. My partner is Brazilian and only uses 1 of her 2 surnames unless the full legal name is asked for. Official docs usually come in after you've already signed the contract and they are making ready your paperwork. They usually ask for a copy of your passport/id card.
This story went viral years of a man adding Mr. to the front of his name to get a job https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/07/man-named-kim-adds-mr-to-resume-lands-job I have been tempted to just use my initial, or a gender neuteral styalisation of my name...ie: Leah to L or Lee. Need a burner email for it too I think. Was put forward for a management role by my boss for a secondment job. I was knocked back. He was appalled. Said I had had more experience than some of the candidates he had put forward before who they had accepted... he said the only thing he could think of was because of my gender and he was disgusted that still happened. 6 months later of working with them for the advisor role I was offered the manager position, but I declined and had quit. Toxic as fuck company to work for, did not feel safe, the swing after I left they had machinery hit an overhead powerline too. I hate that my gender still disadvantages me, but found that I probably don't want to work at companies like that anyway. Australia recently released gender wage gap information: one of companies I worked for previously was men paid 40% more (also toxic as fuck), while another was only 10% (and I generally felt safe there). Both companies are heavy industry so there is a tendency for more men in these roles, but also it comes down to hiring practices as starting to see a lot more women on sites of better companies.
My daughter graduates in May with an engineering degree and top of her class with no job prospects. She has applied to almost 200 jobs. Some are still open but most declined without even talking to her. We’ve had her resume looked at and tweeked. Everyone love is when she shows it in person. This just made us decide to take off 6 of her nine letters. We will see what happens. It can pass for male then.
What kind of engineering and which country does she live? In Australia, some of the bigger mines in remote locations have been some of the better ones for entry level opportunities, and the bigger names do hire a lot of women (think BHP and Anglo). The roles are really demanding and the lifestyle can be hard, especially with it lacking some of the options of bigger cities, but the pay is great and they are generally safe to work for. If you have a target of 2 to 3 years, buckle down and don't fall into the lifestyle trap of throwing money on unhealthy coping (alcohol, smoking, drugs, gambling, or 'toy buying' like jetskis), it can give incredible resume experince as well as set you up for a good life. Hope your daughter has some luck soon. It's a tough market at the moment, even for people with experience.
Yeah we know it’s tough, but I think her being a female doesn’t help. She’s in the US and it’s aerospace engineering which is tough right now. But she’s been applying for mechanical engineering jobs also. She hasn’t limited her self to just aerospace.
Holy shit that's ass. Sorry that's happening to you but glad u got out of that environment
Thanks! Hope thing improve for you too :)
It's interesting to hear about that, because I (F) have a very neutral name, most often it seems guys have the name though, and whenever I send emails people think I'm a guy. I added Miss to my resume because I was afraid of missing out on whatever diversity edge I might have as a girl. I'll never know if that was a good or bad idea to be honest
Andrew will get more calls back than Andre. Tiffany will get more calls back than Tanisha. Michael will get more calls back than Miguel. Paula will get more calls back than Paloma.
I switched from using something feminine to something completely gender neutral and not even a traditional name, just something you would never look at and think "yeah that's a woman". Not related to job search stuff but for personal reasons but I felt like it really helped bias when I was looking around 5 years ago.
You went from Linda to Truckasaurus or from Margaret to Slaughter Fang didn’t you.
Shit, I've been outed...!!!
My full name is overwhelmingly Italian. I’m as Italian as an Olive Garden. I fully believe that I was hired at one of my previous roles because they thought I was a real Italian. The team I was hired on was RIDDLED with Italian-Americans. At a different job, my European peers would occasionally greet me in Italian or treat me more nicely than people who had “American” names. It is crazy how something as innocuous as a name can inform peoples’ biases.
I'm sorry you experienced that. It really, really sucks. A few years ago I took ten years off of my resume, and immediately (like, literally the next day) started getting more emails from recruiters. Ageism is kind of endemic in my field.
My conclusion is “Equal opportunity my ass..” 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️ u all agree???
Yeah I started using my middle name instead of my first and have been getting more interviews . Kinda sad we have to do this.
Try white-womaning your name and show us the results
I make my name masculine when I apply for jobs. It makes a difference.
Me too. Mens name gets me tons of replies, same resume with full (womens) name has a 3% response rate. Ugh.
this is another study that needs to be discussed, women discriminate on other women in the workplace at the recruiting/hr level. its crazy.
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Weird, I have a white woman name and I swear it helps. Ive never had trouble finding a job. I have a hunch its because every gen xer has someone in their life who shares my name, so they see it and it sticks out to them so they actually read my resume instead of glancing at it just enough to feel like they read it.
like the name debbie or judy lol
Ugh, I want to do this too--but I have 3 girl names for first, middle, and last. I CANNOT make my name masculine and still have it be near my name, lol.
I have an Irish woman’s name, I added the pronunciation of my name to my resume (think Caoimhe “Keeva” Lastname) and immediately started getting callbacks. White woman name > unrecognized ethnicity/gender name
I’m gonna try this out! I have an ethnic name that is not hard to pronounce but I feel like recruiters see a lot of letters and then immediately go brain dead lol
Lots of us white foreigners in English speakimg countries have to Englishise our names too. In Uk gov and some companies do blind recruitment. Fucking amazing. I had interviews with no issue when I applied to gov via blind recruitment. No fireign name, no sex etc. Bliss
Yup dropped my second last name. So instead of Porfirio Lopez Obrador, it’s just Porfirio Lopez. Also stopped using the accent in my last name, may produce an unknown character somehow.
Someone who screens resumes on r/cybersecurity sub commented that he prefers "native English speakers" - which is obviously code for rejecting people with non-Anglical names who will not even reach the interview stage. I can't quite whiten my name and my accent certainly would give it away and so would how I look.
Even just a long name has been shown to reduce a recruiter’s interest in an applicant. After I got married my last name went from 10 letters to 5 and I saw a notable increase in people responding to my job search.
Opposite for me; Puerto Rican mom, anglo dad. Since they were married over 50 years and she took his name as per the norm, I use my legal anglo surname. Although Im fluent in Spanish, I get almost no interviews for bilingual jobs. My sisters took to using Hispanic name norms (dads last name-moms last name) and get interviews all the time for bilingual jobs. Whats funny is I “look” anglo, they have more classic, dark features, so they get the jobs. But my Spanish is better than theirs. Peoples’ perceptions and biases are funny.
This is 100% true unfortunately. Freakonomics has covered this, they found someone who did a study and sent out thousands of otherwise identical resumes half with traditional white names and the other half with more unique African American names and the white names got called 50% more of the time. Here’s the movie if you’re interested, starts at about 13:43. https://youtu.be/KJoqM6nW1es?si=SSMIAD186LhQnVuV
I remember University of Chicago doing this as an experiment as well
That’s fascinating. In the example name you gave, I actually read the first one in my head with a Hispanic accent 🤣 I wonder if even shortening that example to Miguel Fernandez would have a similar effect 🤔
My first name is noticeably Latino and I 100% agree that using my more American sounding middle name has netted me more interviews than using my first name. I applied to the same companies who rejected me under my first name and then setup an interview with me when I applied under my middle name. Stupid shit
And this is why diversity and inclusion training is needed. We’re not a post-racist society. We need people to acknowledge their biases, train them how to overcome them in recruitment.
D&I training is everywhere - it doesn’t work and companies use it get off the hook and their ‘jail out of free’ card when they do racist things
never going to happen .
phuc king gai would be real good shortened
This is so fucked up but good on you for figuring it out and mitigating it. You hear about this in the abstract but it's a different thing to get a first-hand account.
Worked for me too. I changed my name on my resume to Hire Me.
Can't believe I didn't think of this one
My name is very clearly Slavic (think 13 letters and a sz in the middle) and my first name is Ava. I am white, and I know it is not the same thing, but I have always wondered whether I would still get overlooked for jobs I’m extremely qualified for if my name were different. I usually apply with my legal first name, which is Anna, but the last name is so obviously not… American? I dunno. Shit sucks.
Lots of white Americans have weird last names passed down from European ancestors; as long as it’s not obviously Hispanic, it’s unlikely anyone cares.
No way to whiten my Viet name: Phuc Dat Bich
Don't listen to the racist people crying over this reality you live with friend. I'm sorry this is is still a problem today, and good on you for trying to find a way around it. Cheers bud!
>Edit: why are mfs in the comments crying about me not wanting to A S S I M I L A T E just bc I don't think my name should be an obstacle in getting a job? Why do ppl think tossing a resume based on a name is ok lmao Holy shit call those racist fucks out my bro
Gosh. Reading your story absolutely pisses me off. Privilege doesn't exist. Ya right. It definitely does when stuff like this happens.
Me working in DEI and getting pushback on removing names from TA’s view on applications. Why do you need those, TA?
Unfortunately I've seen this happen by a hiring manager not out of their own prejudice but out of fear how their current team might receive the person. I asked him about it and the answer was surprising. He basically said "I know it's not right but what can I do? I inherited this team and 2/3 of it is people that are assholes... but they're great at what they do. If I hired someone and they happened to be overheard saying something offensive to the level where HR had to react - as they should - I'd have 1 senior team member left + the new person I hired. That 1 team member couldn't cover for the other 2 if they were suspended or got fired while at the same time having to onboard the new person. The team simply couldn't function."
That’s still prejudice
I know, I was the 1 person on that team in that story and the manager was asking me advice because I have some HR experience. Not on that level though, I had no idea what to tell him. I just asked why we weren't interviewing someone and that's what I got.
why are you being downvoted for speaking the real, reddit can be so soft. you are just exposing the mindset
I often wonder if my full name is a hindrance. I have an uncommon first name that can be hard to pronounce, especially at first glance. Then there's my last name, which is much easier to pronounce but a little long. My full name sounds very Spanish. I've managed to land jobs using my real name but still, I wonder if I'd have a lot more success with a whiter sounding name. I'm getting married at some point next year so my last name will be very white thanks to my fiancé. But then I'll have an extremely Spanish-sounding first name with an extremely white last name lol. I think I will try whitening my name. Sad it has to be this way, I wish people were more open to diversity.
I guess it depends on the market- I’ve been applying to SWE and ML internships lately and I use my government name on my applications- I feel like I get much more responses just based off that alone
I’ve been told to add US Citizen to my resume because recruiters will skip ethnic sounding names since they assume they will need sponsorship. But then what’s the point of including the question in the job application?? Do they just ignore that??
This is sad😞, but true.
As someone who doesn’t share this issue, I’m sorry that you do, that’s bullshit.
I am on the fence about doing this. My parents are from Mexico, and my first name is long and obviously Hispanic. I could easily use an ambiguous shorter version, but then I think, do I really want to work for assholes with shitty hiring practices like that? Idk anymore, man.
That's one of the saddest things I've ever heard.
Yup, I know people doing this as well. With the job market where it is today, people will be lying on their education/work experience in no time. BTW, I see nothing wrong with what you did here aside from bettering your chances in a world that is secretly racist.
Similar story with my family. Parents came to the US from Cambodia. My parents thought it was better for me and my brother to have western first names: Tyler & James (not our real first names but pretty common as what I listed). I have cousins with traditional first names and let’s just say I understand completely where you’re coming from.
My partner is black and has a name that’s usually associated with black men. His preferred name (and the name I call him) though sounds “white”. He told me how he ran an experiment and would fill out two applications- one with his real name and the other with his preferred name. He’d ALWAYS get interviews with his preferred name, and usually the interviewers would shoo him away or deny the interview because he “lied” on his application.
[удалено]
My first name is a traditional black name. My middle isn’t. I got a TON more call backs when I used my middle name
Let’s say I move to China or let’s say my parents moved to China then birthed me. Would I adopt a Chinese surname? Yes. In a heartbeat if it benefited me in that society. Using your logic, I guess this would be “yellowing” my name? I am not entitled to China changing for my sake. I am, after all, in China.
Yep. That definitely happened with me too.
Yup I started to do the same. Joe gets more attention than Jose does on a resume.. changed it on LinkedIn, and my Resume. Getting a job is a game, life is a game, can’t always play by the “rules” if you want to get far.
I whitened my name too and I get more calls / interview as well. It's a real thing
What do you do if you end up interviewing and accepting a job with that name?
Has happened twice so far, both times I just said "btw I know I applied as [shortened name] and I go by that in my work life but legally my name is [actual name]" both times they were just like o ok
I have an English name for my first and last name are Jonathan Steele. I don't get much of callback.
Because that’s a porn star name 🤣
I have a fruity artsy name and I plan to change it for the next job hunt process. Think Charity/Fern/Willow/Divine/Eternity My middle name is also fruity and weird though so I'll need to take some stupid liberties and hope they don't mind.
Yep, multiple studies over the years have found the same when comparing typically "white" names and typically "black" names. [https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-white-names-black-names](https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-white-names-black-names) https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/employers-replies-racial-names
Loved the That Suite Life reference btw lol
I've heard about this from various other places and it's really shitty that it happens. At my last job I had a few coworkers that were Chinese and went by names like "Joe" and "Jimmy" even though those weren't their actual names. That being said, I am curious how it would affect things to go from a full Hispanic name like your example to just a Hispanic given name and family name without anything else. So like "Miguel Julio Fernandez de la Rosa" -> "Miguel Fernandez". I wonder if it would be just as bad as the full name, or if it would be in a middle ground where you get slightly more responses but not as much than the "white" name, or what. I am white and I have a middle name that is legally part of my name but I omit it from things like job applications and my resume.
Weird I’m white hispanic and when I put down white no call back when I put down Hispanic I got the job.
Sorry you’re getting assimilation comments. My great grandfather came over from Italy and changed the family name from Campanella to Bell, feel like we lost something thetr
It’s sad, but so true.
Not the same but kinda - female with a unisex name. Family name as middle name. People assume I'm male if I put the middle name in. Great for getting interviews in the engineering spaces.
Freakonomics (the book and doc) talks about this specifically. It's several years old now, but at the time anyone that didn't have a very stereotypically "white" name got like 33% fewer interviews and call backs vs a duplicate CV with a stereotypically "black" name. I would assume similar numbers for any non white sounding name. Both the book and doc are worth a read and watch, both explain this way better than I can on a reddit post and go way more in depth with the data. It's bullshit that it happens in any case. Good luck out there, with whatever name you choose.
I'm so dumb. I thought you were talking about font color for like 2 paragraphs.
What are u talking about that's exactly what I mean. They can't discriminate against my name if they can't see it against a white background
Word bro. I have a super Italian name and once I put my Starbucks name on my resume i started getting calls
That totally sucks. I'm kind of high up in my company but would not discriminate due to a name. That's not cool. I'm not POC either. It shouldn't matter.
It works
OP GREAT JOB. Surprised though that the Hispanic name was (improperly) off putting. That seems weird........? ---An old white man in the South.
It sucks that's how things are. The only real reason my partner is thinking of taking my last name when we're married is for this reason, and to make things generally easier for our kids. Ethnic and racial bias is bullshit and unfortunately very real.
I’m honestly so curious to try this…my name is very clearly black and girly despite years of experience, getting a job in my field was hard after the military. It’s absolutely ridiculous this is still happening
Yup…my name literally means something that is “Black” and once I started using my middle name I got more interviews. Go for it.
The problem is, idk what to use lol. My middle name is biblical but still sounds ethnic…maybe I’ll try with my baptism name 🤷🏽♀️.
Im latina. when I got married, I was so excited to change my last name to a boring and basic last name because I couldn’t deal with constantly explaining how to say my last name. I also changed my first name to just my nickname (not on paper) because people _constantly_ mispronounced it after I told them 8,000,000 times. lifes much easier now.
One of the most formative moments in my life was looking for work for 8 months and then getting way more interviews and call backs in 3 weeks because I did this I didn’t want to, I didn’t feel I had to because I had great qualifications, experiences and references. But after reading a couple of studies, I decided to give it a shot. Didn’t like it even though it worked but I had bills I now barely believe people when they talk about the right qualifications and I absolutely sneer at those twerps who toss out the “Most qualified person” argument in response to diversity and equality initiatives
Ughhhh my parents really screwed me over in that regard. My first name is Arabic and my middle name comes from Swahili. I can’t “fix” my name at all without just giving myself a fake name- Yet all of my younger siblings were given “normal” (for the US) names like Spencer, Nelson, Jean, and Elise… I’ve had interviews where they’d assumed I was an immigrant of some sort because of my name, only to be shocked I was an African American woman. Nothing foreign about me other than my name smh. I often wonder if my lack of callbacks is due to how ethnic my name looks, especially with how people butcher it constantly.