As a release valve for the Urban Names thread, how does everyone feel about the practice of making emplyment decisions based on names?
Personally I don’t think it should be an ACTIVE deciding factor. obvious there may be some bias when it comes to names, but I wouldn’t count a bias you may not even know about as active discrimination. If I need to make a choice betwen four people and the only thing really different is name I’ll roll a four sided dice, not say “Well, Tashawn IS a little out there compared to Naomi.”
So how does everyone feel about accepting/not accepting people absed on name?
I think it’s stupid but understandable. You can even justify it by saying that a good name is a bit like marketing; you may do better with attracting clients.
I totally agree. Companies should select people whose names suggest class.
So if the four job candidates in my scenario were named Hilary, Rudy, Mitt and Barack, I would definitely hire the latter. The first three names are simply too common.
Here it’s quite common for Chinese to take really weird-ass English names, or invent them. I’ve met a Fantasy, an Each, a Turn, a Line, more Apples, Moons, Sky’s and Stars than I know what to do with, a Watermelon, a Stone, a Sphinx, a Shute, and (my favorite of the pure inventions) Danckwents.
Fantasy, to his credit, is a bona fide space cadet. Sphinx is very clever. Stone is quite hard-working (…). And Danckwents, as you would expect, is a total spaz. So yeah, if people name themselves, it is sometimes quite revealing…
I think intentionally considering names is a bad idea, unless you know that the person chose their own name, AND the job in question involves choosing people’s names.
Let me throw a fly in the ointment. What if the name isn’ really unusual, what if it’s notorious? Suppose you had an applicant named Adolph Hitler or Charles Manson?
Like it or not it does play a role. “Diversity” programs mean that companies often do look out for certain name type when they need to mix it up a bit. My father who was a regional VP for a well known retail chain for 10 years and an exec for 25, often complained about this very practice. It works both ways too. Not usually on a hiring decision since qualified applicants are usually interviewed by someone before the actual hire; but all other things being equal a name could keep you from getting that interview. It isn’t necessarily unfair either.
Consider that you are a fancy realtor to the super-wealthy. Your clients all are multi millionaires many times over and are known for being extremely picky about all aspects of the sale. You have an internship position open, and receive lots of applicants but you can only interview 4. Your assistant has managed to use your criteria to narrow it down to 6. You have 5 applicants with the usual run of names, and then you also have Laquisha. Now while Laquisha does possess all of the skills needed to get that interview, that name alone possibly tells you a lot about her parents and potentially her upbringing. You might infer that while she has obviously worked hard in her classes to get to your desk, she may not have as easy a time mingling with clients who routinely buy small islands and have people to wipe their bums for them.
You might be wrong about all that but still you have to get rid of two of those applications. That name is a strike against in my book. Is it stereotyping? yep. But stereotypes exist because they often contain a kernel of truth somewhere. I’m anti-pc enough to say that while I would give every one of those applications a thorough looking at, Laquisha would indeed have a point against her from name alone.
Well, the moment she steps into your office she automatically has a point against her, doesn’t she? There aren’t too many black people who have the type of background you’d be looking for.
And if you ask her where she’s from and she says Montgomery, AL instead of Greenwich, Connecticutt, she probably seals her fate, doesn’t she?
That black Southern girl might as well stay home and collect welfare. She’s never going to be able to break into the upper strata with a background like that.
I’d never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad conservative Republicans think that way about Condolezza Rice. Either they aren’t as discriminatory as they pretend to be, or Condolezza Rice must be just that good.
I still can’t wrap my head around this. Wouldn’t you at least want to get to know a person with a unique name? I’d be curious as all get-out. (Sounds like some folks wouldn’t even interview a person with an ‘abnormal’ name).
To reiterate my post from Monstro’s other thread, in the area which I live in, we get all kind of names. I think we’re all used to it by now. There are many prominent business folks, administrators, politicians, and of course run-of-the mill people with “unique” names here. Perhaps Mississippi is being progressive for once.
I think it’s fascinating the way people read what they want to read instead of what is actually being written. No one is saying that they would never hire a Laquisha. What they are saying is that if you have too many resumes to interview, you need to cut them down. In that situation, Laquisha’s resume will not get the call to interview. Arbitrary and capricious? Probably, but is it anymore arbitrary and capricious than knocking someone for a misspelling on their resume, or for not wearing a suit to the interview? I don’t think so. A name like Laquisha gives an insight into their background, and it’s not a good thing for them.
Come on. Listen, there are plenty of Laquishas out there that are born of poor uneducated parents. These parents are probably ghetto as hell, and haven’t exposed their child to the arts and literature.
But when you have a Laquisha that has a resume as glistening as Barbara’s resume, you can put to bed the nonsense that “Laquisha won’t be able to rub elbows with dignataries”. Because if the girl was able to accomplish as much as Barbara did with the disadvantage of having parents who ‘didn’t know enough’ not to name her 'Laquisha", then she probably is smart as a whip and could out class your most dignified dignitaries in her sleep.
Yes. Misspellings or inappropriate dress suggest that an applicant may lack necessary professional skills RIGHT NOW. All an unusual name tells you is that HER PARENTS made a strange choice 20 or 30 years ago. You’re interviewing the applicant, not her parents.
It says a lot more than that. A person who names their kid Laquisha goes on Maury to find out who the baby’s daddy is. Obviously, that’s not true for every Laquisha, but it’s certainly my perception. That at least gives me a clue into what type of upbringing they have, and that certainly affects their potential as an employee.
If we are using resumes and cover letters to look past that, why shouldn’t I use them to look past very minor mistakes? The fact of the matter is that it all comes down to the number of qualified applicants for a position. If there are numerous qualified applicants for a position, the weeding out process becomes much more arbitrary and capricious. At that point the bad spellers, poor grammars, and Laquishas are going to get weeded out.