According to Google, I am the only person in the world with the combination of my first and last name—a blessing and a curse in the age of the Internet. And as I build a public profile, I’m grateful for that easy recognition. I’m one in eight billion! But in the past, when it comes to submitting job applications, I’ve sometimes worried my name holds me back. Because my lovely, rhythmical Arabic first name does two things: It identifies me as a woman, and it identifies me as not white.
It’s widely known that job candidates are screened out based on their names, yet few companies have actually changed their hiring processes to address the problem. Sure, there’s lots of talk about bringing in diverse talent, but all too often, it isn’t backed by concrete actions. Changing the way resumés are screened can be a simple way to ensure your company gets access to the best talent and remains competitive. If you haven’t changed screening practices at your company, ask yourself why.
It's actually not hard to create anonymized resumés. You can hire a few people at minimum wage to sit in a room for a day and strike out applicants' names with Sharpies. Or with a few simple lines of code, you can tweak your online application system so reviewers don't see the names attached to each resumé.
If your company is nervous about diving right into this kind of process, try an experiment. Dig up all the resumés that were submitted for a position that has since been filled, put together a new review panel and have them review resumés without gender, racial or other cues. Then compare those candidates to the one who was actually was selected. If you find a discrepancy, you need to address it, be it via anonymized screening or another method.
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