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Can fake names create bias in interviewing?

blog.interviewing.io

71–80 of 173 posts

Re: Can fake names create bias in interviewing?

#72

As a hiring manager, if you give me a fake name, it is to your advantage if it's the same fake name you use on LinkedIn, github, stackoverflow, and other sites that are going to come up when I google you... I don't care about your social media accounts, your country of origin, your gender, or anything else that's irrelevant to your performance, but I do care about your technical history and abilities (and of course,…

TFA is about the company assigning randomized pseudonyms to candidates.

Re: Can fake names create bias in interviewing?

#73

As a hiring manager, if you give me a fake name, it is to your advantage if it's the same fake name you use on LinkedIn, github, stackoverflow, and other sites that are going to come up when I google you... I don't care about your social media accounts, your country of origin, your gender, or anything else that's irrelevant to your performance, but I do care about your technical history and abilities (and of course,…

TFA is about the company assigning randomized pseudonyms to candidates.

I understand. Whether the candidate, a researcher, or my in-house recruiter mangles the name, the end effect is the same.

Re: Can fake names create bias in interviewing?

#74
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the way subconscious prejudice works, unless you put a finger on the scale in the other direction then all the white guys are hired (in part) because of their appearance.

Well, Asians are getting hired at ~3x the rate of Whites in Bay area tech firms. So it can't just be benefitting Whites. In fact, at many Bay area companies Whites are a minority. Not that I'm trying to grind an axe here, but it is pretty much counterfactual to say that explicitly meritocratic hiring benefits Whites above all others. For what it's worth I think this question about hiring practices is welded to the th…

Every Asian I know in IT works ridiculous hours compared to their white counterparts. Ditto Indians. Americans in general (IT can be different) want to work their 8 and bail. I also fall into this category. I have a union mentality towards work. It's also why I demand an hourly rate over a salary. If I have to work, you are paying me. Texas employers seem happy to accommodate me. My wife, who is medical, also demanded and got an hourly rate, and she's expensive.

Re: Can fake names create bias in interviewing?

#75

I suspect many companies wouldn't use this as it would make affirmative hiring policies more difficult. For example, recruiters at my company curate lists of names that are majority female, black, or Hispanic (pulled from the census bureau) in order to try and determine which candidates are diverse. Recruiters at my company aren't explicitly told to hit certain quotas, but they are given larger bonuses for diverse hi…

I'd hate to work somewhere knowing I was hired because the color of my skin and not my abilities. maybe less of an issue in non-brainy jobs, but in Tech I would feel more insecure not knowing if I got the job to fill a quota. This sounds rather disgusting to me.

As a woman with a physical disability, idgaf, I just want a job. I'm quite confident in my own abilities and require no external validation.

Re: Can fake names create bias in interviewing?

#76

I suspect many companies wouldn't use this as it would make affirmative hiring policies more difficult. For example, recruiters at my company curate lists of names that are majority female, black, or Hispanic (pulled from the census bureau) in order to try and determine which candidates are diverse. Recruiters at my company aren't explicitly told to hit certain quotas, but they are given larger bonuses for diverse hi…

I'd hate to work somewhere knowing I was hired because the color of my skin and not my abilities. maybe less of an issue in non-brainy jobs, but in Tech I would feel more insecure not knowing if I got the job to fill a quota. This sounds rather disgusting to me.

For any competitive position, you will have candidates with little to nothing separating them. Interviews are not standardized tests where there are easily measurable quantitative differences.

Would you "hate to work" at a place if you found out you were hired because they thought "you were a good culture fit", rather than your actual abilities?

Re: Can fake names create bias in interviewing?

#77

I suspect many companies wouldn't use this as it would make affirmative hiring policies more difficult. For example, recruiters at my company curate lists of names that are majority female, black, or Hispanic (pulled from the census bureau) in order to try and determine which candidates are diverse. Recruiters at my company aren't explicitly told to hit certain quotas, but they are given larger bonuses for diverse hi…

Just based on a plain reading of the Civil Rights Act of 64, I don't see how this practice is considered legal. > It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer 2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, reli…

The "very clear language" you speak of actually created gaps in the law which ostensibly still abided by the letter. For instance, the SEP article on affirmative action[0] notes that employers, faced with the new act, would remove the pipeline which funneled black people into maintenance jobs but add a requirement such that anyone over a certain number of years at the company would not be allowed to transfer to another department. While seeming fair in according to 'race, color, religion, sex or national origin' its intent and effect was to trap the older black workers (who were of course all hired into maintenance divisions) in their current job and stop them from moving up.

>Thus, preferential affirmative action in the workplace served the same rationale as the non-preferential sort. Its purpose was not to compensate for past wrongs, offset unfair advantage, appropriately reward the deserving, or yield a variety of social goods; its purpose was to change institutions so they could comply with the nondiscrimination mandate of the Civil Rights Act.

In fact, some philosophers have argued that merely receiving the fruits produced by injustice is enough to make one personally liable to compensate a victim for the injustice.

[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/affirmative-action/

Re: Can fake names create bias in interviewing?

#78

I suspect many companies wouldn't use this as it would make affirmative hiring policies more difficult. For example, recruiters at my company curate lists of names that are majority female, black, or Hispanic (pulled from the census bureau) in order to try and determine which candidates are diverse. Recruiters at my company aren't explicitly told to hit certain quotas, but they are given larger bonuses for diverse hi…

Just based on a plain reading of the Civil Rights Act of 64, I don't see how this practice is considered legal. > It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer 2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's race, color, reli…

The spirit of the Civil Rights movement was to address lingering injustices that particularly affected the descendants of victims of the Atlantic slave trade. For a couple of decades, the spirit and intent of the law were coalescing, via affirmative action and other bias-busting policy.

I think that someone along your thought process could make a strong case that the spirit of the Civil Rights movement has changed, that the intent should change with it, that an attempt was made (a somewhat successful attempt actually) to raise the social standing of the descendants of the victims of the Atlantic slave to a place that reflects their contributions to our nation, that now other groups have been left behind and need some attention. You could make this case, and I think you’d find a lot of agreement. But, and I say this as respectfully as possible, don’t be so obtuse to why the Civil Rights movement happened to think that it’s interesting how language changes.

Re: Can fake names create bias in interviewing?

#79
post #66

I think there are lots of factors involved with names, but yeah. Even the spelling of names makes a difference. Interesting example: Dale Carnegie deliberately changed his last name from "Carnagey" to "Carnegie" so people, on some subliminal way, may associate him with the classy steel-building Andrew Carnegie family.

Charlie Sheen's birth name is Ramon Estevez. Despite it's "liberal bias", Hollywood is notorious for its preference for "Real American (TM)" names.

Re: Can fake names create bias in interviewing?

#80

Heh. I have a very Hispanic name but I am white/European. This is fairly common where I am originally from and even more in other places. I've definitely gotten weird looks when I go from phone screen -> in person interview. Unfortunately Americans, even progressive ones, have a very narrow view of what "Hispanic" means.

interesting choice of HN screen name :-)
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