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PhD gets 5x increase in postdoc interview invitations by just changing his name

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Re: PhD gets 5x increase in postdoc interview invitations by just changing his name

#11

Post by wai1234 »

ak_111 wrote: post #3
stevehind wrote: post #2

Seems really bad!

It's actually worst than I made out in the title. The responses he got under his original name were "almost all negative", not actual invitations. While almost all the response under his pseudonym were positive, some getting out of their way to pull him in.

It's actually worse still. ALL of the 17 responses to the real name were negative if you read what he actually posted. That's an infinite increase. NOT 5x.

Re: PhD gets 5x increase in postdoc interview invitations by just changing his name

#12

Post by hexomancer »

There was a similar post a few days ago where someone did this but instead of changing their name they changed their gender (female names got significantly more responses). That post got flagged and this post is in the frontpage. Interesting.

Re: PhD gets 5x increase in postdoc interview invitations by just changing his name

#14

Post by detaro »

abc_lisper wrote: post #8

Before a knee jerk response of unconscious bias, which I’m in no way denying, it is more important to know how this research was conducted. What about the publications and references? It’s not like the job is flipping burgers - postdoctoral positions are extremely specific and people tend to know each other within a couple of hops on their social network.

Wouldn't that in all cases benefit the real CV over the fake one? (because if you started to look up the fake person you'd find less useful results than for the real name, which would turn up real publications)

Re: PhD gets 5x increase in postdoc interview invitations by just changing his name

#15

Post by locallost »

abc_lisper wrote: post #8

Before a knee jerk response of unconscious bias, which I’m in no way denying, it is more important to know how this research was conducted. What about the publications and references? It’s not like the job is flipping burgers - postdoctoral positions are extremely specific and people tend to know each other within a couple of hops on their social network.

So they favored the made up person?

Re: PhD gets 5x increase in postdoc interview invitations by just changing his name

#16

Post by ok_dad »

stirlo wrote: post #6

[flagged]

I could say the same for southerners and Christians my friend. It’s not fair to treat individuals like they all conform to whatever you think their home culture is, though. I personally know several southerners and Christians who aren’t dickheads, for example.

Re: PhD gets 5x increase in postdoc interview invitations by just changing his name

#17

Post by ak_111 »

nullifidian wrote: post #10

Do they not check the actual publication record? It shouldn't have worked at all with a fake name.

At the stage of shortlisting for the interview, a lot of people don't actually go out and check the paper, they just register it is published in a good journal, they might do a deep dive when preparing for the interview if at all.

Especially in a field like plant biology, papers probably have many authors, so even if you check the paper you might not pay attention to the author list (or he could have chosen a name that looks like one of the co-authors in some of his papers?)

Re: PhD gets 5x increase in postdoc interview invitations by just changing his name

#18

Post by s1artibartfast »

locallost wrote: post #15
abc_lisper wrote: post #8

Before a knee jerk response of unconscious bias, which I’m in no way denying, it is more important to know how this research was conducted. What about the publications and references? It’s not like the job is flipping burgers - postdoctoral positions are extremely specific and people tend to know each other within a couple of hops on their social network.

So they favored the made up person?

Plausable if someone has a bad reputation

Re: PhD gets 5x increase in postdoc interview invitations by just changing his name

#20

Post by stirlo »

ok_dad wrote: post #16
stirlo wrote: post #6

[flagged]

I could say the same for southerners and Christians my friend. It’s not fair to treat individuals like they all conform to whatever you think their home culture is, though. I personally know several southerners and Christians who aren’t dickheads, for example.

100% agreed. Would be interesting to see how an application by Muhammad with a Penn State degree compares to a John with an Oral Robert’s degree when applying to a neutral institution.
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