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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

#71

Post by bpodgursky »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #64
hexomancer wrote: post #12

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.

I haven't flagged either that post or this one, but I understand why people do. Both present useless anecdotes that tell us nothing about whether or not a systemic problem exists.

Honestly, they tell us even less, because tons of these anecdotes are simply fabricated.

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

#72

Post by nullifidian »

random314 wrote: post #66
nullifidian wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>not his education history. Provided that someone has actually read his educational history. It's more likely the reading has stopped at "From: Muhammad Abdullah". And I'm trying to find the likeliest explanation of the phenomenon other than the 'omnipresent racism' theory. Please don't accuse people of thought crimes without a sufficient basis.

WTF dude. Stop digging. > It's more likely the reading has stopped at "From: Muhammad Abdullah" That's called racism. > Please don't accuse people of thought crimes without a sufficient basis. It's not thought crime. Employment opportunities are being denied. There are specific laws against this. I hope you never end up being a hiring manager. You are a huge liability to any organization.

>That's called racism.

It's called national origin discrimination (If I'm correct that is)

>You are a huge liability to any organization.

So you are one of those that confuse "something unfortunate happens" with "something should happen in this unfortunate way". Ok.

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

#73

Post by sct202 »

svet_0 wrote: post #41
hexomancer wrote: post #12

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.

https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/xcrv6k/i_sent_1...

It's a little suspect that this reddit post from 5 days ago is almost the same as the linked tweet, but the premise is kind of switched up.

23 hours ago from the linked Twitter: "So I did an experiment, I am looking for a postdoctoral position and decided to check to what extent racism in science could be. I took my CV and changed the name to a more western one. I'd send it out with my real name, then a few days later (or before) with the western name."

5 days ago on this linked Reddit: "So I did an experiment, I work in CS and decided to test what gender bias is. So I took my CV and changed the name to a female name. I'd send it out with my real name, then a few days later (or a few days before) with a female name."

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

#74

Post by ALittleLight »

kumarsw wrote: post #48

A lot of people are debating if this post is legit. I can't make any definite statements, but an 87% response rate for any job application is extremely high.

The crazy thing is he says 54 people were willing to accept a fellowship from his Western name. How does that work, exactly? In his application he communicates that he also has a fellowship available that he could give to the people he is applying to? It doesn't make sense to me.

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

#75

Post by ALittleLight »

rcoveson wrote: post #68
keepquestioning wrote: post #4

A good example of unconscious bias.

Western name: 100 samples, 87 responses, 54 positive. Islamic name: 100 samples, 17 responses, 0 positive. That's not a "good example of unconscious bias". Unless there's something else going on here (one or both of the names used in the experiment had some sort of reputation in the community already, or some other aspects of the CV were changed in the experiment), this is an absolutely stunning result and evidence o…

I think it's much more likely a "This is a person making up a story on twitter" example.

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

#76

Post by neilv »

zephrx1111 wrote: post #38

Quoted post unavailable.

This sounds like it might be the "culture fit" rationale that interviewers have in mind when doing things that are really unfair to individuals (and, IIUC, in many cases illegal in the US).

Besides being unfair, it can also be otherwise bad for the organization. In tech startups, we talk about innovation and ideas, and one of the places that comes from is combining knowledge from different backgrounds (in multiple senses). If a startup started with two people who then only hired people like themselves, they're restricting the likelihood of good ideas that they wouldn't have thought of themselves.

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

#77

Post by Hitton »

>You’re unable to view this Tweet because this account owner limits who can view their Tweets.

From the comments here I can picture what the tweet was about, but considering how quickly it was made private I would be wary of trusting it too much.

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

#78

Post by FerociousTimes »

Jensson wrote: post #44
solardev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that any different than biblical names like John or Abe?

Being names Mohammed is like being named Jesus, it is directly tied to the religion. I suspect a person named Jesus from Texas would have a hard time getting into biology research programs as well.

Jesús is a valid and common name for Hispanic males and I don't see how this would disqualify them from being considered for these positions.

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

#79

Post by moralestapia »

hexomancer wrote: post #12

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.

Academia is full of problems like these.

This only leads to resentment and a reinforcement of the idea that women have it on 'easy mode', which I don't think is caused by them in the first place.

One day I went to interview at SiB (https://www.sib.swiss/) as part of a cohort of 20 shortlisted from all over the world. Women on our cohort were treated significantly better, with a couple weird professors were behind them all the time. Everyone noticed that (even other girls) and we actually, explicitly, touched on that subject on our free time.

I recall there was one dinner by the end of that trip and these guys made one particular girl sit in between them, which was kind of awkward as students were all sitting together in a different part of the table. One of these guys was all over the girl, to clarify: not touching her, but physically very close all the time and asking a lot of trivial questions one after the other (do you like food XXXX? have you been to XXXX? what do you think of XXXX?), the girl was visibly uncomfortable but what was she supposed to do? We were all about 20yo at that time, at that age (also a newgrad) you just go with the flow. Plenty of people take advantage of that.

Not implying anything but, as anecdata, that girl got accepted into the program under the supervision of that particular guy. I hope she had a comfortable PhD stay and I mean that with all honesty.

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

#80

Post by bitL »

Jensson wrote: post #44
solardev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that any different than biblical names like John or Abe?

Being names Mohammed is like being named Jesus, it is directly tied to the religion. I suspect a person named Jesus from Texas would have a hard time getting into biology research programs as well.

Why? Davids are everywhere and that's also directly tied to a religion.
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