Does an applicant’s name have any bearing on his or her chance of getting hired?
Although considering someone’s name as part of the decision-making process is not only wrong but illegal, we want you to weigh in. Has this happened to you personally? To your candidates? Both?
Who’d want to work for a company that’d throw them out for that reason and no other one? With Barack Obama as President now this story should have been tossed out. Though the writer, Jessica Dickler may still be smarting from her high school days…
Of course, all kinds of discrimination goes on because people are only human. That said, I’ve never seen discrimination take place simply because of a candidates name.
It’s also only human to come up with all sorts of wild theories and excuses when no body wants to hire you. “It can’t be me, it must be (fill in the blank)â€.
Tom Keoughan
http://www.toyjobs.com
I have to say this HAS happened to me once. I had a Management level position in the field of Laboratory Animal Facilities for a Large University System. It was a difficult search, as The nature of the role was to oversee all of the research coordination activities for the animals used in Medical research. The candidate’s first name was “Bamb….” You know, from the Disney Movie? You can only imagine what the Staff would have said. The candidate never did an interview, soley based on the Name.