Dive Brief:
- A new study shows that job applicants with Asian names are 28% less likely to be called in for an interview, reports NPR. The Canadian study by Ryerson University and the University of Toronto found that Indian, Chinese and Pakistani-named applicants received fewer call-ins for interviews than applicants with Anglo-sounding names, even when their qualifications were the same.
- To conduct the study, researchers responded to 3,225 job postings with 12,910 bogus applications, says NPR. Even applicants with Anglo-sounding first names paired with Asian surnames were less likely to be called in for an interview.
- NPR pointed to another study published in the Administrative Science Quarterly Journal, which showed that Asian applicants doubled their chances of being called in for an interview if they changed their names to sound more Anglo and removed any references to their ethnicity on resumes.
Dive Insight:
Diversity has become a real problem for a variety of industries — including tech — due to homogenous cultures and the subsequent desire for "cultural fit."
Job applicants are passed over for many reasons, and not all are discriminatory. But black applicants with so-called "black-sounding" names face the same barriers, studies have shown. For this reason, recruitment leaders are starting to leave names off resumes during the first phase of hiring.
A lot of new recruitment tech seeks to eliminate bias in the first phases of the job hunt. Some employers have opted to exclude questions on application forms that would identify applicants' ethnicity or race or have even adjusted the job ad language to be more inclusive and appealing across a wide range of personalities. These are all important first steps in diversifying the talent pipeline.
