degs:

I am unemployed right now and looking.

As a past 40 Vietnam Veteran, they get brownie points for me. Trust me, it is out there. Most companies force you to their website and you can decline to answer these questions or you can submit. I am at a director/senior manager level and I have to do the same. While I can escape it at times, in most cases I have to answer the questions or decline. I answer them. If a company is that prejudiced, I do not want to be a a part of them. I have 3 promising interviews coming up over the next 2 weeks and maybe 2 more. Been looking since October and I consider myself fortunate and still in high demand.

That's fairly new though, and voluntary.

As far as the wierd names thing goes... there is no genuine requirement to call back every name on the callback sheet though... which is why the incentives had to be put forward.

I'm just stating - as a person that has spent many hours doing callsheet style calls - that when an unpronouncable group of letters is before you, it is very uncomforable to place that call... it is perfectly comfortable to place a call to a name that you can pronounce. If I had a stack of callbacks, I'd shift the ones that couldn't be pronounced to the back... and hope they'd be passed to someone else or just not needed.

I'm human, not racist... Frank Zappa's kids would be screwed by my selectivity as well as numerous other white people with strange parents.

Keneesha etc. are not unpronouncable names, just not common ones. As someone who is a white male, and who's name is phonetically pronouncable but the length of which intimidates, I can tell you that white males with euro-sounding names do NOT face the same prejudice that non-euro names trigger.

And that's not "being human, not racist". After all, racism is a core behaviour of "being human". And the choice to shift to "comfortable names" is basically racist.

I'm not, so the insult doesn't bite.

I'm glad that you can tell me that white males with euro-sounding names do NOT face the same predjudice... but I haven't seen a study that tested that theory. Of course, most euro-sounding names are quite comfortable... within the normal name range. But I've seen a couple of friends that had elven names (hippie parents) get considerably fewer random calls than I had when I had a land-line, were called less in class, were approached less by people outside of their close friend group, etc.. Because their names were more difficult.

It has nothing to do with racism, it has to do with familiarity... these are not synonyms.

The fact is that the people with funny names in the study recieved 50% fewer callbacks. The study in question only had ethnically loaded funny names, and claimed racism. In my opinion, had Feynore (the elvic word for "spirit of fire", and an honest name of a white woman) been on that list SHE would have had less call backs too.

Tundrayeti:

...The "obvious black names" study is a dumb one because it doesn't factor in embarassment. Very non-normal names can be difficult to pronounce, which means many people who are uncertain about how to say the name will put this in the back of the list.

Do you have a problem pronouncing Tyrone Johnson? What you are saying is true of real foreign names, but not names like Jamal or Jermaine. If you watch sports or just watch TV in general, you're hearing these names on a daily basis. They are far more familiar to the average american than the Albrecht, Dieter, or Iyal's... And I bet the Albrecht's etc don't have any problem finding jobs.

Familiarity and racism are flip sides of the same coin. They are projections of good and bad based on imagined and mythologized differences. Names in this case are being used as markers for other perceived differences.

I agree, that including other "foreign" names but ones that are more euro would have strengthened the study.

"taquineeeeeeesha jackson isn't gonna be a white girl. "

And Irving Chang isn't going to be a white guy.

But the list of "black" names includes quite a few that are far, far more exotic.

I'd be very interested in a study that included exotic "white" names, exotic "Asian" names, and exotic "Black" names.

There may actually be some racism in the findings... but my bet is that the exotic names will be called less for every catagory, including whites. My point is that by failing to account for this (i.e. ONLY including names like Tyrone and Jamal and Latoya... stuff that is familiar), the study rendered itself worthless. Especially since the authors didn't bother to provide a breakdown of the individual names and their respective callback numbers (as any honest study would have/should have included).

People use names as markers all the time. That's precisely why so many O'Connells and Murphys changed their names to Smith, Jones etc. Today you see the same thing when a Sakhr uses his nickname Sam on his resume. Now you can go down the path of arguement that the problem then resides with minorities that have given their children these names, but that is to ignore what this study is saying - that when there is a perception that there won't be measurable retaliation for racial bias, the existing societal prejudices will come into play. Since resume screening is a blanket process for which no reasons need be given and no actual race is identified, there are no actual consequences if racist preferences get expressed.

Remember, these weren't actual individuals. This was a resume shot where the name/resume content mapping was randomized. That means that if there was bias based on an association of a name with a particular "race" that has an adverse mythos you would see that appear as a deviation from the statistically normalized spectrum of results. This isn't about the "difficulty" of callback names. Remember, that once a name is on a callback list, failure to call the more difficult names on the list WOULD be trackable and expose the HR person to accusations of racial bias.

And lo and behold that is exactly what shows up.

And all the nonsense about the difficulty of name pronunciation as a limiting factor is just a smoke screen to obscure this basic outcome.

Until a worthy study comes out - one which uses controls to factor out the normal vs. exotic name preference - then neither of us have any proof for our assertions.

Some things aren't racism. I suppose you would consider my father's decision to not follow up on an applicant named "Jesus" (a fairly common name in the Latino society), to be some kind of horrible anti-latino ethnic predjudice... but it boils down to a discomfort with the name, nothing more.

Ironically, I happen to believe that the regulations requiring people to follow back on all candidates - for the specific reason of protecting minority applicants - is a form of racism...

But everyone is entitled... right?

Few things avoid the issue of racism. "Discomfort" is often the way racism manifests itself. Given our culture, your father's "discomfort" with the name Jesus, is likely to have underpinnings in racism.

As to how requiring a followback on all candidates is itself a form of racism, that's a pretty convoluted rationalization that you need to go through to justify that one.

Tundrayeti:

Some things aren't racism. I suppose you would consider my father's decision to not follow up on an applicant named "Jesus" (a fairly common name in the Latino society), to be some kind of horrible anti-latino ethnic predjudice... but it boils down to a discomfort with the name, nothing more.

....

Something tells me your father would be perfectly willing to call 'Jesus' for a landscaping job.

It's really unfortunate that in the post-civil-rights era, nobody wants to admit to being a racist. Everybody has a puny excuse as to why they are not racist despite all outward apearances of being such.

All 1/5 acre of it.

We employ one person from Spanish speaking countries (Peruvian); four people from India; two people from China; one person from the Ukrane, and two African Americans... and 18 white Americans. They represent 5 religions - including a devout Sihk.

Of those, we have 3 PhD's, 7 masters degrees, and 12 people that have at least one undergraduate degree.

I suppose, of course, that you would see racism in the demographics... we have many more African American candidates come in and fill out the application - and the math, science and engineering tests, only those that score at least 70% on the applicable tests are considered for interviews.

That selection process has resulted in our current mix. The only name that has not been called back that recieved above 70% on the applicable tests has been "Jesus". My father's faith simply made him uncomfortable dealing with a person named "Jesus". I'm sure if someone named "Satan" made it through the tests then that person would also be shifted to the back.

It isn't racism to find a name uncomfortable. It's racism to prejudge people on the basis of race. Period.

with the name "Jesus" comes from the fact that he worships a person/entity named "Jesus" and its pretty uncomfortable for his background to have a regular person working around him wearing that name.

If someone were named "Satan" they would likely also not be hired.

As for "few things avoid racism", then you're saying that racism is everywhere... which fits with your advocacy.

I believe it can be argued that it is a little bit racist to assume a group simply is unqualified to fend for themselves. By ensuring and enforcing legislation based on race, you are advantaging them... You say this is to overcome a basic disadvantage, but the fact is you are legislating a forced advantage... which ironically does more than anything else ever could to perpetuate a predjudice that assumes people of that race are not able to compete on their own merit... It also likely causes some difficulty with the very hiring problems that you are trying to solve... since an employer now has a possible difficulty with rejecting a minority after an interview or firing/laying off a minority after they are hired.

I continue to advocate preferential acceptance to higher learning institutes for those that greatly exceed the average performance of their schooling, and letting the rest of affirmative action phase out. We are (hopefully) about to elect a (half) black man to the white house... we should be past the point where we force companies to hire people based on the color of their skin.

4 people have technical/vocation degrees and some college credits.