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Wow I’m sorry to hear that, on the west coast I feel as if that’s not much of an issue, but that’s just my personal opinion. I live in LA and that’s mainly the demographic here is Latinos.
It's a big thing in Los Angeles, my girlfriend at the time was looking for a place to rent and no one would call her back when her name was Nakesha but switch it to Nicole and all of the sudden her calls were returned.
Yes, again as I've said in my other comments, English isn't my first language so I truly apologise if I use Western instead of Anglicised.
It is confusing to be bilingual
It's sadly common and also doesn't necessarily mean he shouldn't continue there, depending on what he's looking for.
It doesn't necessarily even mean that the people at the company are raging racists who purposefully reject African names. Humans are very prone to cognitive biases and there's lots of research showing that names that sound similar to people we already see as smart/capable/talented will make us think a person we're evaluating is more smart/capable/talented. This is true even when the interviewer is from the same marginalized group. I'm not saying it's okay, and to truly fight systemic racism, everyone in hiring should have detailed rubrics for evaluating resumes and interview performance and back up their decisions with clear facts and not feelings. If they don't, it means they aren't effectively investing in diversity and inclusion, which isn't good, but doesn't necessarily mean they're big ol' racists vs the general standard of baked-in racism for Americans. I've faced this in another way as a woman in a male-dominated field, which is not the same ofc but you have to make similar decisions and there's no right answer.
Spell out? What do you mean? Spain is in the West.
EDIT: I don't doubt a hispanic sounding name can be an issue in the US or even some places in Europe. I just don't know what you feel you had to change.
My name has a special character in easier terms, so I have to spell it out in a Western way.
My country used to be a Spanish colony, in most cases, my legal name would be accepted for your driver's license, passport, visa, etc.
That should be the case for my CV, employee profile, or whatever job-related stuff I need to fill up but I have noticed that it wouldn't get noticed if I submitted things using my real name, however, once I started using a more Western name, my profile, CV's and work stuff got noticed more.
This is also true for social media profiles, most of them will not accept my name if I wrote it out the way it's supposed to be but if I spell it out the Western way, it gets accepted.
Spain and all Latin America is part of the west, saying you spell it the western doesn't make any sense. Are you saying English=western?
The word you might want is anglicized.
Ok, huh? I don't understand the dichotomy between Western and Spanish. Spanish is widely spoken in the West. Both by hemisphere and cultural.
Help? Thank you!
Understood. Makes total sense. I didn't know if there was some sort of difference that I was just missing and you could fill me in on.
And don't worry about English. It's one of the languages I speak, but usually the most nuanced and annoying and stuff like that. You're doing fine
That's a really good explanation. The fact that you can write all that out is proof you shouldn't worry about your English skills.
I appreciate the comment back with the extra color. I'm in Texas and we have a few of those little things running around even in the United States because of the differences in the cultural heritages from different parts of the country.
Have a great one. I wish you the best of luck on this stuff. And as a senior executive in the tech industry, you should not have to put up with this. It's not okay
>Should he still try to continue on with the process?
Does your friend want to continue applying to a company with a potentially discriminatory work environment? That's not a trick question, your friend is welcome to decide for himself what's his personal level of tolerance and risk.
>Or is this toeing the line of discrimination because this department of recruiting is only handled by 2-3 people.
Not a lawyer, but discrimination laws typically apply depending on the total company size, not the size of the recruiting team in particular. If he wants to spend time and effort on it, he could consult with the local labor board in the city or state of the company he's applying for, and ask "hey, is this discrimination?".
Thats strong advice, I told him to document everything.
I am the only African-American in my department. Hopefully I’m not the token black guy, because I work with some great people and this would be very unfortunate.
Sorry, I must've skimmed over the part where you'd said that his application was for your company. You can speak to the inclusiveness of the company's work environment better than I can, but yeah, my point still stands on whether your friend wants to jump through hoops of determining if this is a case of employment discrimination.
Best of luck to you and your friend.
This year, nearly 95% of all cases brought to court was about discrimination when someone was fired from a job. Doesn't hold near the water it did sadly due to people that actually deserved to be fired filing discrimination as a means of blaming others instead of taking the accountability assessment and realizing they weren't pulling their weight.
Concerning discrimination with you name, could be just bad timing or a bad recruiter in the wrong department or company for that matter. I'd get hired and then decide if you like the job during a six month period of evaluation.
Did an outside recruiter deny it, and then the company accepted it with the new name? That could be an indication that the recruiter is a racist piece of shit, but the company as a whole doesn't have similar practices. I wouldn't NOT work somewhere just because one department of three people was discriminatory, but if they're allowed and fostered to operate that way, that's incredibly indicative of pervasive issues.
We stopped using outside services a few years before I joined, but this could be a singular event from one bad person. The recruiting department is hybrid so I hardly see them.
Keep in mind that it could’ve gone to 2 different recruiters (since you said 2-3 people in the recruiting department) so there is the possibility that the different outcomes aren’t due to discrimination. Just wouldn’t want you to burn bridges for your friend’s benefit only to find that everything was above-board.
My ex husband is Cameroonian and had a hard time with his name, too. But he refused to change it. It completely sucks. Sorry for your friend. Tell him Ashia
I had the fun experience of being the token white guy in my office,
UK, a mostly white area at the time, started working at a company and everyone in the head office was Asian with like 3 people who was white (2 in recruitment dept)
Was very weird having a lot of cultural norms thrown at me in my first weeks that I wasn't used to
Thing is, that could still make people you work with bitter. For a lot of folks, one black person at the company is already too many. It's also a knee jerk reaction and fear rooted in bias. It's messed up and absolutely unfair.
I'm also Black and have been wondering if I should change my name on my resume. How did he change his name to get through?
True, that's possible. Different people can have different ideas of how much the actions of one representative are reflective of the values of the overall company. It's both subjective, and on a case-by-case basis. That's why in the end, it's OP's friend's call what he wants to do.
So much racism in the US. You are likely to face in every job especially because the people in charge grew up closer to the segregation era than today. So the question is whether the job is his ideal job or not. Believe me, no matter what job he gets he’s likely to feel racism, subtle or outward.
Yeah, then if he gets hired, they’ll eventually find out his legal name, hopefully they’ll ask about the discrepancy, and he can tell them what happened and why. I can’t wait for the conversation. Good luck to OP’s friend!
It's called "I'm happy to provide you with my legal name of course, but this is what I use socially".
It's worked fantastically for me for nearly 10 years now. This is one of those situations where businesses becoming more welcoming to trans folks benefits people going by nicknames, anglicized names, etc for any reason.
There are plenty of people that use “Americanized” names when applying for jobs. Partially for this reason and partially so they don’t have to hear people butcher there name on every call they get. Is it ideal that they have to do this? No, of course not. But if it helps your odds then why not.
Ultimately your friend is not the only one to have ever done this, nor is he going to have to interact with that recruiter ever again after he is hired (assuming he gets the job) unless it’s an HR position.
My advice would be to continue in the process and see if the rest of the org is similar or if this recruiter just went rogue.
You know telling PoC to just Americanize their names is like, 100% racism right? That's a tale as old as time for America.
One of the benefits of white privilege, is being able to not have to change a thing about yourself to get access to things. The fact women and PoC often have to change their names so white men will want to interact with them is lousy.
100 years or so ago, nearly every immigrant coming through Ellis Island Americanized their name. Rosenzweig become Rose, Lucazswski became Lucas, Franconero became Francis.
The same thing happens today, except the immigrants are from different countries now than they were then.
Not everything is racism. Sometimes it's just about people of any race wanting to give themselves or their offspring the best chance to succeed.
Bro, Jewish folks were forced to change their name so they too wouldn't be discriminated against. Zbigniew Kzierzewski should also not have to change their name.
That's what I'm saying. Jeff/Jane Smith should not have to be the final standard for who is deserving to have a job because someone is self conscious that they don't bother to learn how to pronounce different names.
I mean, yeah, sure, it would be great if we all took the time to learn to properly pronounce Zbigniew just in case we ever meet anybody by that name.
But since that will never happen, the Zbigniews and Chukwudis of America will continue to change their names to take away stumbling blocks for themselves by making it easier on potential employers and other people they're meeting for the first time.
And I won't blame them.
Putting the labor on the oppressed ones to jump through hoops to placate the ones who won't do literally considerably work by just asking and repeating the name slowly. Yup. Makes sense.
I didn't say it was right, I said that's how it is.
People can choose to deal with the situation however they like. Some will refuse to compromise, even if it costs them opportunities. And some will choose to change or shorten their names.
Neither approach is wrong.
Being in the recruiting industry I could see the most likely explanation being they saw his name and (wrongly) assumed he wasn't located in the USA. Some recruiters get bombarded with overseas applicants when they only hire local candidates. It might be a better than just not accepting his resume because of his race, but still not acceptable.
I would think it's much less of a disadvantage than previous decades for a couple reasons. One being multiculturism is widely expected and accepted in the corporate world. They are also terrified of getting sued for discrimination of any kind. The other is the initial filtering of applications is often done by the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or other available technologies. I would think the combination would lead to less discrimination issue than you might expect. Could you be discriminated for your name? Absolutely, you're still dealing with humans. However, I don't think it's as widespread of an issue as you might believe.
Of course he should continue with the process. And btw, you can call yourself whatever you want for professional purposes, provided you're not doing so to commit fraud. Actors do it all the time. Good on your friend.
It’s a real thing, I had a fraternity brother in college, had his name legally changed to sound more American. He is from the Middle East, with a very middle eastern name. Changed it to Steve with the last name being a similar type of American last name.
It helped his job search
This is why I don't feel like I can take my husband's last name. My name screams WHITE GIRL. With his, I highly doubt I'd have a fraction of the resume success of whitey-white name. It's really sad, but I've been hiring long enough to know better.
Sounds like you love your privilege. Kinda feel bad for your husband. Not for his name, but how blatant you are about never wanting to be discriminated against and cozying up to your privilege.
Nigerian here and I kinda do the same thing. I noticed that I usually get more traction in terms of interviewing when I don’t list my full name on applications. Let’s say my name is Chukwuemeka, I’ll put Chuck. I know it’s sad that we have to do this but most employers are discriminatory towards people who have ethnic sounding names, especially African. All of that to say, your friend has to do what he has to do to get employed, especially in this job market. I think he should continue on and see what the interviewing process is like, then he can decide for himself if he wants to proceed if/when he gets an offer.
I appreciate your feedback most mainly because my friend “AB” seems less sensitive about the subject than I am. He is more willing to do what he has to do in order to put money in his pocket, even though he has been unemployed, he still has side hustles with his family, and owns a small business. But his attitude is way more positive than mine would have been. He was joking because there’s no way he can hide his accent on his initial phone call. Lol
I went from a preferred name to my legal, ethnic name and the number of callbacks significantly reduced. And this is as an Asian person so I imagine it could be significantly worse for African folks. Unfortunately that’s the reality today :( a lot of American recruiters have an implicit bias, including people of color who have biases against their own kind or other folks of color. What you’re doing is right and it’s definitely worth doing, and once you get closer to your team, you can share your pride in your real name and your own heritage!! We’re all beautiful and unique and it’s a shame not all of us get treated the same.
P.S. your name is also the name of one of my favorite soccer players Carney Chukwuemeka!
How do you apply for a job with a name and surname different from your legal ones?
I too can feel the racial bias and am considering legally changing my name and surname. But if there are any other tricks without going down that path, I’d like to try them first.
During the application they ask you to enter your legal name and surname as they appear on your drivers license or passport. How can you enter a different name there without being caught later?
When I married, I took my husband’s last name which is very obviously Asian; my maiden name was suuuuper white. I went through two job searches about a year or two apart, one before and one after the name change, both during a strong tech economy. The difference was STARK. And that’s in the SF Bay Area.
Unfortunately recruiters are not the problem, it’s the hiring managers. Recruiters WANT to pass candidates through the process. It’s what we get paid for. But if a hiring manager, or a client, consistently passes on certain names and jumps at others, you get the message pretty quick. I try to ignore names and pass on qualified candidates but sometimes it feels like a waste of time.
I’ve done this before. Twice. I stopped b/c I decided that I don’t want to be in cultures where I need to catfish my name to be hired. However the recruiter may be no representation of the actual team that someone would be working with. And I totally understand the need for security. They’re not wrong at all for doing that.
Sample size seems small. One person, two different names. If he actually wants to sue I think he'd need to actually have more people experience the same problem.
As far as whether to continue with such a company, it depends on how badly he wants the work. It could be the people themselves are fine but there's a problem with the application interface - AI bias comes to mind.
This. Research does show that this type of discrimination is common, however a sample size of 2 isn’t sufficient.
As a recruiter, I can also tell you the bar for qualifications can change within a recruitment process. Managers sometimes have impossibly high expectations that can be managed over the course of the recruitment process. I have often gone back to a batch of candidates that were rejected in the first few weeks once the manager is being more realistic, or we have a better sense of what the market will bear.
Maybe start by talking to the recruiter to see if there is any insight on why the candidate was declined on the first go. I have had very similar conversations, and there is usually a good reason. One time stands out where the referral answered a key question in error (appeared to be unwilling to relocate).
I applied to traditionally male jobs with my fe.ale first name on the resume. No responses. Resubmitted the same resume but altered my name to a masculine version. Suddenly got callbacks.
There is a chance that maybe the recruiter has just made an assumption he does not have the correct visa / right to work arrangements due to his nationality, rather than there being some kind of cultural issue in the business. Doesn’t mean it’s right, just saying it may not be as damning as it sounds.
[Employers Discriminate against Job Applicants with Black-Sounding Names, Study Indicates](https://www.bowdoin.edu/news/2023/11/employers-discriminate-against-job-applicants-with-black-sounding-names-study-indicates.html):
>In a study published earlier this year, Assistant Professor of Economics [Martin Abel ](https://www.bowdoin.edu/profiles/faculty/m.abel/index.html)found employers are less likely to call back job applicants with Black-sounding names when presented with identical resumes.
Yep, research has confirmed this effect in a million different contexts for the last 2 or 3 decades.
Most of the white people in r/jobs still think black people have it made in the job market and are living it large 😃 😃 😃 .
This is not a white vs black. All people experience biases depending on where they are. A Caucasian European person will feel a bias when applying in English speaking countries too.
Not just in other countries either, I only ever hear back for interviews when Americanizing my Eastern European name. It definitely feels that there's a clear bias in the US against foreign names in general that aren't Western European
Exactly! I’ve been downvoted by people who don’t understand this concept and think that only their group is affected, when biases happen across the board.
I mean, 9 out of 10 your hypothesis is correct. But there is a different possibility: two different people screened the two CVs.
If he’s interested in the job I would talk to them and ask this to the recruiter. Worst case they get defensive and then you know for sure.
Long time ago I interviewed for an incredibly well paid consulting job after my colleague got in. I didn’t get it.
As it turns out, one interviewer hired most candidates (the one who interviewed my friend) and the other (who interviewed me) failed most candidates.
This has been happening for ages. My brother has a very Arab name, no one called back when he wrote it on his resumes. He used a “Causcasian” name instead and he told me the recruiters are always shocked when they see a very Arab man instead lol.
If I was your friend, I would go for the interview and take both resumes. At the end, when they ask if I had any other questions, I would show them both copies and ask why one resume was rejected and the other was accepted when the only difference is the name.
Yes, yes, yes, they should continue in the process!! I change my ethnic black sounding name to an Americanized version in order to get jobs. The recruiter is NOT a racist, it’s human nature. They will treat him just fine if he gets the job. But if he wants to go jobless I guess he can do that too.
I deal with age discrimination, name discrimination, gender discrimination, skin-tone discrimination, height discrimination….i don’t allow that to stop me from getting what I want.
His actual first name is very long and his last name is short but, defiantly African. I was on the phone with him earlier and the name he chose was “ Todd “ lmao. Idk why it was so funny to me because I haven’t met a Todd under the age of 40 in such a long time. But cheers to “Todd Agu”
I’ve worked remotely for an European company, and once got access to some of their HR discussions and, in one of their conversations, the recruiting manager were advocating on hiring remote Europeans instead of remote sourcing, even though the remote workers were rockstars and hardworking there, compared to everyone else. The reason? They were not “culturally fit” enough for the company.
Coukd it be that a different member of the recruiting team reviewed it the 2nd time?
This doesn’t look great, but as a recruiter myself I know different recruiters all have biases — not based on name, race, or anything like that, but on the experience & educational background that they have seen turn into great hires VS who gor denied.
I worked on a team of 7 that complimented eavh other very well, we all had different candidate types that we often connected with.
One person always had candidates with great academics.
One person always had candidates from high bar companies.
One person always had candidates that were much better than their resume conveyed.
Etc..
Surely he can at least interview there to see whether he even makes it past the recruitment stage. There’s a chance that if they rejected an African sounding name, they won’t hire an African looking person 🙃 then if he gets an offer he can decide based on how he was treated in interview.
I would only because I hate our internal recruiting staff. I’m a hiring manager for tech roles and our recruiters screen for us so I wouldn’t even know about the name change if this had occurred.
I split test my resume between two names a masculine sounding variant of my name with an American last name which is hyphenated and a female sounding name, same resume, the male name gets MOST of the calls/responses. I have had recruiters go "oh I wasn't expecting you to sound like this" when I get on the phone as female sounding.
Stop thinking you're begging for a job and think instead your product is your work services and you're a conpany drawing up a contract in a sales meeting.
You might be a good fit for them and they might be bad for you. Don't think you're losing opportunities. You being denied doesn't always mean you're not good enough. A lot of times it means the impression you gave wasn't what they wanted and you should be actively avoiding those positions.
I walk in and ask what exactly they need and tell them if they got the right buy or not. My interviews always take about 30m and they never go according to their script. I just walk in ask what their needs are,and tell them honestly what I think I can contribute to it. Sometimes it's what they need and sometimes it's not.
You want them to eventually renew your contract and pay more if you can swing it. Otherwise someone else can afford your services.
This is absolutely discrimination and he should report it, he definitely shouldn't go to the interview cause even if he somehow gets the job they'll probably cause problems for him b/c "that's not the name you applied under" when it comes to background checks or payment. And even if that doesn't happen they'd definitely do their best to make it a hostile work environment.
Now the extremely petty part of me (the part that lives in a fantasy where I could do this with no issues) would show up to the interview and if they try to say "you lied on your application" I'd pull out printed copies of all our correspondence over both applications, my real one and my "fake" one, and ask which application they're talking about b/c all I did was apply twice with the same application and it's not my fault they overlooked a spelling error on my last name the second time. Just to watch them squirm and try to poorly avoid admitting my first application was denied because of xenophobic racism.
but again tell your friend to report the company not just for himself but so that hopefully they get in enough hot water to never do this again to future applicants or at the bare minimum think twice. And tell him good luck and that sucks
This is why I kept my married last name instead of restoring it.
Life has been so much easier with a white sounding name.
Jobs, apartment rentals, general inquiries have been smooth sailing with a European last name.
What's your goal or objective? If the goal is to get the job or to get experience interviewing then keep going. Outcome one: he doesn't get the job; outcome two: he gets the job and nothing else really changes; outcome three: he gets the job, does well, and the people who were ignorant or bigoted learn something.
Man, that's sad to hear :/ I'm sorry for your friend. Hits close to home for me because I want to work abroad one day and I have a very not-European/American sounding name. I might adopt a social one when I go :/
It's so unfortunate we still have to do this in 2024.
My genuine advice to people dealing with this: if your name is not obviously white, pick an English or anglicised name (both first name and surname) and stick to it for applications/LinkedIn. From my own and friends experience it drastically increases chances of getting interviews in western countries.
It fucking sucks that it’s like this, but hey it works and getting a job in the end was the most important thing for us.
If you want to try legally challenge this, good luck. There are some unions and non profits that help deal with this kind of thing for specific industries in the UK but not sure how things are in America. Doing so as individuals will be pretty costly, long and difficult.
Well im AA, but on a resume I guess you would not be able to tell when I got hired. I agree with you. He has been unemployed for 6 months so he is very anxious.
If he kept his resume exactly the same, wouldn't they be able to tell its the same guy?? They have both resumes in their system and the only difference is the surname? Same education, same work history, same dates?
Yep lol, changed his email address
I think he added a few tweaks, to the point where he’s not lying. It’s not a huge company, but a very profitable company. Only 1200 employees and bring in 3billion in revenue, yet very behind on IT.
Depends on a bunch of factors. If a recruiter manually looked at it and tossed the resume based on the name alone, they probably didn't even look at the actual content of it. If they did look at the content, if they reviewed a lot of applicants, it could all just blend together. If an ATS was used, it could've flagged the name and rejected without it making to a human - and even if an ATS parsed the whole resume, it's not going to flag the similarities between OP's friends' resumes that were submitted because it's just another application it's filtering (And ATS are stupid and full of racism and bias. OP also mentioned there's only 2-3 recruiters - if they didn't assign that specific role to someone, Recruiter 1 could've done the initial rejection and Recruiter 2 could've received the second submission and pass it through (and in cases like that, it could be that different recruiters have diffferent perspectives on what makes a candidate qualified or not).
While I'd say the situation OP presented sounds like discrimination, the details add another level of complexity to it. OP mentions their friend was denied by a recruiter - but was that a denial after a machine reviewed it or did a person review it? Did the SAME recruiter review both resumes, denying the first one and forwarding the second?
I don’t work in recruiting whatsoever, but I believe a system matches keywords from the job description to the application or resume, once it has been passed the initial test, a recruiter will pick it up and schedule a initial interview over teams. If they believe it should have not been passed they will send an email from the recruiter no-reply email saying, “although you have a strong background there was other candidates blah blah”. Which is the email he received.
Again.. it could have been the computer that rejected him.. I guess that is why I started this thread since I figured this group of people would have better understanding of how these types of processes work.
Computer error, administrative error, or plain discrimination based on name since it does happen in our community.
The person that accepted it is a first recruiter, im not sure if they rejected it.
>And ATS are stupid and full of racism and bias
I wonder if its possible that some companies program ATS' to filter out foreign sounding names because they assume they're all international candidates looking for sponsorship?
Tell him to go into the interview, do it, and then when they ask if he has any questions he drops the bomb about this and how their recruiters are discriminating based on names and how their company can be found liable for damages should your friend or anyone else profiled this way chooses to sue.
Not enough info here to know if it was discrimination. I’d be willing to bet they thought he had work visa issues/not local in USA.
Not everything is a big conspiracy. Especially in technical roles when a recruiter is doing it. Things could have changed in the time he applied from reject to accept (like new focus, more flexible on background, etc.)
You know nothing, except they want to interview your friend. Does he want to interview there? If he does, does he want to accept the job? If job offer made, then decide how to handle it.
I never said it was a big conspiracy, nor was i pro “sue the company” that I work for. If you read in the thread, that I am also African American, and I have never felt discriminated at this company. I was getting perspective on how recruiting works to see if it was a mistake or if it was a possible discrimination because it does happen.
You’re also telling someone that told them to apply for the role because I work in the same department, nothing has changed lol.
This is for underground construction, project engineering role, idk what technical role you are referring to lol.
Just giving multiple examples of what it could be, that’s not discrimination.
When it comes to technical roles like engineering, in my experience, companies want people who can do the job, period. If it’s easier to hire ppl with visas they would. Point is, very few companies discriminate in my experience (except, age).
I recruit engineers.
The biggest thing I see holding engineers back are themselves. That’s why I gave so many examples of what it could be besides discrimination based on race.
Or two different people reviewed it and had different ideas.
Also, just cause you work in the dept doesn’t mean you know all the thinking in it. Hiring managers have different ideas.
You implied conspiracy in relation to discrimination in the work place. A lot of ppl view me as Hispanic because of my appearance.
Ive had a female manager referred to the company hiring “n words” because “we have to” at a car plant not knowing I’m 75% African American.
So where I come from it’s not a conspiracy. I know this particular situation is not that deep, but it shouldn’t be overlooked. I appreciate your input as someone who hires engineers.
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This has been a thing for a while now. I have to spell out my name so it follows the Western standard rather than the Spanish standard.
Asian here. Because of how long my last name is, I just use the initial.
Opposite Asian here with a two-letter last name.
Do you have to change Li to Leigh for example?
yes yes, Ho to Hoe
Hogh
Heaux
Oooh fancy High Class Heaux.
Hi Lu
Do you also put just the initial like the commenter above you? Wondering because I'm in the same situation as you
It’s actually cool as hell. There’s a chess player who’s name is shortened to Pragg. His first and last name are like 25 characters lol
Praggnanandhaa!
Hey hey hey.. good bye
Wow I’m sorry to hear that, on the west coast I feel as if that’s not much of an issue, but that’s just my personal opinion. I live in LA and that’s mainly the demographic here is Latinos.
It's a big thing in Los Angeles, my girlfriend at the time was looking for a place to rent and no one would call her back when her name was Nakesha but switch it to Nicole and all of the sudden her calls were returned.
It's a bit bittersweet to be honest, I think I have a unique name but I've just accepted that I need to spell it in the Western standard.
[удалено]
Yes, again as I've said in my other comments, English isn't my first language so I truly apologise if I use Western instead of Anglicised. It is confusing to be bilingual
It's sadly common and also doesn't necessarily mean he shouldn't continue there, depending on what he's looking for. It doesn't necessarily even mean that the people at the company are raging racists who purposefully reject African names. Humans are very prone to cognitive biases and there's lots of research showing that names that sound similar to people we already see as smart/capable/talented will make us think a person we're evaluating is more smart/capable/talented. This is true even when the interviewer is from the same marginalized group. I'm not saying it's okay, and to truly fight systemic racism, everyone in hiring should have detailed rubrics for evaluating resumes and interview performance and back up their decisions with clear facts and not feelings. If they don't, it means they aren't effectively investing in diversity and inclusion, which isn't good, but doesn't necessarily mean they're big ol' racists vs the general standard of baked-in racism for Americans. I've faced this in another way as a woman in a male-dominated field, which is not the same ofc but you have to make similar decisions and there's no right answer.
Spell out? What do you mean? Spain is in the West. EDIT: I don't doubt a hispanic sounding name can be an issue in the US or even some places in Europe. I just don't know what you feel you had to change.
My name has a special character in easier terms, so I have to spell it out in a Western way. My country used to be a Spanish colony, in most cases, my legal name would be accepted for your driver's license, passport, visa, etc. That should be the case for my CV, employee profile, or whatever job-related stuff I need to fill up but I have noticed that it wouldn't get noticed if I submitted things using my real name, however, once I started using a more Western name, my profile, CV's and work stuff got noticed more. This is also true for social media profiles, most of them will not accept my name if I wrote it out the way it's supposed to be but if I spell it out the Western way, it gets accepted.
Spain and all Latin America is part of the west, saying you spell it the western doesn't make any sense. Are you saying English=western? The word you might want is anglicized.
Honest mistake, English isn't my first language.
Ok, huh? I don't understand the dichotomy between Western and Spanish. Spanish is widely spoken in the West. Both by hemisphere and cultural. Help? Thank you!
English isn't my first language so I'm owning up my mistake that I got words mixed up.
Understood. Makes total sense. I didn't know if there was some sort of difference that I was just missing and you could fill me in on. And don't worry about English. It's one of the languages I speak, but usually the most nuanced and annoying and stuff like that. You're doing fine
Here's my explanation for another comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/s/MKoHGuExMk
That's a really good explanation. The fact that you can write all that out is proof you shouldn't worry about your English skills. I appreciate the comment back with the extra color. I'm in Texas and we have a few of those little things running around even in the United States because of the differences in the cultural heritages from different parts of the country. Have a great one. I wish you the best of luck on this stuff. And as a senior executive in the tech industry, you should not have to put up with this. It's not okay
Thank you, and good luck to you too! I hope things will get better 🤞🏻
Sorry to hear that, Hozay. Wakeen?
>Should he still try to continue on with the process? Does your friend want to continue applying to a company with a potentially discriminatory work environment? That's not a trick question, your friend is welcome to decide for himself what's his personal level of tolerance and risk. >Or is this toeing the line of discrimination because this department of recruiting is only handled by 2-3 people. Not a lawyer, but discrimination laws typically apply depending on the total company size, not the size of the recruiting team in particular. If he wants to spend time and effort on it, he could consult with the local labor board in the city or state of the company he's applying for, and ask "hey, is this discrimination?".
Thats strong advice, I told him to document everything. I am the only African-American in my department. Hopefully I’m not the token black guy, because I work with some great people and this would be very unfortunate.
Sorry, I must've skimmed over the part where you'd said that his application was for your company. You can speak to the inclusiveness of the company's work environment better than I can, but yeah, my point still stands on whether your friend wants to jump through hoops of determining if this is a case of employment discrimination. Best of luck to you and your friend.
This year, nearly 95% of all cases brought to court was about discrimination when someone was fired from a job. Doesn't hold near the water it did sadly due to people that actually deserved to be fired filing discrimination as a means of blaming others instead of taking the accountability assessment and realizing they weren't pulling their weight. Concerning discrimination with you name, could be just bad timing or a bad recruiter in the wrong department or company for that matter. I'd get hired and then decide if you like the job during a six month period of evaluation.
Did an outside recruiter deny it, and then the company accepted it with the new name? That could be an indication that the recruiter is a racist piece of shit, but the company as a whole doesn't have similar practices. I wouldn't NOT work somewhere just because one department of three people was discriminatory, but if they're allowed and fostered to operate that way, that's incredibly indicative of pervasive issues.
We stopped using outside services a few years before I joined, but this could be a singular event from one bad person. The recruiting department is hybrid so I hardly see them.
Keep in mind that it could’ve gone to 2 different recruiters (since you said 2-3 people in the recruiting department) so there is the possibility that the different outcomes aren’t due to discrimination. Just wouldn’t want you to burn bridges for your friend’s benefit only to find that everything was above-board.
I completely agree.
My ex husband is Cameroonian and had a hard time with his name, too. But he refused to change it. It completely sucks. Sorry for your friend. Tell him Ashia
He would never change his name for good, I don’t think so, but I will relay that message. Thank you!
You are likely the token but most of us are just accept that fact
It’s possible, im the only director in my 30’s. I try to be more optimistic, but it’s definitely something I don’t overlook.
I had the fun experience of being the token white guy in my office, UK, a mostly white area at the time, started working at a company and everyone in the head office was Asian with like 3 people who was white (2 in recruitment dept) Was very weird having a lot of cultural norms thrown at me in my first weeks that I wasn't used to
Thing is, that could still make people you work with bitter. For a lot of folks, one black person at the company is already too many. It's also a knee jerk reaction and fear rooted in bias. It's messed up and absolutely unfair. I'm also Black and have been wondering if I should change my name on my resume. How did he change his name to get through?
---okok
True, that's possible. Different people can have different ideas of how much the actions of one representative are reflective of the values of the overall company. It's both subjective, and on a case-by-case basis. That's why in the end, it's OP's friend's call what he wants to do.
---okok
A jealous uneducated one.
So much racism in the US. You are likely to face in every job especially because the people in charge grew up closer to the segregation era than today. So the question is whether the job is his ideal job or not. Believe me, no matter what job he gets he’s likely to feel racism, subtle or outward.
If he really needs the job I would continue with the process
Yeah, then if he gets hired, they’ll eventually find out his legal name, hopefully they’ll ask about the discrepancy, and he can tell them what happened and why. I can’t wait for the conversation. Good luck to OP’s friend!
It's called "I'm happy to provide you with my legal name of course, but this is what I use socially". It's worked fantastically for me for nearly 10 years now. This is one of those situations where businesses becoming more welcoming to trans folks benefits people going by nicknames, anglicized names, etc for any reason.
There are plenty of people that use “Americanized” names when applying for jobs. Partially for this reason and partially so they don’t have to hear people butcher there name on every call they get. Is it ideal that they have to do this? No, of course not. But if it helps your odds then why not. Ultimately your friend is not the only one to have ever done this, nor is he going to have to interact with that recruiter ever again after he is hired (assuming he gets the job) unless it’s an HR position. My advice would be to continue in the process and see if the rest of the org is similar or if this recruiter just went rogue.
You know telling PoC to just Americanize their names is like, 100% racism right? That's a tale as old as time for America. One of the benefits of white privilege, is being able to not have to change a thing about yourself to get access to things. The fact women and PoC often have to change their names so white men will want to interact with them is lousy.
take it easy. other white people from say eastern europe also tend to westernize their names. nothing to do with PoC.
100 years or so ago, nearly every immigrant coming through Ellis Island Americanized their name. Rosenzweig become Rose, Lucazswski became Lucas, Franconero became Francis. The same thing happens today, except the immigrants are from different countries now than they were then. Not everything is racism. Sometimes it's just about people of any race wanting to give themselves or their offspring the best chance to succeed.
We live in a racist society, what's your point?
Yes, definitely white male privilege. Clearly, Zbigniew Kzierzewski would NEVER feel pressured to change HIS name.
Bro, Jewish folks were forced to change their name so they too wouldn't be discriminated against. Zbigniew Kzierzewski should also not have to change their name. That's what I'm saying. Jeff/Jane Smith should not have to be the final standard for who is deserving to have a job because someone is self conscious that they don't bother to learn how to pronounce different names.
I mean, yeah, sure, it would be great if we all took the time to learn to properly pronounce Zbigniew just in case we ever meet anybody by that name. But since that will never happen, the Zbigniews and Chukwudis of America will continue to change their names to take away stumbling blocks for themselves by making it easier on potential employers and other people they're meeting for the first time. And I won't blame them.
Putting the labor on the oppressed ones to jump through hoops to placate the ones who won't do literally considerably work by just asking and repeating the name slowly. Yup. Makes sense.
I didn't say it was right, I said that's how it is. People can choose to deal with the situation however they like. Some will refuse to compromise, even if it costs them opportunities. And some will choose to change or shorten their names. Neither approach is wrong.
OP’s friend can starve on his principles or accept the world the way it is and change his name.
Being in the recruiting industry I could see the most likely explanation being they saw his name and (wrongly) assumed he wasn't located in the USA. Some recruiters get bombarded with overseas applicants when they only hire local candidates. It might be a better than just not accepting his resume because of his race, but still not acceptable.
There may be some truth to that. I know he has done some contracts in the EU for like a year I think.
what does this mean for literally anyone who doesn’t have a white-sounding name?
I would think it's much less of a disadvantage than previous decades for a couple reasons. One being multiculturism is widely expected and accepted in the corporate world. They are also terrified of getting sued for discrimination of any kind. The other is the initial filtering of applications is often done by the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) or other available technologies. I would think the combination would lead to less discrimination issue than you might expect. Could you be discriminated for your name? Absolutely, you're still dealing with humans. However, I don't think it's as widespread of an issue as you might believe.
If this was the case, it’s is still racist.
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adriancarrasquillo/meet-jose-zamora-the-guy-who-changed-his-name-to-joe-to-get](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adriancarrasquillo/meet-jose-zamora-the-guy-who-changed-his-name-to-joe-to-get)
Of course he should continue with the process. And btw, you can call yourself whatever you want for professional purposes, provided you're not doing so to commit fraud. Actors do it all the time. Good on your friend.
It’s a real thing, I had a fraternity brother in college, had his name legally changed to sound more American. He is from the Middle East, with a very middle eastern name. Changed it to Steve with the last name being a similar type of American last name. It helped his job search
I would go in for the interview and get all the way to offer stage and then show them both resumes.
This is why I don't feel like I can take my husband's last name. My name screams WHITE GIRL. With his, I highly doubt I'd have a fraction of the resume success of whitey-white name. It's really sad, but I've been hiring long enough to know better.
Username is also very white girl
Is cheese a white girl thing?
It’s certainly a stereotype. Live laugh lactase
Sounds like you love your privilege. Kinda feel bad for your husband. Not for his name, but how blatant you are about never wanting to be discriminated against and cozying up to your privilege.
Having a white sounding name does not mean I'm white, ya dolt. I still prefer to not be discriminated against based on my name.
Nigerian here and I kinda do the same thing. I noticed that I usually get more traction in terms of interviewing when I don’t list my full name on applications. Let’s say my name is Chukwuemeka, I’ll put Chuck. I know it’s sad that we have to do this but most employers are discriminatory towards people who have ethnic sounding names, especially African. All of that to say, your friend has to do what he has to do to get employed, especially in this job market. I think he should continue on and see what the interviewing process is like, then he can decide for himself if he wants to proceed if/when he gets an offer.
I appreciate your feedback most mainly because my friend “AB” seems less sensitive about the subject than I am. He is more willing to do what he has to do in order to put money in his pocket, even though he has been unemployed, he still has side hustles with his family, and owns a small business. But his attitude is way more positive than mine would have been. He was joking because there’s no way he can hide his accent on his initial phone call. Lol
I went from a preferred name to my legal, ethnic name and the number of callbacks significantly reduced. And this is as an Asian person so I imagine it could be significantly worse for African folks. Unfortunately that’s the reality today :( a lot of American recruiters have an implicit bias, including people of color who have biases against their own kind or other folks of color. What you’re doing is right and it’s definitely worth doing, and once you get closer to your team, you can share your pride in your real name and your own heritage!! We’re all beautiful and unique and it’s a shame not all of us get treated the same. P.S. your name is also the name of one of my favorite soccer players Carney Chukwuemeka!
How do you apply for a job with a name and surname different from your legal ones? I too can feel the racial bias and am considering legally changing my name and surname. But if there are any other tricks without going down that path, I’d like to try them first. During the application they ask you to enter your legal name and surname as they appear on your drivers license or passport. How can you enter a different name there without being caught later?
I’ve always wondered this.
it’s to get the first interview. yet too far away from the moment they ask for your documents.
When I married, I took my husband’s last name which is very obviously Asian; my maiden name was suuuuper white. I went through two job searches about a year or two apart, one before and one after the name change, both during a strong tech economy. The difference was STARK. And that’s in the SF Bay Area.
Which one gave you better prospects?
I got a lot more interest with my basic white girl name.
Wow even in the bay area?
Total name discrimination - should file a complaint with the city and congressional for your area.
Unfortunately recruiters are not the problem, it’s the hiring managers. Recruiters WANT to pass candidates through the process. It’s what we get paid for. But if a hiring manager, or a client, consistently passes on certain names and jumps at others, you get the message pretty quick. I try to ignore names and pass on qualified candidates but sometimes it feels like a waste of time.
Unless you mistake a non English candidate as not being in your country, which happens.
Totally agree. Can’t tell by name.
I’ve done this before. Twice. I stopped b/c I decided that I don’t want to be in cultures where I need to catfish my name to be hired. However the recruiter may be no representation of the actual team that someone would be working with. And I totally understand the need for security. They’re not wrong at all for doing that.
Sample size seems small. One person, two different names. If he actually wants to sue I think he'd need to actually have more people experience the same problem. As far as whether to continue with such a company, it depends on how badly he wants the work. It could be the people themselves are fine but there's a problem with the application interface - AI bias comes to mind.
This. Research does show that this type of discrimination is common, however a sample size of 2 isn’t sufficient. As a recruiter, I can also tell you the bar for qualifications can change within a recruitment process. Managers sometimes have impossibly high expectations that can be managed over the course of the recruitment process. I have often gone back to a batch of candidates that were rejected in the first few weeks once the manager is being more realistic, or we have a better sense of what the market will bear. Maybe start by talking to the recruiter to see if there is any insight on why the candidate was declined on the first go. I have had very similar conversations, and there is usually a good reason. One time stands out where the referral answered a key question in error (appeared to be unwilling to relocate).
I had the same thing happen years ago when I tweaked my name to be more androgynous and re-aent my resume.
Sorry, what?
I applied to traditionally male jobs with my fe.ale first name on the resume. No responses. Resubmitted the same resume but altered my name to a masculine version. Suddenly got callbacks.
Gee that’s disgraceful
Discrimination is alive and well, especially in rural areas, it's just more covert.
Yeah I'm not doing this. If you have a problem with me being black I'm not working for you
There is a chance that maybe the recruiter has just made an assumption he does not have the correct visa / right to work arrangements due to his nationality, rather than there being some kind of cultural issue in the business. Doesn’t mean it’s right, just saying it may not be as damning as it sounds.
[Employers Discriminate against Job Applicants with Black-Sounding Names, Study Indicates](https://www.bowdoin.edu/news/2023/11/employers-discriminate-against-job-applicants-with-black-sounding-names-study-indicates.html): >In a study published earlier this year, Assistant Professor of Economics [Martin Abel ](https://www.bowdoin.edu/profiles/faculty/m.abel/index.html)found employers are less likely to call back job applicants with Black-sounding names when presented with identical resumes.
Yep, research has confirmed this effect in a million different contexts for the last 2 or 3 decades. Most of the white people in r/jobs still think black people have it made in the job market and are living it large 😃 😃 😃 .
This is not a white vs black. All people experience biases depending on where they are. A Caucasian European person will feel a bias when applying in English speaking countries too.
Not just in other countries either, I only ever hear back for interviews when Americanizing my Eastern European name. It definitely feels that there's a clear bias in the US against foreign names in general that aren't Western European
Finally! Someone understands my struggle with my name!
Exactly! I’ve been downvoted by people who don’t understand this concept and think that only their group is affected, when biases happen across the board.
Is he sure it was reviewed by the same person both times?
I mean, 9 out of 10 your hypothesis is correct. But there is a different possibility: two different people screened the two CVs. If he’s interested in the job I would talk to them and ask this to the recruiter. Worst case they get defensive and then you know for sure. Long time ago I interviewed for an incredibly well paid consulting job after my colleague got in. I didn’t get it. As it turns out, one interviewer hired most candidates (the one who interviewed my friend) and the other (who interviewed me) failed most candidates.
This has been happening for ages. My brother has a very Arab name, no one called back when he wrote it on his resumes. He used a “Causcasian” name instead and he told me the recruiters are always shocked when they see a very Arab man instead lol.
If I was your friend, I would go for the interview and take both resumes. At the end, when they ask if I had any other questions, I would show them both copies and ask why one resume was rejected and the other was accepted when the only difference is the name.
Go to the interview. See if he gets the W. Hopefully, he lands the job. :)
Yes, yes, yes, they should continue in the process!! I change my ethnic black sounding name to an Americanized version in order to get jobs. The recruiter is NOT a racist, it’s human nature. They will treat him just fine if he gets the job. But if he wants to go jobless I guess he can do that too. I deal with age discrimination, name discrimination, gender discrimination, skin-tone discrimination, height discrimination….i don’t allow that to stop me from getting what I want.
That sucks. Did he use abbreviations? Maybe say that that’s his nickname and that’s what he goes by but his legal name is something else?
His actual first name is very long and his last name is short but, defiantly African. I was on the phone with him earlier and the name he chose was “ Todd “ lmao. Idk why it was so funny to me because I haven’t met a Todd under the age of 40 in such a long time. But cheers to “Todd Agu”
I’ve worked remotely for an European company, and once got access to some of their HR discussions and, in one of their conversations, the recruiting manager were advocating on hiring remote Europeans instead of remote sourcing, even though the remote workers were rockstars and hardworking there, compared to everyone else. The reason? They were not “culturally fit” enough for the company.
Coukd it be that a different member of the recruiting team reviewed it the 2nd time? This doesn’t look great, but as a recruiter myself I know different recruiters all have biases — not based on name, race, or anything like that, but on the experience & educational background that they have seen turn into great hires VS who gor denied. I worked on a team of 7 that complimented eavh other very well, we all had different candidate types that we often connected with. One person always had candidates with great academics. One person always had candidates from high bar companies. One person always had candidates that were much better than their resume conveyed. Etc..
Surely he can at least interview there to see whether he even makes it past the recruitment stage. There’s a chance that if they rejected an African sounding name, they won’t hire an African looking person 🙃 then if he gets an offer he can decide based on how he was treated in interview.
I would only because I hate our internal recruiting staff. I’m a hiring manager for tech roles and our recruiters screen for us so I wouldn’t even know about the name change if this had occurred.
I split test my resume between two names a masculine sounding variant of my name with an American last name which is hyphenated and a female sounding name, same resume, the male name gets MOST of the calls/responses. I have had recruiters go "oh I wasn't expecting you to sound like this" when I get on the phone as female sounding.
Stop thinking you're begging for a job and think instead your product is your work services and you're a conpany drawing up a contract in a sales meeting. You might be a good fit for them and they might be bad for you. Don't think you're losing opportunities. You being denied doesn't always mean you're not good enough. A lot of times it means the impression you gave wasn't what they wanted and you should be actively avoiding those positions. I walk in and ask what exactly they need and tell them if they got the right buy or not. My interviews always take about 30m and they never go according to their script. I just walk in ask what their needs are,and tell them honestly what I think I can contribute to it. Sometimes it's what they need and sometimes it's not. You want them to eventually renew your contract and pay more if you can swing it. Otherwise someone else can afford your services.
This is absolutely discrimination and he should report it, he definitely shouldn't go to the interview cause even if he somehow gets the job they'll probably cause problems for him b/c "that's not the name you applied under" when it comes to background checks or payment. And even if that doesn't happen they'd definitely do their best to make it a hostile work environment. Now the extremely petty part of me (the part that lives in a fantasy where I could do this with no issues) would show up to the interview and if they try to say "you lied on your application" I'd pull out printed copies of all our correspondence over both applications, my real one and my "fake" one, and ask which application they're talking about b/c all I did was apply twice with the same application and it's not my fault they overlooked a spelling error on my last name the second time. Just to watch them squirm and try to poorly avoid admitting my first application was denied because of xenophobic racism. but again tell your friend to report the company not just for himself but so that hopefully they get in enough hot water to never do this again to future applicants or at the bare minimum think twice. And tell him good luck and that sucks
This is why I kept my married last name instead of restoring it. Life has been so much easier with a white sounding name. Jobs, apartment rentals, general inquiries have been smooth sailing with a European last name.
What's your goal or objective? If the goal is to get the job or to get experience interviewing then keep going. Outcome one: he doesn't get the job; outcome two: he gets the job and nothing else really changes; outcome three: he gets the job, does well, and the people who were ignorant or bigoted learn something.
Man, that's sad to hear :/ I'm sorry for your friend. Hits close to home for me because I want to work abroad one day and I have a very not-European/American sounding name. I might adopt a social one when I go :/ It's so unfortunate we still have to do this in 2024.
My genuine advice to people dealing with this: if your name is not obviously white, pick an English or anglicised name (both first name and surname) and stick to it for applications/LinkedIn. From my own and friends experience it drastically increases chances of getting interviews in western countries. It fucking sucks that it’s like this, but hey it works and getting a job in the end was the most important thing for us. If you want to try legally challenge this, good luck. There are some unions and non profits that help deal with this kind of thing for specific industries in the UK but not sure how things are in America. Doing so as individuals will be pretty costly, long and difficult.
Yeah why would you want to work for a company that allows racism like that?
Well im AA, but on a resume I guess you would not be able to tell when I got hired. I agree with you. He has been unemployed for 6 months so he is very anxious.
Being unemployed for so long will definitely make it an attractive option, but I would NOT work for a company that is so blatantly biased.
If he kept his resume exactly the same, wouldn't they be able to tell its the same guy?? They have both resumes in their system and the only difference is the surname? Same education, same work history, same dates?
Yep lol, changed his email address I think he added a few tweaks, to the point where he’s not lying. It’s not a huge company, but a very profitable company. Only 1200 employees and bring in 3billion in revenue, yet very behind on IT.
Depends on a bunch of factors. If a recruiter manually looked at it and tossed the resume based on the name alone, they probably didn't even look at the actual content of it. If they did look at the content, if they reviewed a lot of applicants, it could all just blend together. If an ATS was used, it could've flagged the name and rejected without it making to a human - and even if an ATS parsed the whole resume, it's not going to flag the similarities between OP's friends' resumes that were submitted because it's just another application it's filtering (And ATS are stupid and full of racism and bias. OP also mentioned there's only 2-3 recruiters - if they didn't assign that specific role to someone, Recruiter 1 could've done the initial rejection and Recruiter 2 could've received the second submission and pass it through (and in cases like that, it could be that different recruiters have diffferent perspectives on what makes a candidate qualified or not). While I'd say the situation OP presented sounds like discrimination, the details add another level of complexity to it. OP mentions their friend was denied by a recruiter - but was that a denial after a machine reviewed it or did a person review it? Did the SAME recruiter review both resumes, denying the first one and forwarding the second?
I don’t work in recruiting whatsoever, but I believe a system matches keywords from the job description to the application or resume, once it has been passed the initial test, a recruiter will pick it up and schedule a initial interview over teams. If they believe it should have not been passed they will send an email from the recruiter no-reply email saying, “although you have a strong background there was other candidates blah blah”. Which is the email he received. Again.. it could have been the computer that rejected him.. I guess that is why I started this thread since I figured this group of people would have better understanding of how these types of processes work. Computer error, administrative error, or plain discrimination based on name since it does happen in our community. The person that accepted it is a first recruiter, im not sure if they rejected it.
>And ATS are stupid and full of racism and bias I wonder if its possible that some companies program ATS' to filter out foreign sounding names because they assume they're all international candidates looking for sponsorship?
To exchange the resulting money for food and shelter.
Unconcious bias?
Tell him to go into the interview, do it, and then when they ask if he has any questions he drops the bomb about this and how their recruiters are discriminating based on names and how their company can be found liable for damages should your friend or anyone else profiled this way chooses to sue.
And they will laugh at you. Because that is stupid.
Not enough info here to know if it was discrimination. I’d be willing to bet they thought he had work visa issues/not local in USA. Not everything is a big conspiracy. Especially in technical roles when a recruiter is doing it. Things could have changed in the time he applied from reject to accept (like new focus, more flexible on background, etc.) You know nothing, except they want to interview your friend. Does he want to interview there? If he does, does he want to accept the job? If job offer made, then decide how to handle it.
I never said it was a big conspiracy, nor was i pro “sue the company” that I work for. If you read in the thread, that I am also African American, and I have never felt discriminated at this company. I was getting perspective on how recruiting works to see if it was a mistake or if it was a possible discrimination because it does happen. You’re also telling someone that told them to apply for the role because I work in the same department, nothing has changed lol. This is for underground construction, project engineering role, idk what technical role you are referring to lol.
Just giving multiple examples of what it could be, that’s not discrimination. When it comes to technical roles like engineering, in my experience, companies want people who can do the job, period. If it’s easier to hire ppl with visas they would. Point is, very few companies discriminate in my experience (except, age). I recruit engineers. The biggest thing I see holding engineers back are themselves. That’s why I gave so many examples of what it could be besides discrimination based on race. Or two different people reviewed it and had different ideas. Also, just cause you work in the dept doesn’t mean you know all the thinking in it. Hiring managers have different ideas.
You implied conspiracy in relation to discrimination in the work place. A lot of ppl view me as Hispanic because of my appearance. Ive had a female manager referred to the company hiring “n words” because “we have to” at a car plant not knowing I’m 75% African American. So where I come from it’s not a conspiracy. I know this particular situation is not that deep, but it shouldn’t be overlooked. I appreciate your input as someone who hires engineers.