IMG_7600

In a recent meeting on name-blind recruitment with the Prime Minister, Raphael Mokades (Founder of Rare Recruitment) picked up on a remarkable point made by David Cameron, stating that “It is easier to get an interview if you are called Sam Johnson than if you are called Oluwatobi Adeyemi, and this is simply not fair.”

Name-blind recruitment is where names are taken off CVs and job applications in order to decrease institutional bias from the organisation. The idea is that decisions on whether a candidate is suitable for a role are based on the information presented and the skills of the candidate, not their name. Candidates with obviously African, Asian or Caribbean names are the ones affected by institutional bias from firms and these candidates should not be at a disadvantage when applying for job roles due to a factor beyond their control; their name.

Marianne Bertrand (The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business) conducted a study investigating racial bias in hiring. Similar, fictitious, CVs with extensive experience and education were sent out to companies in various industries, with the only difference being the applicants’ names. The names chosen were distinctively White sounding or distinctively African-American sounding, and the results showed that applicants with White sounding names are 50% more likely to get called for an initial interview compared to candidates with African-American sounding names and these results were consistent across all the industries involved in the study. This demonstrates that institutional bias has a profound effect on the opportunities available for people with non-white names, regardless of their education or work experience.

What is important to note is that other types of interviewer biases do exist such as confirmation bias and anchoring, and can affect the outcome of interviews. However name-blind recruitment is the first step in reducing this clear bias that prevents applicants from getting to interview stage. Firms should make clear how far they’re willing to go to in terms of protecting the anonymity of their applicants. Some firms have gone further than name-blind recruitment to a ‘CV-blind’ process where not only the names of the candidates are removed, but also the schools and universities attended.