Thursday, May 21, 2009

Foreign sounding names have less chance of getting an interview

This is based on a study conducted at the UBC with researchers sending out 6000 mock resumes to 2000 online job postings. Don't just read the article: watch the video of the full interview with the principle researcher who conducted the study to see where he got his more likely/less likely statistics.

From the article and interview:
  • A person with a foreign sounding name was 35% less likely to receive a call back (interview)
  • "The study also found employers preferred Canadian work experience over Canadian education. For resumés with foreign names and education, call backs nearly doubled when the applicant had held one previous job in Canada." (article)
  • However you cut the data, foreign born immigrants are doing distinctively worse in the labor market. (interview)
What I would also like to know is how likely the fake resume was to get a call back at all to an online job posting and where those job postings were located, as in from an employer's website or on an online job posting board, like Monster.

Cross-posted at co-agitating.

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