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Comment by _m8fo | Hacker News Reader

Unsurprising. I tell all of my minorities friends to remove their pictures from LinkedIn and use American sounding names. The increase in callbacks always shocks me. You can do this experiment in reverse yourself if you already have an American sounding name.

Unfortunately the real solution, anonymity, will probably never be adopted because there are groups who benefit from being identified. There's way too much many in tech to for the incumbents to leave it to merit.

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It's not really as clear-cut as that, Australia for instance had some study results* led by a Hardvard Grad show the opposite, that blind recruitment generally favored the white male majority as it precluded affirmative action hires.

*https://pmc.gov.au/resource-centre/domestic-policy/going-bli...

If a truly anonymous (which I'm skeptical that study was, but I'll give them the benefit of doubt) hiring method yields more white people, then that's 100% OK. The goal IMO should be to prevent bias with respect to gender, race, etc; not to implement a quota resulting in a certain percentage of people from backgrounds being hired.

"The goal IMO should be to prevent bias with respect to gender, race, etc"

One would think, no?

But there's a considerable number of people who don't feel that way - they think that 50/50 gender balance is a 'moral imperative' for example.

Surely, it's their right to think that, even promote it. But I'm weary of that kind of ideology being used to shut down other voices - which I think happens frequently.

I believe that the Guardian article (and the Graun as a whole, I read it every day and see the pattern) speaks to this: that specific minorities are underrepresented in certain roles 'must be due to racism' I think is unfair. Surely it plays a part, but there are so many other factors.

We need cool, rational heads on this subject.

Anonymity as a solution assumes that the problem ends at hiring. It's unlikely that whatever forces cause people to racially discriminate during hiring are going to go stop causing problems once somebody gets the job. And some decisions, like promotions and pay-raises, can't feasibly be done anonymously.

Why would this be the case if they stated Asians and other minorities have not been affected? Black and Latino names are way more common in the US than Asians / Indians. Are you saying that silicon valley will hire every other minority besides black and latinos?

> inorities friends to remove their pictures from LinkedIn and use American sounding names.

i assume minorities here doesn't include Indians.

When I say minority I mean anyone who doesn't have a European or American sounding name. Even white people with "strange names" benefit.

This is one reason why I advocate giving your kids (if in America, at least) really boring names. Just scratch anything remotely strange off the list, and forget about it.

If you can't imagine a Kennedy or a character on 1950s US TV having the name, don't use it. Having a "special" name is unlikely to bring any benefit, and may well have significant social costs (plus having always to repeat yourself and spell your name, correcting misspellings on forms, et c.)

With my three young kids I already regret the very, very slightly unusual name we used for the first one (ordinary spelling for the name, name has a long history but it's almost homophonic with a 20x more common name, which we should have just used instead). Just don't do it.

There are plenty of people who regret having the common name, too. Hard to find them online, sometimes you get a mixup with someone else's arrest warrant or credit report, etc.

Male with the most common American male name from 1950-2000 here (and top 5 for the last 100 years or more). I don't even hear my name when spoken in public, I only hear familiar voices or my last name (I usually give a fake name when ordering food or waiting for tires, etc). I went to a large high school and a small college. There were 3-4 persons with my same name in every class. Eventually everyone refers to you by your last name or a nickname. This has not stopped even into adulthood.

Even as a professional working for a small business, I get re-introduced over and over again to the same people. I'm sure that my words and appearance play a role in that as well, but surely my name is not helping.

I'd be prepared to bet that majority of European non-English/French/German/Spanish names do not sound familiar to Americans (USA-centric).

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