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Comment by quantumfissure | Hacker News Reader

I'm white with a "more ethnic sounding" name.

I wasn't getting callbacks or interviews by filling out that information on job applications or in Linkedin. Despite having 9+ years in Tech for a major company.

The day after I removed my picture off LinkedIn and stopped answering the "race" question on applications, I started getting tons of calls.

YMMV, but that was my experience, so I'm not shocked.

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What exactly is an "ethnic sounding" name?

Pretty much all the literature out there shows that people with more "white names" get more interviews and have more callbacks.

2008 - https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/35823/1/584702035.pd...

2016 - http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Whitening%20MS%...

2017 - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23780231177371...

My first and last name aren't typical Anglo-Saxon (i.e. John; Mark; Bill; Ken; etc...).

So anything that's not Anglo-Saxon is ethnic sounding? What country are you based in?

> What country are you based in?

From context it is USA. Asking job applicants about race is illegal or at least not common in most countries.

United States of America.

So something like Joaquim Estevez?

Interestingly, in the UK Bill, Ken, John are often seen as lower class names and names like Dominic, Lucian, Francis are more upper class.

Actually, yes. Paternal/Family name is Hispanic; First name is after my great-great-great grandfather. That gives me an "ethnic sounding" name.

Sometimes missionaries (among others) when they go abroad give their locally born kids local names, sometimes they take on local surnames (if the move is permanent) though that’s much less common. Of course there can be marriages too that can mix things up too.

Probably a name that was never used by a King of England or found in the New Testament, if the GP is from the US.

You should not answer to a question which has no scientific value. Answering a question about race is like answering to a question about astrological sign.

It's used by the EEOC to track racial (and sexual, and disabled) equity in employment.

So what? That doesn't mean grandparent is obligated to answer the question.

And by law, you're not obligated. The contention was that such questions have no "scientific" value, when they do, insofar as employment data is useful to researchers and policymakers.

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