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Comment by MartinCron | Hacker News Reader

The last time I was hiring, I wished I could easily review resumes without seeing the names, email addresses, physical addresses, school names, or even telephone numbers as I felt that I was bringing in my arbitrary bias.

Telephone numbers? I found that I identified a lot more with area code 206 than 425 or 253, just as I identify a lot more with an @gmail.com address than @hotmail.com or @aol.com.

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That's a great idea. Next time we put out a request for resumes we might just make something that allows for this. And put it on github..

If you wind up doing that, let me know. I would be willing to help if at all possible. Contact info is in my profile. Thanks.

Don't you think, though, if you have such arbitrary biases, it would be better to work on them than hide the problem?

It wouldn't be hiding biases, it would be making them inconsequential. That's pretty much the best you can hope for, once you admit the possibility that there's no such state as bias-free.

So what, you're going to get all the way to the job offer without knowing their name?

Let's imagine an totally awesome resume from this candidate:

- Kaytlyn (female, youngish, spelled unconventionally)

- who graduated from WSU (the rival of my alma matter)

- who has a 253 area code (my least favorite suburb)

- who uses Papyrus for headings (my least favorite font)

- with the email address belieber69@aol.com (triple yuck)

I would want to get that person in for an interview and explicitly check the subtle biases of me and other people who are making hiring decisions.

True story: when I was in college I had a classmate in my database class who was so good-looking it kind of hurt to look at her. I never once explicitly thought that she was a dumb blonde, but I was surprised when I found out that she was just brilliant. Similarly, I worked on a group project with a few prototypical "frat boys" with their Abercrombie sweaters and backwards baseball caps, and found myself surprised that they were smart as hell, too.

I just want to give people an honest chance to be brilliant and not have their resumes passed over for bullshit reasons, even subconsciously.

I would like to think that I could do both. I really want to believe that the playing field is level no matter if your first name is Paul or Venkatesh or Bambi or LaTonya, but I don't have absolute trust in that. The "screen" is a tool in helping with that.

But how would you do that? Hiding biasing factors is a simple, actionable approach. Do you have a better idea?

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