‘Whitened’ résumés get more job interviews: study

Job applicants sometimes change their résumés to hide their racial identities to improve their chances of getting a job interview, according to a recent study. Of the people studied, one-third said they had used a different name or left out some work experience that would have revealed their racial identities. Two-thirds said they knew someone who had done the same. Applicants were more likely to not change or “whiten” their résumés if the employer had a pro-diversity hiring policy.

Troubling gap between ‘whitened’ and ‘un-whitened’ résumés

Researchers then sent out 1,600 résumés, half of which were “whitened” and half which were not. Half were sent to pro-diversity employers.  In all cases, the résumés that were “whitened” got twice call-back rate than those that were not.

“(What is) kind of troubling is that this gap between the ‘whitened’ and ‘un-whitened’ résumés was no different for the pro-diversity employers,” said Sonia Kang, a professor at the University of Toronto and lead author of the study.

Pro-diversity employers discriminated

“For the employers who said they valued diversity, they’re equal-opportunity employers, they were just as likely to discriminate against those racially-transparent résumés than employers who didn’t mention diversity at all.”

Kang concludes that employers may have good intentions, but that simply stating a pro-diversity policy does not solve the problem of discrimination. “What really needs to happen is a closer look needs to be taken at hiring practices—how are hiring managers going through résumés, how can that process be changed in order to make it more likely for minorities to actually get a call back.”