When Resumes Are Made ‘Whiter’ to Please Potential Employers
Prospective job applicants are still “whitening” their resumes in order to get a callback, a study from the University of Toronto and Stanford University reports. The study shows that despite attempts by companies to become more diverse, hiring realities haven’t changed much, and applicants still find limited job prospects. This backs up research from the University of California at Santa Barbara that diversity initiatives in place at companies are frequently ineffective, resulting only in white employees believing that minorities are being treated more fairly. In the Toronto/Stanford study, 59 black and Asian students were interviewed, with 36% divulging the fact that they had whitened their resumes, while two-thirds noting that they knew someone who had. Applicants will whiten names, remove professional associations and activities that identify race, as well as adding experiences considered “white.” They were 1.5 times less likely to do so if the job description indicated a diversity-friendly workplace. Further, of two resumes sent to 1,600 employers, the whitened resume was twice as likely to receive a callback, even from companies that supported diversity.
See "When Resumes Are Made ‘Whiter’ to Please Potential Employers", Bourree Lam, The Atlantic, March 30, 2016