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The Government department was involved in a racial experiment with recruitment processes says the Institute of Economic Affairs, which involved sending two identical applications for 1,000 jobs – the difference being one was a typical “white British” name and the other was from a pool of names from different “ethnic minority” groups to compare the outcome . The Equality and Human Rights Commission – those who failed to pick up on New Deal, the proposed Flexible New Deal and Welfare Reform Bill – urges a clause in the Equality Bill to ban names in application forms.

The Department for Work and Pensions has been conducting an experiment which involves sending out bogus applications for 1,000 jobs nationwide. In each case it has sent out two applications, with the same qualifications but with a different name. In one case the name sounds British and white; in the other it suggests that the applicant is from a minority ethnic group. Preliminary results suggest that applications from the former group are significantly more likely to secure an offer of an interview. This, says the Equality and Human Rights Commission, should lead to a clause in the new Equality Bill banning the use of names in recruitment processes.

Institute of Economic Affairs Blog

Some points to note:

• Some employers are likely to realise something strange if they discover only the names are different therefore would harm the realistic outcome expected.
• It is the norm to refer to people by their names, whether first name, surname, both or nickname – we can’t get to the stage where people are referred to references such as Candidate #1472.
• Employers already remove details such as age, date of birth, marital status and racial group from application forms where the majority of these are illegal to request to prevent discrimination claims being made against them – however, the loop hole is a mandatory “employment monitoring” form.
• Other information provided can reveal nationality and age such as regional qualifications and type of qualifications (see quoted example below).
• Addresses can become discriminative – so can credit history in some jobs.
• A pilot in Sweden tested removing names from application forms – this increased the applicants in ethnic minorities getting an interview however didn’t increase the success rate of securing the end job.
• Some employers shortlist by selecting a random range of total received applications and not be short listing all applications. They could take the top 10 applications of the pile to invite for interview or select 20 to narrow down to 5 people to interview and 3 maybes.
• Employers may also shortlist by time – discarding early (“too keen”) and late (“not keen”) applications – sending in two identical applications is likely to be done at different dates which this factor may affect.
• Interview panels are not generally gender, race and age balanced.
• Even if an employer discriminates against an candidate at interview (should names be removed) and doesn’t
  offer them a job because of their race (or other differences) and choose someone else, this in turn acts as a form of discrimination against other candidates too who weren’t offered an interview who would have been likely to stand a better chance of getting the job should that person not took their place.

Even when they stick to the standard questions, their answers may reveal information to recruitment panels: for instance those applicants who list ‘O’ level qualifications are revealing themselves as being middle-aged at least. In the same way, those with West African qualifications, even if their name is not shown, will reveal their backgrounds.

Institute of Economic Affairs Blog