What’s in a resumé? Councillor hopes less information for city jobs

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This article was published 24/09/2020 (1306 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A city councillor hopes removing the names from municipal job resumés will help the city increase the diversity of its workforce.

Coun. Markus Chambers will raise a motion that aims to see Winnipeg consider hiring practices that would assess resumés without identifying features, such as an applicant’s name and the names of any educational institutions they attended.

Chambers (St. Norbert-Seine River) said the changes would help prevent any unconscious bias about a candidate’s gender, race or sexual orientation, since a name could trigger assumptions about those characteristics.

“We want to ensure the best candidate is hired and level the playing field so that people with unique names or cultural names are not weeded out of the process on the basis of the difficulty in pronouncing their names, which further identifies them as members of racialized communities,” he said. “We need to focus more on the skills, qualifications and experience for the positions that are being advertised.”

Chambers said he’s heard from multiple Winnipeggers who believe their employment opportunities were compromised by judgments linked to their names, particularly when he worked with Manitoba’s Provincial Nominee Program.

While participants typically arrange their jobs before arriving in Canada, he said many of their family members believed biases made their own job searches more difficult.

“What I’ve heard anecdotally is that individuals have not been called back for interviews despite the fact that they clearly meet the requirements of the job position that has been posted,” said Chambers. “People are changing their names and anglicizing their names, just so they can get those calls for positions.”

Chambers said the removal of identifying details would likely extend beyond naming, possibly removing other details that could indicate a candidate’s country of origin, such as where they attended post-secondary school.

“They will, at point of interview, provide all of the documentation necessary that demonstrates how they meet the qualifications of that position,” he said.

Katherine Breward, who teaches human resource management at the University of Winnipeg, said nameless resumés, also known as blind or anonymous resumés, have proven to be clearly effective in increasing diversity.

“(It) absolutely helps lead to more diversity and more fair hiring outcomes. There’s just no question,” said Breward. “What a lot of people don’t realize is that a lot of bias and discrimination is based on stereotypes and actually operates on a completely non-conscious level.”

She said recruiters may incorrectly assume males have more leadership traits than females, for example, or associate false stereotypes with Indigenous candidates or people of colour without realizing that they are doing so.

“The evidence is overwhelming that these unconscious biases occur,” she said.

For example, a 2009 National Bureau of Economic Research study of Toronto job applicants found the effect appeared to be present among applicants who differed only by their names. Those with English-sounding names received interview requests 40 per cent more often than applicants with Chinese, Indian or Pakistani names.

“This has the potential to actually meaningfully move the bar in terms of equity because I believe it will result in more hiring of Indigenous people. It will result in more hiring of women and people of various ethnic groups,” said Breward.

Chambers’ motion is scheduled to be debated at the Oct. 1 Riel community committee meeting.

Joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga

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