Josh and LeBrookski have already covered this, so by now you may have heard the story that resumes of applicants with "black-sounding" names are less likely to to produce job interviews that identical resumes with "white-sounding" names. Says who? Says studies. Which studies? Just "studies", okay. (Top notch journalism there, ABC online). Having working for a short time in an independent personnel firm in New York City, I 100% believe this hypothesis, however in our office the code my boss used was that the name was "too ethnic." This routinely led to me telling my boss off, which led to me being fired after four months. Good riddance.
I guess the folks at "20/20" performed their own little experiment and put together a list of the Top 20 Most Black and White Sounding Names (whatever that means) for men and women. The names were taken from the book Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. See the ABC Article here for the lists.
So, what's in a name, that by which a rose by any other, blah blah blah? I'll tell you what: your whole professional future. Seeing as how I am trying to advance within my compay, I thought I might take a look at our internal phone directory and consider changing my name to smooth my way to the top. Here are the results of Cupcake's informal survery.
Top 10 names for Women to Get Ahead at my Job:
Cornelia
Elke
Birgit
Gisela
Sandra
Petra
Michaela
Sabine
Anna
Susanne
Top 10 Names for Men:
Christian
Martin
Jürgen
Claus
Michael
Andreas
Thomas
Stefan
Gerhard
Jörg
Of course, the ones with the best names only make the list once, like Jöachim, Elvira, Wolfgang, Guido, Hayo, Tasilo, Volker, Seigfried, and so on. But the names in between are pure gold. Trust me. Okay, so pick out a new name for Cupcake and let's get crackin'. Career advancement is calling.
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3 comments:
Looking at this list, I'm surprised Katja doesn't show up anywhere. Everyone in my high school German Text book was named Katja. What the hell happened?
My German sister's name is Silja, and I think she has a pretty name. Maybe it'll score you that corner office you've been dreaming about!
That's nice. I've always liked the name Silke. Fancy. Sounds like silk.
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