Is my name putting employers off my applications?

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Employing someone to do a job is a high risk activity for a business. It doesn't make sense to reject candidates on entirely unreasonable items like 'foreign sounding names' as opposed to relevant details like failing to give evidence of relevant skills and badly tailored CVs.

If you aren't getting to interview, your CV isn't as effective as you believe it is.

I mean, we already know that employers DO discriminate based on foreign sounding names, whether it makes sense to or not - it’s been proven that they do through a lot of research. Here, I’m just wondering if that stretches as far as Greek names, because I know it certainly happens to BAME candidates.

Maybe my CV isn’t all it could be, but I’ve done my best to make sure that it is, hence why I’ve ended up wondering about my name.

The only bias I've ever met is whether the name is pronounceable to English speakers. It's harder to make a connections with a candidate who has a name that no-one on the selection panel can pronounce, or everyone is pronouncing differently. So if you've got, for example, a very long Greek/Sri Lankan name, it may be worth considering shortening your first name to just one or two syllables, which makes it easier to have a conversation about, and therefore engage with. You don't have to anglicise it per se, but if it can be shortened to something that is easier to use, then it might help. It's quite a superficial thing though, I'd look at the effectiveness of the rest of your CV as well.

My name might seem difficult to pronounce, but I think the fact that you’re suggesting I change my name at all is pretty emblematic of the problem I’m talking about. How easy or difficult it is to pronounce has nothing to do with how they should be assessing my application.

And I think it’s a pretty big problem, because research shows it’s not just a matter of whether employers can easily pronounce such a name in discussion, it’s a matter of employers judging (and rejecting) candidates based on their names, and all the connotations that comes with. And supposedly it’s something that happens a lot.

Evidence 'it happens a lot' please. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I am saying it's probably not why you aren't getting a job.

And shortening your name to something more pronounceable to your location is not emblematic of anything. Many/most people shorten long names whether they are local names or not, Alexanders/dras become Alex/Ali etc, we have all sorts of shortened names ****, Rick, Jim, Bob, Mo, Sal, Lou, Pam etc etc etc

If you know there is a bias, you can either rail against it and get nowhere or you can change your tactic and bypass it to achieve what you want (while still working out how to make a more substantial change in a different way, from the inside).

Evidence 'it happens a lot' please. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I am saying it's probably not why you aren't getting a job.

And shortening your name to something more pronounceable to your location is not emblematic of anything. Many/most people shorten long names whether they are local names or not, Alexanders/dras become Alex/Ali etc, we have all sorts of shortened names ****, Rick, Jim, Bob, Mo, Sal, Lou, Pam etc etc etc

If you know there is a bias, you can either rail against it and get nowhere or you can change your tactic and bypass it to achieve what you want (while still working out how to make a more substantial change in a different way, from the inside).

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