UK job and university applications to be made anonymous
The prime minister of the UK has announced that some public-sector job applications and the university admissions process will be made anonymous, to address racial discrimination.
Writing in the Guardian newspaper, David Cameron announced that central and local government job applications will be anonymized, as will applications for UK university places, which are managed by the central admissions body UCAS.
Major public- and private-sector employers including the National Health Service, the BBC, HSBC, Deloitte, and KPMG have also agreed to anonymize their applications, according to the prime minister.
Cameron writes that the move means that “those assessing applications will not be able to see the person’s name, so the ethnic or religious background it might imply cannot influence their prospects.”
UCAS chief executive Mary Curnock Cook commented that: “We’ll be consulting with universities and colleges on name-blind applications, as well as a wider range of changes which could impact applications from BME [black and minority ethnic] students […] One of the benefits of our unique national admissions service means that it is possible both to identify and address issues of under-representation. UCAS is deeply committed to increasing participation from disadvantaged groups.”
How effective are anonymous applications in combating discrimination? This is considered in an article for IZA World of Labor by Ulf Rinne. Looking at evidence from France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, Rinne concludes that, if implemented effectively, anonymous applications mean that there is no difference in callback rates between majority and minority candidates.
However, he cautions that anonymous applications may not be desirable in every context; and cannot completely prevent discrimination, possibly simply postponing discrimination to later in the hiring process.
Read more on this story at the Guardian.
Related articles:
Anonymous job applications and hiring discrimination by Ulf Rinne
Correspondence testing studies by Dan-Olof Rooth
Find more IZA World of Labor articles about human resource management practices