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Erika Broadwater’s career began 33 years ago with a phone call. A former colleague had seen her work as an intern and invited her to apply as a marketing administrator. The position was ideal. She had just earned a business degree.
“My résumé was by typewriter,” she remembers. “But you had to, back then, go to the location and complete a paper application. There were no online portals for you to digitally apply.”
Broadwater now manages recruiters and implements some of the applicant tracking systems (ATS) that collect data from job websites. She is also CEO of the National Association of African Americans in Human Resources. Although how people navigate the market has greatly shifted from when Broadwater started working, she says one thing has remained the same: name bias.
“We have been paying a lot more attention in bringing more awareness to that stereotype, and it really is both gender and ethnic-focused,” she says. “We do know through common language — and this is in every culture for the most part, except for, perhaps, those countries and continents within the Middle East — where a name with the ending of an A is usually associated with a woman. But there are some cultures that it’s not.”
The pressure to secure employment in this economy can lead Black job seekers to think about changing their names. An analysis of 2022 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that 83.6% of Black graduates, ages 20 to 29, were employed soon after receiving associate, bachelor’s, or advanced degrees. The percentage of unemployed talent was 8.7% — higher than self-identifying Asian, Hispanic, and white graduates.
A report out this year from Strada Institute for the Future of Work and the Burning Glass Institute finds that one year after graduating, 60% of Black graduates were underemployed. This percentage was higher compared to other groups. Five years later, the underemployment percentage rate was higher than other groups, too.
Social media influencers humorize the job search process, boasting in mockumentary-style interviews about how proficient they are at Excel formulas or group projects while displaying extreme incompetence once hired. Exaggerating skill sets might be a typical practice among entry-level candidates. Shortening and completely changing names takes place at all levels. Candidates with strong ethnic names might put a more ethnically ambiguous or “whitened” version of their name on an application. This can draw more attention from the hiring team.
“I can guarantee my name has positively influenced my chances for employment,” Amber Chatham tells Word In Black. “I can recall multiple instances of the hiring manager or whoever was conducting the interview, having a look of slight, almost imperceptible shock on their face when they called me from the lobby, expecting to see someone else. As a biracial woman, I’ve encountered this both professionally and in my personal life countless times.”
Chatham is a human resources practitioner who screens hundreds of applicants with algorithms that she believes sometimes overlook qualified candidates. It’s tougher in this economy, especially for entry-level candidates. Hundreds of people might be applying for one position that decision-makers don’t fill for different reasons, she says.
The stability of certain industries fluctuates from year to year, with some candidates pivoting temporarily until their desired industry is back afloat. According to a survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, social services and engineering employers are planning to increase hires for the 2023-2024 academic year. The accounting services and electronics manufacturing industries are planning to decrease hires.
Broadwater with the NAAAHR says Black graduates entering the market this year need to seek professional mentors to talk them through their résumés, salary expectations, and long-term goals. “This generation seems to only want to stay in a job for 2-to-3 years. There is no longevity, so there is essentially no commitment. You couple that with looking to come out of school making six figures, and that’s almost unheard of in very competitive instances.”
Staying connected to alumni groups is helpful for learning about opportunities and staying motivated. There are also several organizations — Blacks in HR, Hire Black Now, and The Black HR Society, for example — that offer virtual and in-person support.
