 |
|
|||||
The name game and job searches
Could your name influence job-search success? I suppose if you're a Rockefeller or a Schwarzenegger, you might get an interview more quickly. But what about first names?
I've been thinking about names ever since a job-seeker mentioned that she was considering changing hers. As a woman in her 50s, she was starting to notice that only people "of a certain age" seemed to sport the same handle as her. Her name is Alice; should she go by Allie instead?
It struck a chord, because I had been on the phone a week earlier with a customer service representative. While waiting for her computer to warm up, she made chitchat about my full name, which is Amelia.
"That's very old-fashioned," she noted. "There aren't very many of those around. Mine is out of date, too. Everyone knows how old I am by my name." Her name was Barbara.
I never thought of a name as being out of date before, like a polyester suit or a too-wide necktie. But the evidence keeps piling up. A few weeks ago, a Baltimore Sun story declared several names to be hopelessly out of fashion.
Larry, Mary, Linda, Lisa, Michael, James, Robert -- if one of these names is yours, you are apparently shouting to the world, "I'm at least 40 -- and probably closer to 60!"
On the other hand, names such as Taylor, Sidney, Ethan and Jacob all have baby rattles attached to them. These are the popular names of more recent generations.
I'm used to questions about names from people from other countries. My advice is usually to use a short, easily pronounced version of a first name, to make the applicant seem more approachable.
I started giving this advice more than a decade ago, after speaking with a human resources person who admitted that she will put a resume at the bottom of the pile if the applicant has a complicated name. This unintentional discrimination came from her fear that she would mispronounce the name when she called to set up an interview.
Shallow? Maybe, but also very human. I recently learned that a client had gone a step further on this point. In addition to shortening his first name, he was using a shorter last name. That may be making a mistake. What happens when HR personnel see a name on his driver's license or Social Security card that is different from the one they met him under?
Still, the practice of shortening names or changing them altogether is a very American thing to do. When someone wants to be distinguished, he or she might use initials. Women have been taking their husbands' names for centuries, and many of us have heard our relatives' stories of changing their names -- or having their names changed for them -- upon entering the country as immigrants.
Americanizing names seems to have been more common in the first half of the last century than it is today. Now we're more likely to change a name to fit into a database than to fit into a culture. Long names can get snagged on computer forms that don't have enough space for all of the characters.
Most parents choose their children's names with great care, trying to give them something to live up to. On top of the other considerations we give to choosing names, will we have to think about our kids' future job-search success when we christen them? Or, at least, find names that can be adapted as tastes change? For example, Elizabeth can be made into at least five other names.
I vote for the tradition in some cultures of using several names -- maybe at least five or six -- for every child. With luck, he or she will have one for every career change. It's not as good as a college fund, but it's something all the relatives can chip in on.
- Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com or at 1071 W. Seventh St., St. Paul, MN 55102.
