is there a way to hide your real last name on a resume?

atomom · August 7, 2012, 1:54am

OP: Why don’t you just take out one “o” and use the name “Song?” Still Asian, but not so “foreign looking/sounding” as “Soong.” No one will hesitate to pronounce “Song” since it is an English word-- which has positive/pleasant connotations for most people. If you have an English first name that is familiar and easy to pronounce, so much the better.

BCEagle91 · August 7, 2012, 1:56am

When you call for telephone service, what language do you press 2 for?

The article that you linked to provided the information on US Studies.

I cited unemployment data from the BLS. Asian unemployment has been
lower than White unemployment for the last three months.

As I said before, in general, you can’t prove that something doesn’t exist.

evitaperon · August 7, 2012, 1:56am

Of course I would work my hardest, it’s just very discouraging to be just as qualified as a white applicant but be discriminated against in terms of job and income, where the only way to make up for it is to be even more qualified. And there’s a limit to how far I can go before I decide to overdose on my risperdal and seroquel.

So your reply to statistics compiled from the Association of American Medical Colleges is anecdotal evidence that somehow “disproves” the trend?

So … your reply to detailed study upon study is a single average statistic? Did watching Hans Rosling’s talk on using averages and group statistics on TED not teach you anything? Your statistic doesn’t show quality of employment. It doesn’t show the substructure of employment, and that is important. Asians may be slightly less unemployed, but it doesn’t mean they are significantly more underemployed. Furthermore, unemployment data is typically collected by counting how many people collect their unemployment checks, and Asians are more likely to be too ashamed of their unemployment to stoop to something like that.

evitaperon · August 7, 2012, 2:00am

How do you have a beer with someone reading your CV? I bet not being able to control for that really messed up the CV study, didn’t it? :)

Also I see where you are going with this…the typical Asian stereotypes – you think of us as less social and more insular robots, amirite

BCEagle91 · August 7, 2012, 2:10am

Discouragement is everywhere.

I was at a Levi Store in an outlet mall with 200 stores. A guy came in
an asked the person at the register if they were hiring. He walked out
a moment later. I told the out-of-town guest that I was with that most
stores today require that you submit an application online for
consideration. If you can speak to a manager, though, you may be able
to bypass the online process where software is used to do first pass
filtering. His approach may have been efficient though. It would take
him far less time to go into 200 stores and ask than it would be to do
200 online applications. I had to admire his approach in looking for
work.

I used to think that life wasn’t fair when I saw others with more than
what I had. I just reminded myself that I had far more than most other
people and should be happy with that.

My son has said that various things aren’t fair - it’s interesting
that a lot of kids think about fairness. Life is inherently unfair. We
may have citizenship with a country that has a 2% unemployment rate
along with the privileg of living in another country. We may have the
privilege of getting a four-year degree when much more than half the
population doesn’t. We may be much smarter than some athlete that does
something with a ball in a field or court and makes hundreds of
thousands of dollars per year.

The envy thing is unbecoming.

Perhaps that explains the paranoia.

Today, most are happy that they have a job.

The first time unemployment claims report is released on Thursday
mornings at 8:30. This data comes from state labor departments. The BLS
does a survey to do the monthly employment report which is released on
the first Friday of the month. The unemployment rate on the link that
I provided is from the BLS’ survey, not the weekly unemployment claims
data.

evitaperon · August 7, 2012, 2:15am

Canadians and Americans have roughly the same percentage of people of Asian ancestry, with similar immigration histories.

Why are you telling me this? Do you think I would show any of this in a job interview? ;)

I am working comfortably in a neurobehavioural lab and am making nice progress on my research. I’m very aggressive in pursuing my ideas and am constantly innovating new types of experiments, and the new behavioural assay technique I’ve developed is quite powerful and will have lasting benefits for my lab long after I leave. In my spare time, I publish poetry and prose to literary journals, write articles for the Cavalier Daily, take artsy photographs and am about to be hired as a professional photographer for a national magazine aimed at college students.

I have done well in interviews…provided I can get an interview. Someone has to look at my CV first.

Also the Asian people you know “who have done great despite the odds” – have well, done great despite the odds. They would be even in a better position if not for their race.

BCEagle91 · August 7, 2012, 2:18am

Those were things that people do because it is a part of the person to
care about others in the workplace and they can be part of the soft
things that get you promoted over someone else with the same
qualifications.

One of my coworkers was two levels below me and he saw another of our
coworkers get promoted to my level. He had been in his position for
about 20 years. He was upset at this other person getting promoted
while he hadn’t been promoted. He had a better education (degrees
in China at better universities). The other person that had been
promoted was white.

I took him into my office and explained how promotions work. Basically
you inform your manager that you would like to be promoted and then
the manager will give you special projects to do that demonstrate the
capacity for additional responsibility if they have no other issues
with you. So he went to our manager and said this. Our manager gave
him additional projects and responsibilities and he took care of them.
And he was promoted. He could have done this 15 years ago. It was
simply a matter of asking and he didn’t know to do that. The other
person was more assertive and learned what to do.

BCEagle91 · August 7, 2012, 2:22am

You press 2 for Chinese?

Our interview process is typically about 12 hours with about ten people.
Some of us are pretty good about picking up on attitudes.

Then why are you worried about the stuff that you’re posting about here?

I would do better if I were taller.

But I guess that I’ll have to settle for what I have.

evitaperon · August 7, 2012, 2:25am

I will think about it. Most employers wouldn’t complain if my resume name was Song and my transcript name was Soong, right? It’s a simple matter of transcription. (It’s Song in hanyu pinyin anyway, but Soong in Wade-Giles.) Artistically, I’ve always preferred “Soong” for aesthetics, because I do like the /ʊ/ near-close near-back vowel sound. If I could switch to a pretty American last name, I would, though.

I am someone you would call a maximizer. I always want the optimal, or best. It’s simply downright depressing (often suicidally so) if I don’t achieve it. I can’t help it, it’s encoded into my neurochemistry.

evitaperon · August 7, 2012, 2:33am

But thanks for the advice guys. Maybe it’s true it’s not such a big deal in the bigger cities. I will say it definitely matters for the two American cities I’ve lived in for most of my life (that I’ve spent in America) – Portland, ME and Charlottesville, VA.

I also suspect that Wall Street hedge funds and other closed cliques are less receptive towards Asians joining their teams – that is, while they have many Asians, they have to be absolutely stellar in terms of accomplishments compared to whites. Kinda like international students at MIT. They may be significantly more accomplished than domestic MIT students as a group, but they are significantly disadvantaged when applying.

HImom · August 7, 2012, 2:33am

Actually, if they have a great quality of life and the job and income they want, why do you think they would do better if they were a different race. Perhaps the many, many Asians I know who are wildly successful would have been even more successful if they were of a different race, but how do I or they change that? None of us are willing do change our names and have medical interventions to change races or genders (again females have long been discriminated against historically & still make less than men).

Sorry to tell you, in you don’t realize it, you do NOT park your attitude at the door. None of us does. You may think you hide your feeling of injustice well, but how do you know you are faring well/OK in SPITE of your poor attitude?

In any case, what is this rant thread gaining you or any of us? Even if the world is exactly as you view it, what is your proposal on how YOU will move forward in this world?

Your posts don’t suggest any solution for YOU, other than surgery, name change, etc.

lookingforward · August 7, 2012, 2:44am

I’m citing forums which host discussions which provide external evidence.
Forums based on free-will association, some threads with axes to grind and long arguments about the supposed external “evidence.”

*Where did I say it was a reputable source in and of itself? *
Maybe we misread you:
-The SAT-equivalence studies are well-known on CC.
-you can easily find these other sources on CC, but I am simply too astonished at CC’ers hiding underneath the rock to dig up these discussions I have followed for ages.

From the Georgetown study:
-Wage disparities also are visible when lifetime earnings are examined on the basis of race or ethnicity. Historically, non-Hispanic Whites (hereafter, Whites) have had higher earnings than those of other races/ethnicities. There is now an exception, though, because Asians — especially highly-educated Asians — earn wages comparable to Whites.
-At the highest levels of educational attainment, African Americans and Latinos lag far behind the earnings of their White and Asian counterparts— over a lifetime, they make close to a million dollars less.
-Asian workers, by contrast, have the most varied earnings relative to Whites. Among the least educated Asian workers — high school graduates and dropouts — lifetime earnings are 20 percent below Whites with the same education levels. The gap falls to 6-9 percent for those with some college/no degree, an Associate’s degree, or a Bachelor’s degree. However, among those with graduate degrees, Asian workers have higher lifetime earnings than Whites.

And the mcats: a score of 27-29 is, by my info, roughly the second quartile, ranging from 56th percentile to 75th. Plus med school requires clinical ECs.

You can’t provide proofs in a vacuum.

OMG, now it extends to Wall Street?

evitaperon · August 7, 2012, 2:46am

Because I’m quite personable and empathetic and having a conversation naturally makes me break out into a smile and activates a flood of 5-HT receptors? All negative feelings melt away, at least in conversation. I may sound quite different in this forum only because I don’t see faces online so it doesn’t trigger the right neurophysiological responses for me.

evitaperon · August 7, 2012, 2:53am

The chart I provided gave statistics for all quartiles, and in every quartile, Asian medical school applicants were disadvantaged.

Also clinical ECs aren’t necessary for med school – you can make up for it with strong research experience which I believe to be more important anyway. (Innovation and critical thinking > washing test tubes.) And Asians absolutely rock at clinical ECs. :)

Note that I’m not arguing that Asians are less successful, I’m saying they have to work much harder to accomplish the same level of success compared to whites.

lookingforward · August 7, 2012, 2:55am

You come across- maye you don’t realize it- as having a chip on your shoulder and an absolute certainty you are right.

Portland and Charlottesville are not representative.

Sorry, but you do not seem to be a maximizer.

For the record, I am getting the right neuro responses form HIMom’s and BC’s posts.

The chart you linked tops out at 26-29 and gpa 3.4-3.59. Max is 45. Averages for the top 25 med schools average over 30.

And now you know all about getting into med school?

This is all preposterous. But, I am loving BC and HIMom.

evitaperon · August 7, 2012, 3:08am

oh I do realize it but it’s much different in real life. I’ve been pretty good at job acceptances once I’ve had an interview; of the eight I’ve had over the last four years, I got accepted for six. It’s just getting them to read the CV that’s the tough part.

If there’s problems in Portland, Charlottesville, Canada, Australia… it is not reasonable to expect problems elsewhere?

lookingforward · August 7, 2012, 3:09am

My comment about percentiles is based on 2011 freshman scores.

I don’t mean to sound harsh with this comment, but get your head out from under a rock- all of us, young or old, white or other, have trouble getting people to read our CVs. This is not unique to an Asian college senior.

And, no you can’t successfully extrapolate. It’s insufficient and often simplistic. You’re indicting the majority based on very limited observations and experiences. As a scientist…

I wish someone from CA had posted a response.

Go through the changes, if you wish. Seems like a loss of cultural identity to me.

evitaperon · August 7, 2012, 3:12am

As for the chart - whoops. Here’s fuller data –

<a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/157598/data/table25-a-mcatgpa-grid-asian.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/157598/data/table25-a-mcatgpa-grid-asian.pdf</a>

<a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/157958/data/table25-mcatgpa-grid-white-0911.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/157958/data/table25-mcatgpa-grid-white-0911.pdf</a>

Whites show higher acceptance rates for most of the compared slots.

evitaperon · August 7, 2012, 3:17am

Naturally. This is shown by the white callback rate of 15% in the Canada study. Which is low. But Asians had an even lower callback rate of 11%. Remember the CVs were totally made up and were controlled for equivalent Canadian experiences and basically differed only in (last) name.

You can make the preliminary assumption. After all, they are all Anglo-Saxon countries (or cities) with a history of racial discrimination. I did not know that I needed to achieve a p value of < 0.001 in exactly the right age group, city and occupational field in order to make up my mind on whether to anglicize my last name or not (among other measures).

emeraldkity4 · August 7, 2012, 3:22am

I think you should change your name to DeShanda Espisito.

is there a way to hide your real last name on a resume?

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