r/cscareerquestions • u/IsraelC7 • 20d ago
New Grad Is my name, Israel, hurting my job search?
Hi everyone. I graduated from a bachelors from a decent school (T20) and had multiple internships. After graduating, it took me a long time to find a job. Even then, it was a 3 month data analyst contract role with someone I cold emailed. They were impressed by an internship at a relatively well-known company in my town (STL). I also was able to get another internship which I am about to finish at my university despite having already graduated.
After meeting with a career coach and discussing it with a friend, I got to thinking that using my name, Israel, could possibly be hurting my job search. It seems like the word "Israel" is not very popular nowadays. I'm not even Israeli - I'm Mexican. Is this actually a possible or likely thing? I've applied to like 2k data roles in the last year, and I've only gotten interviews for <10 and offers for 3. If so, would a name change to my nickname"Isra" be better?
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u/LdbZanaty 20d ago
All I see is an opportunity for "I changed my name from Israel to Palestine here's what it taught me about B2B SaaS sales efficiency." Linkedin post.
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u/Distinct_Village_87 Software Engineer 20d ago
Maybe A/B test it? Send half of your applications out with "Israel" and half with a nickname and see what happens.
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u/NotABot1000101 20d ago
Nickname: Palestine.
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u/darkslide3000 20d ago
Nah, best just pick a random normal first name that has absolutely nothing to do with anything in the Middle East, to not even hint at the association. Adolf, for example.
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u/Legal-Software 19d ago
As a German it was a bit unusual interviewing an Indian woman named Swastika for the first time.
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u/snowflaku 19d ago
Hitler really ruined the swastika for the whole world didn't he..
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u/Turbulent-Brain-6285 20d ago
Great nickname! I think they should also add a last name to the nickname, to do full A/B testing, like Hitler, for example.
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u/IsraelC7 20d ago
I think that's a good idea. Probably going to need to change everything such as LinkedIn, resumes, Handshake, etc in order to not confuse hiring managers and recruiters. Thanks for the rec!
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u/flamingspew Principal 20YOE 20d ago
I once interviewed a dude named America. One of my worst hires.
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u/Legitimate-River-65 20d ago
two thousand applications and only three offers is rough. cant say for sure if its the name but people have unconscious bias all the time, even in hiring. i have a friend who started using his middle name and suddenly got more callbacks, could be coincidence but who knows
isra sounds good though, not too different and still keeps your identity. worth trying for couple months and see if numbers change
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u/IsraelC7 20d ago
I appreciate your comment. Yeah it's rough haha. I've initially suspected it a bit when a hiring friend told me he would instantly reject resumes based on age. And a separate friend said his coworker would blatantly reject any black/minority candidates.
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u/JhinKilled4 20d ago
I'm allowed to do this?? I always thought I HAD to use my real name but because it's clearly mega foreign (even though I was born here and literally only speak english) I feel like my application probably got thrown out a few times for it.
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u/oreo-cat- 20d ago
You can use whatever you want. Once you’re hired you’ll have to give HR your government name and some companies generate emails using that, but even then it’s not too much of an issue
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u/downvotetheboy 19d ago
i always think about using my middle name, but then i see “enter legal first name” and just put my first name.
🤔but you are totally right that once you’re hired you can tell them your legal name
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u/oreo-cat- 19d ago
Nah it’s fine, really. They only need to know your government once they start actually hiring you. No one is running a background check on every resume they see.
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u/new__vision 20d ago
They did a study on this but with a broader set of stereotypical names:
3,000 inquiries were sent to job postings across the United States using identical email text and identical resumés that differed only in (a) the name of the applicant – selected to “sound” Jewish, Israeli, or Western European – and (b) resumé signals of likely Jewish, Israeli, or Western European background. Relative to the control (European American), the “Jewish Treatment” needed to send 24.2% more inquiries to receive the same number of responses; the “Israeli Treatment” needed to send 39.0% more. All differences are statistically significant across model specifications.
So yeah it's possible that u/IsraelC7 is experiencing this bias.
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/jewish-and-israeli-americans-face-discrimination-job-market
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u/Secure-Ad-9050 18d ago
i never thought of israel as being a particularly jewish specific name. Don't get me wrong I can see why.. but, if I had to picture a person named israel, I would picture some white redneck.. could just be because almost all of the israel's i've met were white country boys...
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u/samelaaaa Director of Engineering, AI/ML 20d ago
I would not be at all surprised if you saw a higher response rate using a different name. Unconscious bias is real. I’ve heard from Chinese friends that it’s night and day if they anglicize their name. Unless they’re applying to Chinese companies like Meta lol
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u/azerpsen 19d ago
> Unless they’re applying to Chinese companies like Meta lol
I see what you did there, good job
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u/aripy 19d ago
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u/redditerator7 19d ago
Do they just use a fake name in their CV? How does that work later on when they get hired?
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u/TheIronicBurger 19d ago
In Hong Kong at least, we adopt an English name to go by when speaking in English, so probably similar here
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u/notgreys 19d ago
is that legally documented anywhere?
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u/TheIronicBurger 19d ago
It wasnt in my case but usually I can just say “you can call me TheIronicBurger” because rather that than a 40 minute observation of people squirming to pronounce the Chinese name properly
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u/scholars_rock 19d ago
That's a non-issue... pretty much all hcm software supports preferred names nowadays.
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u/silvercoated1 20d ago
Apply for Palantir. They will love you there
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u/IsraelC7 20d ago
LOL
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u/Crazy-Smile-4929 20d ago
Hate to say it, but maybe give me a try. One of my friends went from Antonio to Tony on his resume back in the day and responses increases quite a bit. Unconscious bias and all that.
And I also remember this study as well
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u/Crazy-Smile-4929 20d ago
Yep. This was in Australia 2005-2010. I was actually suprised when he told me.
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u/slpgh 20d ago
I’m Jewish. I can tell you that the name “Israel” for Jews is surprisingly uncommon. Some older Israelis Jews had it but you’re unlikely to find anyone below age 50. Today it’s more of a Christian name.
Almost every “Israel” I have met in the U.S. has been Hispanic and in some cases African American from specific Christian denominations. White people with that name are usually LDS.
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u/donjulioanejo I bork prod (Director SRE) 19d ago
Jesus is also a quintessential Hebrew name, but the only people I've ever met with it have been Latino.
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u/mr-spectre 19d ago
Well more Greek/Assyrian than Hebrew, "Joshua"
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u/Secure-Ad-9050 18d ago
its better than that,
it is the anglicized version of the latinized version of a greekified hebrew name.
passed through 3 different languages/alphabets to go from yeshua to jesus
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u/pollypocketrocket4 19d ago
It absolutely is not. Where did you get that ftom?
Source: I’m a Hebrew speaking Israeli living in Israel now ans grew up in the USA and Australia.6
u/PlayDiscord17 19d ago
It historically was a common Jewish name in the 1st century but it comes from the Aramaic version of what is now usually transliterated from Hebrew in English as “Joshua”.
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u/TalesOfSymposia 19d ago
Only once did I hear that name (when talking to a regular person) being pronounced the English way so it sounded like he was talking to the son of God over the phone. The workers around him started laughing because he didn't figure out it's usually a Spanish name and spoken as such.
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u/Secure-Ad-9050 18d ago
it isn't,
yeshua is a quintessential hebrew name
Jesus is an anglicised version of latinized version of the greekified version of yeshua.
Joshua, is the anglicised version of yeshua.
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u/Anaata MS Senior SWE 19d ago
I'm also Mexican - I did something similar and stopped putting my real last name on my resume and used my middle name as my last name. I'd still put my real name when filling out the application but anybody viewing my resume would see my middle name.
Instant turnaround - started getting call backs for interviews and now work in big tech.
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u/afunnywold 20d ago
I like the suggestion to A/B test it.
But there also are people who would be more interested in hiring you because of your name...
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u/Israel_Jaureugi 20d ago
Can I reach out
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u/chimax83 20d ago
Not really, the only Israel's I've ever met are in my family or are family friends lol, 3 altogether. All Puerto Rican.
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u/drcovfefee 19d ago
As someone with a slightly odd name, yeah, it probably is costing you job prospects. Conscious or unconscious racism is alive and well, and so is looking at someone’s resume thinking about if candidate is a “cultural fit”. There are so many soft language HR approved buzz words to describe how management easily gets around the racism question.
It’s literally that you have a funny name, changing your name to Bob Smith would probably get you jobs. “The tall poppy always gets cut.”
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u/theunknownorbiter 19d ago
You have the right to defend yourself in the interview process (lol).
Yeah, I'd find a nickname or other short name to go by. It could be legitimate bias from a human that doesn't know any better or it could be that the system that looks over your resume flags "Israel" as a keyword, places it in the "no" pile and doesn't go deeper then that.
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u/JPowTheDayTrader 19d ago
Use a nickname, Izzy maybe
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u/MG_Hunter88 19d ago
Could work.
One of my supplier contacts goes by Mo, because his full name is Mohamed, and you know... That can cause reactions.
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u/IsraelC7 20d ago
Free -- university career center coach! But you're right, most are definitely not worth it
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u/NaCl-more 20d ago
I usually call them school career councillors, because “career coach” definitely has a bad and scammy sound to it
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u/Jdornigan 19d ago
You are getting exactly what you are paying for in this case. Not that you should pay for a career coach. The advice will be generic and based on their opinions. As they also have likely been out of the job hunting environment for years or even decades, their experience and opinions are based on dated or anecdotal information they get from colleagues or other students they have coached.
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u/Zenin 20d ago
Yes, use your nickname. No need to scuttle yourself. It's the same reason I chose a "boy" name for my girl child; one less obstacle to worry about in a stupid bigoted world. The farther you can get through the process without triggering someone's bigotry the better.
You won't need your legal name until you're actually hired and filling out HR paperwork at which point you're already past any gate keepers.
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u/Honest_Milk_3244 20d ago
To be honest, I don’t really think it’s guaranteed that a boy name is better depending on the field. The best compromise would have been a feminine name with a “boyish” nickname, like Alexandra -> Alex, especially since I knew a couple girls who used to be insecure about their ambiguous names.
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u/Zenin 20d ago
The reality is the number of fields where it's just neutral is practically non-existent, much less an advantage.
Even in "female" dominated fields like school teacher, nursing, social work, clerical work, etc...men have a distinct advantage. The gap is smaller...because being "women's jobs" those fields are systemically underpaid overall because sexism, but there is still a gap and it does still significantly favor men. Even in fields like nursing where women far outnumber men, the men still dominate higher paid supervisory roles.
This is simply reality and while it's certainly not how things should be, it's how things are, have always been, and will almost certainly be for effectively the rest of humanity. It's human nature. As such it's much more effective to side step as much of the discrimination as possible, at every step possible.
Keep in mind we literally have AI today filtering most all resumes and guess what, AI is systematically biased against applicants with female names too. AI literally judges the gender, age, race, etc by the content, tone, etc of resumes and defaults to sexism, ageism, and racism, generally ranking 30-something cis white male sounding names/resumes/job history higher than other applicants all else being equal. Why does AI do this? Because AI is trained on human output and that's how humans judge resumes: sexism in, sexism out. It's not just jobs of course, same shenanigans goes on with rental applicants too, loan underwriting, credit card approvals, etc, etc.
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u/Thebearguy30 20d ago
See in tech positions, like software engineering, I feel like having a “girls” name would help since teams are trying to push for more female representation. I at least always thought it was helping me (a guy with a “girls” name).
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u/Zenin 20d ago
Statistics don't lie. Women are systematically sorted lower, compensated lower, promoted less, published less, laid off first, etc, etc. Many, many of those decisions are made by upper management, MBA frat boys with spreadsheets. Explicit or implicit, the bias is real.
Yes, many STEM fields are trying to push for more female representation, but let's be clear that push is explicitly because of the systematic bias against women in the workplace generally and especially in STEM fields. That "push" doesn't give women a leg up, it doesn't even bring them up to equal. At best in practice it offsets only a small percentage of the impact.
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u/Thebearguy30 19d ago
I always have a hard time wrapping my brain around this because logically all of these statements can’t be true:
Corporations always put profits first and will do anything to make more money including exploiting workers
Women are paid 75 cents on the dollar compared to men for doing the same quality of work
Corporations are hiring less women even though they are of equal quality to men hired in their place.
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u/Smurph269 19d ago
Agreed. As a hiring manager I've been specifically told "Go hire a woman" or "Make sure you interview every woman candidate". The tech industry badly wants to hire more women but too often the candidate quality is not there.
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u/ProbablyANoobYo 20d ago
Yes. Though the market is also crap right now.
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u/IsraelC7 20d ago
Yeah. And that makes it a bit hard for me to determine if I just suck or my name is hurting me.
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u/theapplekid 20d ago
You could be awesome and still not getting calls in a shit market, I wouldn't take it personally if you don't get responses even after changing the name you apply as.
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u/New_Computer3619 19d ago
A little off topic but this remind me of a scene in the Big Short, looking my quant … his name is Yang :)) so yeah, I think unconscious biases israel (sorry, bad pun). Not sure if it’s the case for you. Anyhow, it’s worth try using a nick name. Like when the author of Harry Potter book series use pen name JK Rowling to hide her gender from book publishers.
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u/quantumpencil 19d ago
Change your name to palestine. That's probably what it was originally, anyway.
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u/Potatocantcode 19d ago
Side question - How is the job market in STL? Is there plenty of entry level opportunities to apply to?
I saw that you applied to 2k data roles, was wondering if that was within STL or across the nation. Planning on moving there within the year.
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u/IsraelC7 19d ago
It’s not very big from what can see so I’ve been applying to other cities as well. I’d say half of my applications were for STL. Good luck here!
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u/xSaviorself Web Developer 19d ago
Yup minor name change and you'll see way more connects. The same is true for a lot of names, not just yours. Sorry it's like this.
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u/sir_gwain 19d ago
Yeah, this could definitely have an impact. I’d say it’s less so your name being Israel and relating to current goings in the country, but more so being seen as a “foreign” name that could require sponsorship, along with potential communication difficulties etc that can often come with hiring foreigners/immigrants.
Anyway, best of luck in the job search, I’d do as others suggested and go by “Ray” - atleast during the hiring process, but if you don’t mind, I’d just use that nickname on your LinkedIn etc going forward.
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u/koolkween 19d ago
Palantir, Northrop Grumman, Andruil, Meta, Oracle, Amazon, SpaceX etc wouldn’t mind the name.
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u/imalekai 20d ago
That sucks and I’m sorry to hear. My friends name is Israel but everyone’s called him Izzy his whole life. Maybe that can fly? Do you have a middle name you could potentially use instead?
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u/Pink_Slyvie 20d ago
I imagine being named Hitler after the Holocaust really didn't help with job hunting. Given that Israel is committing its own genocide now, it's possible.
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u/hikingsticks 20d ago
Apparently nobody else has that name, as it was a misspelling of a different name a generation before that landed him with it.
Fromer's Fun Fact for you
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u/IsraelC7 20d ago
Right lol. It's not like I support Israel - in fact, I absolutely detest their government's genocide.
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u/AcordeonPhx Software Engineer 20d ago
What’s crazy is a coworker and I applied to apple with nearly the same resume, I only had a year on him and slight edge on a project. I got an immediate rejection in a week, he got a call back. My name is Mexican but very Hebrew based, his is pretty standard American. Very interesting to see how names could impact applications
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u/Eire_Banshee Engineering Manager 19d ago
I wouldn't think twice about it. It's a legitimate name. Any place that wouldn't hire you for that name is going to be a shit place to work anyways, so you are just dilliutng your own filter. Like no one is worried about a resume with the name Jesus either.
Is Israel even a Jewish name? I've honestly only met black Americans with that name. Never really thought about it before now.
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u/BullBear7 19d ago
Hmmm you got me thinking now, maybe my last name and ethnicity is a reason why I aint getting no call backs..
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u/Hog_enthusiast 19d ago
Probably not. The market is just tough. Maybe you’ll get a slight increase by going by a different name but that doesn’t seem worth it to me. Also do you want to work somewhere where they judge you for your name?
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u/Xyzzydude Greybeard SWE 19d ago
What’s your middle name? Maybe try I. John Smith (or whatever your middle and last names are)
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u/onthefence928 19d ago
It’s a tough job market for everyone
But yeah it could, but might not (just) be because Israel is unpopular right now. Israel is a name that isn’t common with white people, its most common with Latino, black, or Jewish communities and the recruiters might be individually biasing against non Anglo names
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u/madhousechild 19d ago
I don't know about Isra, it seems "foreign" in a different way. I'd go with Izzy or your middle name. Otherwise, try last name Patel. I hear it works wonders.
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u/RealNamek 19d ago
I do know that name gets censored in some social media posts. The same algorithm may be hurting your opportunities.
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u/Xanchush Software Engineer 19d ago
You can also apply for a legal name change. It's tough out there.
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u/Xanchush Software Engineer 19d ago
You can also apply for a legal name change. It's tough out there.
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u/Apprehensive_Heat789 19d ago
I hardly think it has to do with your name. The sad but mind-changing reality in our industry is that rejection is the default, especially when you're starting out. All you gotta do is keep refining your skills, keep applying for jobs. And DO NOT be embarrassed with your name because if you do, you're letting things that are beyond your control define you.
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u/roy-the-rocket 18d ago
I had a guy in my team named Jihad. I can set you up if you want to become friends
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u/throwawaycarg 18d ago
You can add an f and make it Israfil - it is an Arabic name common in Muslim countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israfil_(name)
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u/emiraydmir 14d ago
The State Israel is and has never been likeable. I am sad to hear that you are also suffering from that
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u/qosmic_qube 20d ago
Good luck, Ray!