Firms sign up to name-blind CVs

A range of private and public sector employers will sign up to a pledge to operate recruitment on a ‘name-blind’ basis to address discrimination, the Prime Minister is announcing today.

The Civil Service is today committing to introducing name-blind recruitment for all roles below Senior Civil Service (SCS) level. Other top graduate recruiters like KPMG, HSBC, Deloitte, Virgin Money, BBC, NHS, learndirect and local government are joining organisations like Teach First by committing to deliver name-blind applications for all graduate and apprenticeship level roles.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) will be promoting the benefits of name-blind recruitment and will be working towards embedding this as standard through its training and development courses.

Chief Executive Officer of the Civil Service, John Manzoni: “I’m delighted to expand the Civil Service’s use of name-blind applications – not just for all graduate and apprenticeship level roles, but for many other external applications too.

“It’s vital that the Civil Service takes a lead on this, and I’m confident that this important step will help us build an organisation that is even more talented, diverse and effective than it is today.”

David Sproul, Senior Partner and Chief Executive of Deloitte, said: “At Deloitte, we are working hard to ensure that our talent pool is diverse and reflects the make-up of today’s society. We want to show that everyone can thrive, develop and succeed in our firm based on their talent, regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or any other dimension that can be used to differentiate people from one another.

“The introduction of name-blind recruitment processes and school and university-blind interviews will help prevent unconscious bias and ensure that job offers are made on the basis of potential – not ethnicity, gender or past personal circumstance.”

Beatrice Bartlay, who is Managing Director and Founder of recruitment company 2B Interface, says a name-blind approach might be useful for women in male-dominated sectors. She said: “‘Name-blind’ application schemes have a huge potential to drastically reduce biases and predispositions in the workplace, of which there are a great deal, particularly in historically ‘men’s’ industries such as manufacturing. With so many women facing discrimination on a daily basis, being passed over in favour of male colleagues regardless of competency, steps clearly need to be taken to tackle this problem head on. In typically male-dominated industries, such as the manufacturing industry, the removal of names completely in the run up to interviews could work to reduce the effect of biases towards women or ethnic minorities completely.”

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• Discrimination Recruitment