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Ask HN: Ways to get hired anonymously?

16 points by urahara ↗ HN
Any startups that work on the possibility of an anonymous hiring process? Maybe agencies, that have the right process in place? Lists of companies, that practice anonymous hiring? What are any opportunities available to go through the hiring process anonymously, with an identity not disclosed prior to getting an offer?

18 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 58.1 ms ] thread
breeny592
Sorry to be a downer on this, but I am skeptical on how effective this could be - all the companies I have worked for (where I have actually enjoyed working there) the main part that made everything work was cultural fit - similar sense of humour, gets along well with the team, social etc.

I can see how possibly in some companies this could be achieved but it seems like it would be for a job where you are just a number not a person - YMMV I guess.

urahara
Same for me about the best companies. In my case they were also the less inclined to discriminate employees in any way and spent minimal time on technical assessment. Maybe the less a company cares about cultural fit, the more it tends need anonymous process from an employee perspective? I think there should be ways to make anonymous hiring work, especially taking into account how broken current hiring processes are, despite of being extremely selective.
soneca
No idea if it works, if it is of any good, but I just came across this company while searching companies on the HR field:

https://anthology.co

JamesLeonis
What you're looking for is "Blind Auditions" or "Blind Hiring"

It's a difficult process because you have to clear out many things. Not just ordinary stuff like age or sex, but you can't have in-person or over-the-phone interviews because that instantly de-anonymizes the applicant.

Having said that, there are many companies that are trying to find such a process that keeps the applicant anonymous in an effort to increase diversity. It's still very early and nobody (I don't think) has found a process that works effectively yet.

urahara
Maybe over-the-phone with some voice changing technology could work? Or allow a real voice interview but try to reduce its importance?
tabeth
Here's one way:

1. Send them a Surface Hub or equivalent device.

2. Use something similar to ProctorTrack[1] to ensure that they're not using unauthorized programs, etc.

3. Anonymize their voice with i/o software.

[1] http://www.proctortrack.com/

---

That being said, some companies actively discriminate, ala "culture fit." You can't anonymize culture without being devoid of it. Culture, for better or for worse can predict race/ethnicity/age/gender/nationality/etc in many cases as well.

What you could do, I guess, is so something similar to the Common App and have them answer a ton of short answer questions.

urahara
Interestingly, cultural fit seems to work both ways, some companies use it to discriminate, others to bring diversity. It would be great to know some data on how hiring works without cultural asessment component.
WhitneyLand
Is culture really a thing anyway? If someone is a high performer and treats others with respect how can they be a bad culture fit?
cblock811
It absolutely is a thing. Culture isnt just about someone being good at their job or being respectful, it's about how the company and teams mesh overall. You can have a boring but civil workplace or a super fun one that's also respectful. I know that's vague but I figure giving a breakdown of the culture at my workplace is a bit overkill.
WhitneyLand
Yes but the point is when would anyone choose to not hire a high performing person just because their culture was different? That seems crazy given the difficulty of finding great people.
t1asdadasdasd
Why is being hired anonymously so important to you?
urahara
Because discrimination rates are overwhelming and blind hiring could provide equal opportunity. It's not just me. But I'm surprised that threads about discrimination like current Oracle thread gain a lot of attention, while blind hiring theme which is the most obvious possible solution, doesn't.
tabeth
For better or for worse, the reason for this is pretty obvious.
kfullert
Bytemark (a UK hosting company) have an anonymous hiring process which they've documented at https://careers.bytemark.co.uk/full-process which gives them as much confidence as possible that if you make it to the interview stage, you've done so based on your skills rather than your CV, gender, religion etc.

Disclaimer: I don't work for Bytemark but have been a happy customer for many years

whitneyricketts
Hired (hired.com) does two things that might be close to what you're looking for, if not providing the entire solution: — We hide candidate profiles from their current employers (and others, upon request) — We also have a feature for employers called the 'bias elimination tool' which anonymizes candidate names and photos when companies are viewing candidate profiles (more here: https://hired.com/blog/highlights/howhiredcanhelpremoveuncon...)