Victor Wang

Names can convey a variety of information such as the racial or ethnic origin of an individual. The existence of name-based discrimination can have severe consequences on the lives of job applicants. There is evidence of applicants employing strategies to try to overcome the negative effects of this form of discrimination mainly with the goal of hiding information that could signal their race (Kang et al., 2016). Examples of these strategies include but are not limited to: name Americanization, name change, and resume-whitening. We investigate the use of nicknames on curricula vitae as a potential strategy that job seekers could employ to increase their chances of getting a desirable job. Analysis of curricula vitae data of PhD Economics job candidates collected by Ge & Wu (2023) revealed inconclusive results. Marginal effects coefficients found that nickname usage was associated with a negative and insignificant effect on chances of being placed in academia, chances of getting a tenure track position, and job quality. Estimates on a subsample of Eastern Asians revealed a positive and insignificant effect on placement outcome and quality. Slight benefits in placement outcomes were found when taking the effects of nicknames and name pronunciation difficulty in conjunction, suggesting that candidates with difficult-to-pronounce names benefit more from nickname usage. The inconclusive results were likely due to the limited observations of nickname users, which highlights the need for further research into the use of nicknames in the labor market.