Although some like to think the world — or at least the world of business — is a meritocracy, we can often see that the biases of those in positions of power have a significant influence over who gets to take advantage of an opportunity.
And while these biases are sometimes the result of an executive's personal animosity towards an applicant, the unfortunate reality is that many of them are more systemic. For instance, those who are neurodivergent can often face barriers to employment that otherwise wouldn't exist for them, while others see themselves turned away due to assumptions about their ethnicity.
Of course, it's illegal for job recruiters to outright say this is why they went with another candidate, but those who face this problem can often prove this bias exists by swapping out their birth names for more Anglicized variants on applications.
And not only was that true for one man in the U.K., but it was staggering how quickly his luck seemed to change once he did this.
