Picture: Marcos Ojeda
The City of Helsinki has decided to begin anonymous recruiting.
The initiative was created by Town Councilor Suldaan Said Ahmed with 37 of his colleagues last May. It was accepted unanimously by the city board late on Monday evening.
Anonymous recruiting entails that the name, date of birth, address, mother’s tongue, gender and any other personal information that could consciously or unconsciously affect the choices of the recruiting manager are not included in the job application.
The purpose is to increase the opportunities for getting a job interview among groups of people who could face discrimination when seeking employment. The personal info is withheld until the job interview.
The purpose is to increase the opportunities for getting a job interview among groups of people who could face discrimination when seeking employment.
Anonymous recruiting, however, comes with its share of problems.
“A key challenge is that when much of the information in the application has been hidden, it’s hard to establish a clear picture of the know-how and capability of the applicant,” the city’s resolution says. “The know-how and skills should be the most important reasons to land a job interview.”
According to the resolution, another difficulty arises from the amount of work created by the anonymous recruiting process. “When the anonymization is created by hand it’s bound to bind a lot of time and personal work hours. This conflicts with measures aimed at improving the efficiency of recruiting.”
Helsinki will begin increasing anonymous recruitment during summer 2019.
The City of Helsinki is Finland’s biggest employer with around 38,000 employees.
