sleeping with the status quo
7 May 2009 04:19 pmWhen I was in sixth grade, my Mom taught people how to write resumes (and interview, get hired, etc). Being her kid meant also being guinea pig & having my "unskilled, unpaid labor" resume used as example in her book. The one major change she made to my draft (and that I've retained ever since) was my name: from first+surname to initial+initial+surname. She told me, this is how the world is: there are jobs you qualify for, but that you will never get if they think they know your gender.
She was right.
That may be less, now, but it's still fundamentally true. I use initials+surname all the time, and have learned to shrug when recruiters get confused about whether I go by initials or an actual first name. I can't do anything about the fact that my surname is obviously Anglo-saxon, which can work for you or against you, as much as an obviously Middle Eastern or Asian or Russian or any other distinguishing surname can do.
For a long time, when I saw authors' names on published books and it was also initial+surname, I would think, ahah, you got past the gateway where they would've stopped you for being the wrong gender! (Although, over time, this gradually extended to include, "or maybe your parents gave you such an embarrassing first name that this is your compromise for publishing with a close-to-real name without everyone knowing that first initial stands for Eugene.") A'course, that's ignoring those SF authors who were women writing with men's names, or the romance novelists who are actually men but use a woman's pen-name... or (in my opinion, the most egregious) authors with quasi-Native-sounding surnames who are actually Jewish kids from the suburbs who've never even been on a reservation.
The more you know about how authorial names are fluid -- like Nora Roberts, Anne Rice, Andre Norton, etc -- the less trustworthy is the first impression. Just like the more paperbacks published without an author's picture, the less you tend to look for it, as though this might tell you something about the book.
( And (of course) more behind the cut. )
She was right.
That may be less, now, but it's still fundamentally true. I use initials+surname all the time, and have learned to shrug when recruiters get confused about whether I go by initials or an actual first name. I can't do anything about the fact that my surname is obviously Anglo-saxon, which can work for you or against you, as much as an obviously Middle Eastern or Asian or Russian or any other distinguishing surname can do.
For a long time, when I saw authors' names on published books and it was also initial+surname, I would think, ahah, you got past the gateway where they would've stopped you for being the wrong gender! (Although, over time, this gradually extended to include, "or maybe your parents gave you such an embarrassing first name that this is your compromise for publishing with a close-to-real name without everyone knowing that first initial stands for Eugene.") A'course, that's ignoring those SF authors who were women writing with men's names, or the romance novelists who are actually men but use a woman's pen-name... or (in my opinion, the most egregious) authors with quasi-Native-sounding surnames who are actually Jewish kids from the suburbs who've never even been on a reservation.
The more you know about how authorial names are fluid -- like Nora Roberts, Anne Rice, Andre Norton, etc -- the less trustworthy is the first impression. Just like the more paperbacks published without an author's picture, the less you tend to look for it, as though this might tell you something about the book.
( And (of course) more behind the cut. )