Can someone with an unusual foreign name get a job in Boston?

Question

Can someone with an unusual foreign name get a job in Boston? I am french canadian and I have an unusual last name.Will it stop me from gettign a job in Boston? Are employers in Boston name concious? ( i.e they weed out the foreign weird names and only take the proper english/american ones?)

Answer 1

I'm originally from Africa, and I have an unusual foreign name and I work for a fantastic company.

I have never heard of people not getting hired because of their name.. in fact your question makes me laugh. America is a great country built by immigrants, with many having foreign backgrounds and names. You are judged on your credentials .... believe me , nobody gives a rat's a$$ how your name sounds like.

Answer 2

It would be unlawful for a potential employer to refuse to hire you based upon your having a French name, Spanish name, South Asian name, Arabic name, Vietnamese name, Russian name, a name that comes from an African language or any other name identified with a particular nationality or ethnicity.

You have a right under Federal law not to be discriminated against in the workplace on the basis of national origin or ancestry.

The link here is a "know-your-rights" web page from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It will tell you about your right not to be subjected to national-origin-based discrimination (and how to protect that right if it gets invaded)

http://www.eeoc.gov/origin/index.html

(Also I am not sure you will necessarily encounter a problem with this in Boston, which is a diverse city. A lot of job applicants in Boston will have last names from all over the world, and first names from all over the world, too. Bostonians are likely to be fairly used to all sorts of names.)

Answer 3

My husband works for a new start-up company that currently has about 12 employees, only 2 were born in the US. So in our experience, no, there's no difficulty getting a job.

As someone else said, it is illegal to discriminate based on name when hiring someone.

Answer 4

about 1 in 10 of all New Englanders are of Quebecois descent. That shouldn't be a problem.

Boston has a lot of people from all over the world; I've never heard of any serious pattern of discrimination, as long as your paperwork's in order.

Answer 5

Oh my gosh, I certainly don't think you can base something like that on a city/region. Some people might be like that, but it's wrong, and not like every single person is like that in Boston! It's a very well educated city.

Answer 6

I wouldn't worry about it, Boston is quite good about that. After all there are 300,000 students in the area and a very significant portion is from abroad.