The résumé and the name

Between December 2010 and May 2011, Quebec's Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (CDPDJ) ran a simple, rigorous experiment in Greater Montreal. For 581 real job postings, in marketing, human resources, communications, customer service and administrative support, its researchers, led by sociologist Paul Eid, sent two equivalent résumés: one bearing a Québécois-sounding name, the other a name of African, Arab or Latin American origin.

The results, published in May 2012, are clear. With equal skills, the candidate with the Québécois name was at least 60% more likely to be invited to an interview. The net discrimination rate measured reached 35%. The Commission concluded that the difficulties some groups face in entering the job market cannot be explained by skills or experience alone.

This method, known as "testing," does not target anyone in particular: it reveals a collective, often unconscious reflex. And what can be measured can be corrected. Shared evaluation grids, screening applications as a group, attention to a person's path rather than their name: so many simple gestures that recall the spirit of Ubuntu, in which every person deserves to be met before being judged.