A man who changed his Nigerian name has claimed he started to get job interviews ‘within a week’.
Inein Victor Garrick, 34, who was born in Nigeria, switched to using his middle name after struggling to get any job interviews using his first name.
He told The Mirror: “I started using Victor as my first name due to the barriers I faced whilst applying to jobs after university.
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“I never seemed to get past the first application stages even though on paper, I had all the necessary requirements for at least an interview.
"In addition, the few calls I had, the recruiters had an issue in saying my first name correctly. With comments like 'your name is difficult or hard to pronounce'. I always felt I was on the backfoot and sent some unconscious bias.
“The moment I changed to my middle name Victor, on my CV, within a week, I had multiple calls for interviews.”
Inein, who has been in the UK since he was 22, says people would regularly mispronounce his name and that by changing it to Victor he helped get his foot in the door.
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However, last year, Inein reverted back to his real first name after feeling like he was ‘hiding a part of himself’.
Inein, who works for Transport for Wales, spoke to his colleagues during Black History Month last October about how and why he’d decided to use his middle name.
He said: “I think it did really hit me. Last year, I almost felt like I hid a part of myself all those years.
“It wasn’t shame per se but I wasn’t my true self. People would hear Victor and assume I was British or English and I wasn’t highlighting my true identity.
“I’m proud of where I’m from and I think I hid behind Victor. This opened that door to talk about Nigeria and my cultural heritage, it’s a fantastic conversation starter.”
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Inein says he feels as though he’s been ‘reborn’ after going back to his old name.
He added: “I hadn’t heard it in so long. I've been in the UK since 2009 and besides my immediate family, no one's ever called me by my first name, until the last year.
“So when you think about it, you can’t believe it’s been that long.
“There’s a lot of joy but there's also a bit of sadness as well that is taken that long”
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A poll from Race Equality Matters found that a whopping 73 percent of its respondents had had their name mispronounced at work.
To mark Race Equality Week (7 - 13 February) REM has launched its #MyNameIs campaign.
Topics: UK News
Claire Reid