Traditionally, German applications include a picture of the applicant plus information on nationality, marital status and age and for the more traditional ones include information on number of siblings plus what the applicant’s parents and siblings do for a living. The siblings and parent information was done away with a few years ago after the applications were revised.
Now the Ministry of Labour, Integration and Social in NRW ran an experiment using Anonymous applications to apply for jobs to see how effective they are. The experiment was to check how helpful an anonymous application would be for immigrants and/or children to immigrants who are already German.
The report released last week showed that the anonymous applications increased the chances of most immigrants getting a job. 20% more people got jobs using anonymous applications. The report also noted that this fact did not apply to all industries and the ministry will finance a new report to find out in which industries this fact applied.
It was also discovered that a non-German name reduced the chances of an applicant being called in for an interview. The project named “More Migrants in Public Service – Intercultural Acceptance in the Regional Governing Authority”. There are currently 12% migrants working the NRW Governing Authority.
