Hi I am starting my job search in the United states. The city I live has a lot of Indians, But still Indian names are still considered too 'ethnic' 'hard to pronounce' . so a professional resume writer told me my name is difficult to pronounce for americans,..so can i consider adding a nickname within quotes between my first name and last name...also i read articles saying if your resume has your name and its hard to pronounce, then people dont even bother to call you no matter how qualified or eligible you or your resume is.... have any of you guys faced this situation? no matter how i write my first name they try pronouncing it but in the starting itself they make a mistake as 'gay' 'guy' or even worser ...- sometimes they dont even want to make an effort....its such a common name in India... Americans have a ridiculous ways of pronounciation.. entirely different from India or any other country for that matter..so asian names, ethnic names are still give them tough time... all i want now is get as many 'calls' as possible in response for my resumes...But I just want to know if any one else has been in this situation? and what did you in that case? Thanks
I would say yeah having nick name really helps in some situations but no, we have never disqualified a candidate for his name. If anything, after he joins we ask him his/ her preferred name and if people can still not say it we shorten it ourselves. Example sreenivasan...... Something something with a big name became sreeni until he said i would prefer to be called C... on the lighter note, as an Indian, my American colleagues often take my help in asking me how to pronounce someone's name and at times even I cannot figure out to pronounce them. Rest assured, you would not loose a chance at a good job because of your too long or too difficult to pronounce name.
The reason for not getting interview calls may not be your name but if you have a feeling that it is because of that, you can definitely fix it. Yes, I too was given the same suggestion by friends that I should add a nick name in brackets (parentheses)...you can try.
