Searching with a foreign name

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January 24, 2021

by a searcher in Toronto, ON, Canada

Bit of a sensitive topic, but we live in a real world where I believe this could still be an issue. Thought I'd get people's opinions on this and hope this is not inappropriate. For those that are searching with a foreign name, have you encountered any unpleasant experiences in either US or Canada? Have any business owners shown reservations about dealing with or selling to a foreigner? Particularly if you have a name from certain countries that have high political tension with US/Canada (Russian, Chinese, Middle Eastern, etc)

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Reply by a searcher
from Georgetown University in Waterloo, ON, Canada
Own it. Searching isn’t like finding a job. If you suspect a business owner doesn’t want to deal with you because of your name, you probably dodged a bullet early by avoiding a person you don’t want to be in business with. Beauty of entrepreneurship is that you choose who you deal with.

My 2 cents, written while in rural Alabama on a deal.
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Reply by a searcher
from Yale University in Moscow, Russia
When I was doing first year of MBA, I've searched for a job in the US as a foreigner and had chats with many international friends.

A foreign name decreases your chances of finding a job in the US. Call it whatever, it's a brutal reality. The people who were hurt the most were my Asian friends. Yes, John Green has a much higher chance of landing a job that Vibhav Chuktarmapal or Xi-Chen Zu-Hauwen. But it also works for any name that is not familiar to the American ear. I'm a marketing guy, and I'm 100% sure same is even more true in SF world, where people need to trust you and people naturally trust sth familiar.

Many of my friends Americanized their names (for example, Stanislav to Stan, etc.) for this reason.

You might like it, you might hate it. It's real.
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