A man who changed his Nigerian name has revealed he started getting job interviews ‘within a week’.
34-year-old Inein Victor Garrick, who was born in Nigeria, started using his middle name after he struggled to get any job interviews using his first name.
While talking to The Mirror, he said: “I started using Victor as my first name due to the barriers I faced whilst applying to jobs after university.
“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 migrated to the UK when he was 22, said people were regularly mispronouncing his name and that by changing it to Victor, his fortune changed.
Meanwhile, Inein reverted back to his real first name last year after feeling like he was ‘hiding a part of himself’.
Inein works for Transport for Wales and spoke to his colleagues during Black History Month last October about why he 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.
