What is in a name?

Lynne Featherstone MP, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Equality, has called for names to be removed from CVs so that employers do not know whether a candidates is female, male, black, brown, young or old.

Hugo Tucker, director at Bullet Search told Recruiter that while this could be a step too far, the removal of some details was necessary to ensure candidates are selected on skills rather than background.

"We do need to know your name and where we can contact you. We still receive CVs with date of births on but we only select on behalf of pure skill sets independent of personal background.

"I would maintain the HR community would feel the same. You need to assess where the CVs are coming from, they will need to make decisions based on professional experience. The key is not selecting on that personal information."

Allison Gray, senior consultant at Escape Recruitment Services, a multi-sector recruiter with an HR division, adds: "On our CVs, I remove that information, and dates of schools, dates of birth. I removed everything that alluded to age or religion.

"I think our clients support it. It is well supported in the HR community."