Once I started having to deal with incoming applications, I quickly realized it’s impossible not to be influenced by the info you see. There are specific names that are culturally connoted with being stupid and are used in many jokes. A female name will get special consideration, because I work in a male dominated field and we try to improve the balance. But I hate all that. I want to work with the best colleagues I can get, that’s my sole motivation. So their hard and soft skills matter, but I don’t care about their private life. Sure, how you spend your private time can give indications on your character, but I quickly found I’m loaded with prejudices, and they have been plain wrong more often than not.

Our company sadly doesn’t sanitize applications by default, but I insist on it for the resumes I have to assess, and I managed to convince a couple other team leads as well. Maybe it’ll spread. I let them remove any personal info. Names, age, gender, photos, addresses… Luckily it has become uncommon to include hobbies or family info, so that rarely is in there in the first place, otherwise remove it as well. I’m hiring you to do a job, it’s not a sympathy or friendship application.

And the written application is only the very first selection step any way. If your credentials are sufficient and you manage to avoid egregious typos and lexical mistakes, you’ll have to deal with the interview process anyway. That’s where I’ll see how you present yourself in person and how you communicate, which are important soft skills in my industry.

I had the privately most introverted antisocial folks end up being very attentive and professional at client interactions, and extroverted “volunteer-for-everything” folks being arrogant and selfish at teamwork.

Hobbies and other information are also used in discriminating people, you also should ask to remove that.

When I interview I come up with a list of technical questions about the job. If they get about +70% I recommend them else I don’t.