Adam Karpiak recruits for a living. He’s also an influencer in the HR world. He recently asked recruiters on LinkedIn if they’ve ever received racist requests from clients–both overtly and covertly. They responded, and it’s not a pretty picture. Karpiak shared examples on Twitter.
On LinkedIn I posted about recruiters encountering racism from clients/hiring managers, either overtly or thru microagressions. Here is a thread of some responses and examples, some of which were DMs…
— Adam Karpiak (@Adam_Karpiak) June 10, 2020
For example, it’s illegal to discriminate on the basis of national origin, regardless of race. Even native English speakers have different accents based on where they grew up. But some companies try to do it anyway.
To keep reading, click here: What to Do If Your Managers Are Asking Recruiters to Discriminate
We should at a minimum hire according to the law.
We should hire fairly and equitably so that over the next few generations we can beat down all the various “-isms” floating around.
But about, ” No matter how awesome your alma mater was, if you give preference to candidates with that university on their resume, you will be limited in who you can recruit.” That is correct (and there are ALWAYS limitations on who we can recruit). One of the traditional reasons for going on to higher education was to make contacts, to build relationships, to establish and use networks as one moved through the business world. So here is where we get into various shades of grey. To only hire from an alma mater, not a good idea. To give preference to a particular alma mater, as I see it, not a problem. If I’m hiring for an engineer on a highly-sophisticated and complicated project, and I have an applicant from MIT and one from The Ohio State University, everything else being more or less equal, I’m going to give preference to the MIT grad (and probably pay more). If I have a candidate from OSU and one from Indiana State University, again things more or less equal, I’m going to choose the OSU grad (go Bucks). If I only hire from OSU, no matter what, then I’m not very smart, will probably be out of business soon, and shame on me. Life is about making decisions (including the decision to follow the law). Decisions are made on various criteria. One such criterion is what school a person attended. Nothing wrong with that in my book.
About the accents thing… How far could an employer go with the phrase, “clear speech and easily understandable.” For example – a TV newscaster.
There are regions in the US where some people have such a heavy accent (I am including my native south Louisiana) where some of the people would not make a good newscaster because an accent so thick that no one outside of south Louisiana could understand them. I am not exaggerating here. Trust me, there are *some* people (not everyone, just some) who even though I grew up there, I can’t understand them due to such a think accent.
Now, let’s take that to another level. If someone from a foreign country, even though they speak perfect English grammatically their accent is so strong that it is difficult for the general population of the US to understand them, would it be legal to not hire them based upon their accent for a newscaster’s job?
Thanks!
I live in a country where it is legal to discriminate based on race (which we call positive discrimination) and it is probably the worst part of my job.
“Please indicate your race. If it is the right race, we will call you back!”
People screened out for their race hate it, and also people screened in for their race hate being told that’s why they were considered.