OK, not to pick on the individual quoted, but sorry uh, HR people… If you are just going to “circular file” everyone who checks that option, why in the hell is it an option?? Why have an unwritten, unspoken rule that causes perfectly legitimate applications to be "circular file"d?? Who exactly is playing games here? Corporate culture is bloody maddening!!
I believe that the EEOC questionnaire isn’t linked to the actual application. In other words, you fill out the application, which then goes into one pile with all the other applications, and then you fill out the EEOC questionnaire which goes into a pile with all the other EEOC questionnaires, and there’s no way to associate a specific EEOC questionnaire with a specific application.
From the EEOC webpage:
It’s not about keeping secrets, it’s none of your business what color I am. “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin”. If you are so concerned about my race, then you should also be concerned about my religion as well, to make sure that you have the proper ratio and makeup. But oh wait religion is off limits to talk about at the work place, and also coincidentally NOT YOUR BUSINESS. It’s not about secrets, it’s about privacy and merit. Make your decision based on the merit of my experience. Of all the insane reasons I’ve seen to be disqualified for jobs…
As I pointed out, though, throwing out anyone who picks the “I choose not to disclose” option, or any other option is illegal. Employers are not allowed to use the information gathered on the EEOC questionnaire to make any decisions in hiring, and those people making hiring decisions are not even allowed to see the EEOC questionnaire or know what the applicant selected.
Job listings in the public sector frequently include a statement like “Women and minorities are encouraged to apply” or “The City of Such-and-Such is an Equal Opportunity Employer that is striving to diversify our workforce”. I really don’t see how self-identification as white can help an applicant when the ad more-or-less says “It’s okay if you’re white, I guess, but we’d really prefer to hire a woman or minority. Not that there’s anything wrong with a penis or lack of melanin, but … uhhh … you know.”
The EEOC forms always include a space for the applicant’s name, though. Why would this be needed?
What I never included in job applications in the past:
- Race or indication of Hispanic origin.
- Social Security number. I wrote “Will disclose upon hiring”.
- Age or birth year.
Yet we are hearing from multiple people in this thread who clearly state that they use that very question to immediately shit-can applications, apparently in total disregard of other factors. I do hope we hear more from them.
We’ve heard from one person who claims to do that. If that’s the case, and he’s telling the truth about his company’s policies, I certainly hope somebody calls the EEOC and reports on them.
I’ve been involved in hiring at two different organizations, and that’s how it’s gone both places. We didn’t ever know what race anyone was until the in-person interview. Well, with the exception of the candidate who submitted a theatrical resume for an office job. No, really. There was no head shot included, but age, race, and hair and eye color were all listed on the resume, along with previous stage and screen credits. :smack:
Anyway, while we were weeding the pool of applicants we had access to their resumes and cover letters and could contact their listed references, but we never saw the EEOC forms. We weren’t even given hints like “Your pool of applicants includes one African-American and two Asians.” Unless something the candidate included in their resume or cover letter suggested a particular race*, the members of the hiring committee had no clue about the candidate’s race until we saw them in person.
*This could of course include their name, depending on the name.
Or, instead of comparing the response rate rate between applications with conventional Anglo names and those with Afrocentric names versus, compare conventional Anglo names with low-status Anglo names (e.g. stripper names, obviously Southern names, oddball spellings, and the like.)
"In the US, at the federal level, companies can get into massive trouble if they are caught linking this voluntary diversity data with your actual candidacy. It’s illegal for companies to make hiring decisions on race (as well as “color”, sex, age over 40, disabilities, veteran status, religion, and country of origin).
As a recruiter who has been at several large companies, I am unable to even access candidate diversity information.
The purpose for companies to gather this data is to measure of their job applicant pool is demographically diverse, or at least demographically representative of the eligible pool of candidates."
@SamG I always recommend to applicants never to include any of that data which, as you confirm, the companies are not allowed to use anyway.
Studies show even putting the “wrong” name on an otherwise identical resume can drastically cut one’s chances of getting called back, so why take the risk? Updating the firm’s internal statistics are not your (the candidate’s) problem.
Hmm, that’s a lot to unpack. Let me try.
“Women and minorities are encouraged to apply” To me reads: If you’re qualified, have the desire to work here, have positive references, and can point to examples of your having good work ethic, you are more than welcome to join our team irrespective of your sex or your race.
This could and does apply just as well to white people, and male people. It’s actually a very good sign, because it indicates that the employer values merit over appearances - any employer who has this set of values is bound to run a quality company. The only point of making such a statement is to invite talent from a pool of people who may otherwise feel unwelcome or intimidated to apply, as a result of past ordinances and laws in our nation’s past. As a woman, I know that there have always been and still are some places where the team just doesn’t really feel like having a woman on board - and that’s okay with me! But I’d rather not waste my time applying to those places. So having the explicit message from an employer streamlines the process.
Explicitly welcoming minorities and women is not intended to bar or exclude majorities and men. In my view, it’s just a tipping of the hat.
“The City of Such-and-Such is an Equal Opportunity Employer that is striving to diversify our workforce”.
Again, this does not sound to me as it does to you. The diversification can’t be, in my view, to the exclusion of men and of majorities. A workforce of strictly women or with a female majority disproportionate to the applicant pool would not be diverse…a workforce of strictly minorities or a minority majority disproportionate to the applicant pool would not be diverse either… a diverse workforce would have men+women, minorities+majorities, short+tall, thin+fat, whatever, so long as each of the individuals brings good work to the table. If 90% of applicants are white, then obviously anywhere between 75% and 100% of the hires are going to be white, because look at the applicant pool! Sometimes companies are just looking to expand what the applicant pool looks like. So yes, a minority might get a job that you COULD HAVE GOTTEN, but it wouldn’t be “because you’re white and he’s black” - rather, it would just be because his application was there, whereas before it wasn’t even there to compete with yours.
Does that make sense?
We should celebrate competition, not lament it. Competition improves quality, it improves efficiency, it improves everything. That’s a basic tenet of capitalism. Yes there are winners and losers, when we all compete, but ultimately that’s a good thing.
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It’s kind of funny, I work for a black-owned company, and they seem to have internalized some racism - they appear to, quite erroneously, presume white people make better employees. The team I work with is 90% white…though the applicant pool is roughly 50%/50% between white and black (pretty much no other demographic in this community, we have one hispanic and very few had applied). I’m actually about to leave my job because the people I work with are so lazy, and carrying their slack is becoming too burdensome for me. I think that if my bosses hired more evenly white/black, in good correlation with the applicant pool, rather than favoring white applicants, we would have a MUCH better team. The one hispanic and 4/5ths of the black employees are top notch, kick ass, get-shit-done-machines… while only 1/20ths of the white employees can boast the same. It makes no sense to me to have a shitty-employee-majority, when there are probably many more deserving applicants who are just turned away due to prejudice. A few new white employees who were excellent left immediately after orientation, upon seeing the sorry state of our staff. It’s sad. And ironic because of the owners being black. You know racism is pretty powerful a force in our society if even black business-owners are discriminating against black applicants…
An employee pool should match the applicant pool. Tracking these numbers is a good way to keep business booming. Letting discriminatory views dictate the hiring process tends to blur our vision and our perception of valuable qualities. This goes toward NON-WHITE AND WHITE, FEMALE AND MALE ALIKE! If you are denied from a job based solely on your whiteness, or male sex, then odds are you have DODGED A BULLET. There are PLENTY of companies who will not discriminate against you, or anyone, and they are gems to work for. You will probably have a better time applying to those companies which make the statements you fear:
“The City of Such-and-Such is an Equal Opportunity Employer that is striving to diversify our workforce”.
“Women and minorities are encouraged to apply”
Odds are they will look strictly at your credentials, references, and work-place personality. If you are a well-qualified worker, this policy of diverse-hiring will be TO YOUR ADVANTAGE. Such could only disadvantage you if you have a weak resume, weak work history, weak qualifications, and/or weak references. If that is the case, you will be better off working at a Non-Diverse company, where your weaknesses will not stand out.
Oh good Lord… :smack: I lean a bit more conservative, and even I see this as ridiculous. But since you appear determined to feel attacked, the only time I think being white is ever, ever a disadvantage is, say, if you’re trying to get a job on a cruise ship. And even then it’s less being white, and more being American (at least for cruise lines like Royal Caribbean and Carnival).
I have also been behind the closed doors where decisions get made and heard someone start talking about how maybe we should hire X because it would be nice to have more % women, so at least in one case someone was careless enough to voice some of the illegal considerations going through his mind. Of course, at that point, when you are a viable candidate for a high-level position, everybody is going to know exactly who you are and what your professional reputation is, whether you’re “hot”, what you ordered for dinner, possibly your golf handicap, etc., so there is not much you can do, but it still doesn’t mean you need to include all that stuff in your CV.
Whenever i see something like this, the smart money goes not on “insufficient diversity among the finalists” but more like their favored candidate somehow didnt get into the top three, so they are trying again.
I’m amazed at the people admitting that their company blatantly violates the law in an easily provable way that could lead to lawsuits by automatically rejecting people for how they describe their race on EEOC forms. I suspect it’s just people saying stuff online to get a rise out of people, because it is such an incredibly stupid policy for a company to trash any application that answers the ‘none of the above/prefer not to say’ choice.
If it’s just normal employees in a team discussing a candidate, I can totally believe it someone would say something so blatantly prohibited. I’ve often been asked to interview potential employees and I’ve been given zero guidance from the company on what I can and can’t ask. From personal knowledge I know I’m not supposed to ask about things like age, ethnicity, children, pregnancy, etc., but my company never told me any of those guidelines. While it would be odd for those things to come up the formal interview, it’s very easy to start discussing them when just making small talk or chatting. Anyway, if the team is discussion potential candidates, I would not be surprised if an uneducated employee said they preferred a candidate because of race, gender, etc.
Regular employees on a team discussing a candidate isn’t what I’m talking about - that wouldn’t be ‘easily provable’ anyway. I’m talking about the 'we shred any resume that checks ‘prefer not to say’ situation, which sounds completely nuts to me. Aside from the legal/lawsuit issues, I would expect that the majority of people clicking one of the ‘prefer not to disclose’ answers are people of mixed race and/or unusual cultural backgrounds who don’t click one of the simple categories, not people who are super-racist and want to keep their own race a secret.
I’ve always thought 99% of people who check the “prefer not to disclose” box are white people who assume they’re somehow penalized for being white. You might as well just check the “white” box–or check the “white” box and add, “And I resent Affirmative Action and if not promoted will assume it’s because of ‘reverse discrimination and be a bitter PITA,’” but as others have said, the EEOC portion is supposed to be detached. I’ve been on many hiring committees, and that page was always retained by HR; the interview/hiring team never saw it.
It’s foolish to resent the question, as the data is used to determine if the applicant pool is diverse and if not, how to make it more diverse, such as by advertising jobs in different markets. When a company notes that there’s little diversity in its workforce, it may indicate a past history of poor recruitment practices or (unconscious) bias in applications/interviews, and that’s what is normally addressed. I could see a company restarting the search if the applicant pool isn’t diverse enough because it means they may have screwed up. It does not mean they’re only looking to hire non-whites/women.
And here’s a meta-study that looked at both resumes AND interviews and found that discrimination in hiring practices hasn’t diminished in the past 30 years.