I’m white, male, unhandicapped, and a non-veteren.
Wow, after filling all this shit out, why did I even bother fucking applying?
Not that dealing with any company’s human resources office isn’t always a nightmarish, Kafka-esque affair, but fuck! Throw me a bone.
I get the affirmative action cards in the mail all the time when I apply for a job. Do I fill them out? Never.
Sorry for being white and skilled. I guess that’s my curse.
One of our skilled mockers will be by to see to you shortly.
Sorry, I’m not a skilled mocker. What I am here is to note that most companies do this to cover their asses with the government so they can say that they couldn’t hire any black, female, handicapped veterans because despite their ads in the paper and so on, none/damned few of them came to apply. So you see, filling out those cards would help them justify themselves if they did actually hire your white, male, non-handicapped, non-veteran self.
Recent unemployment statistics by age, sex, and race:
Seems to me that white males still have relatively little to whine about.
What’s an affirmative action survey? What’s an affirmative action card?
Just say you’re of “X” ethnicity- whatever ethnicity you want to be. Do you really think they’ll call you on it?
“I realize that I appear to be of caucasion derivation- but I assure you, I’m half black and half oriental. Honest. And frankly, I resent your implication that I’m lying about my proud heritage.”
JuanitaTech - In Illinois at least, and probably in most/all other states, when you apply for a job you may later be sent a postcard/questionnaire by their HR, asking you to anonymously mail it back. It asks your race/ethnicity, gender, and if you’re handicapped or a veteran. This lets them figure out for affirmative action policy reasons who is applying for jobs at the company. This could help them expand their job ad coverage, or at least allow them to say something like “Sure, our new hirees are only 3% black, but only 2% of our applicants were blac so we’re doing fine there.”
I’m missing the point here. Is the OP ranting because he had to answer a handful of questions about race/gender/whatever? Did he lose ten precious seconds of his life or something?
rjung, it’s the perception that they actually care about your race as a consideration in hiring you. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
At the risk of stirring up a shitstorm, when I worked was employed by the State of Illinois (a couple of years ago), the departments at my workplace had to endure serious interrogation from the organization’s HR dept. anytime they hired a male instead of a female, or white instead of a minority candidate, regardless of qualifications. I assume having extensive documentation of selection reasoning covers their asses in the event of a discrimination lawsuit, but it sure seemed like the process was designed to discourage hiring non-minority applicants.
White, non-disabled male. Well … I do have ADD, which is technically a disability, but there’s absolutely no way I’m putting that on an application.
I’ve been doing the job search thing, and the Affirmatice Action survey is part of the application. Sure, there’s a little note that says the survey will be detached from the application and used for statistical analysis only, but why does it ask me for my name, my SS number, and the position I applied for? I usually leave the race and SS number portions unchecked.
At the risk of being really flamed here…
When I was a teacher, I always checked Black Male. A friend of mine named ‘Chris’ (male) always checked ‘Black Female’.
Sorry if that offends but I don’t believe they are anonymous for a second in the teaching field.
I do remember a couple of interviews were there was significant confusion when they first saw me. Of course, they weren’t supposed to know I wasn’t black but it was fun watching them try to suppress this knowledge. One woman in particular had a very hard time controling her ‘outrage’. It was fun to watch.
During my time temping in an HR department, it was explained to me that these records were kept not only to show that the racial makeup of the hires were reflective or the applicants, as Ferret Herder just explained, but also to show that the racial makeup of the applicants and hires is reflective of the populations that might be reasonably expected to seek employment with that company.
To use the company I worked for as an example:
It was a pharmaceutical company located in a neighborhood with a high working-class Latino population. We had many applicants from this population for positions in the manufacturing and packaging departments. The wages were excellent, the job was relatively pleasant, and it was within walking distance for a lot of people. If a smaller than expected number of Latino people were applying for these seemingly attractive positions, it would raise a red flag. Why aren’t Latinos applying to this company? Does the company have a reputation as a bad place for Latinos to work? Are Latinos somehow being discouraged from applying? Are some applications from Latinos being diverted to the circular file? If the company didn’t want to hire Latinos, it could improve their applicant to hire ratio by lowering the apparent number of Latino applications.
This is not to say that it was expected that the staff as a whole be reflective of the ethnic or racial makeup of the immediate neighborhood. The scientists in the labs couldn’t be expected to come from the same immediate area as the packaging workers. As I said, it was a working-class neighborhood. So, you would look at the area where the scientists could be expected to commute from–let’s say a 45 minute driving radius. This is central New Jersey. We have a humongous population of Indians, many of whom are highly educated scientists. As might be expected, the company had large numbers of Indians working in the labs. (3 out of 5 members of one department were named Raj Patel!) Again, if there was an unexpectedly low number of Indian applicants for available positions, it would suggest that there might be something wrong.
I don’t know if this kind of data is something that is looked at on any kind of regular basis. I suspect not. But if there was some kind of suspicion that the company was engaging in discriminatory practices, it would give the investigators a whole other avenue to explore.
In California, there is some sort of verbage on the forms stating that they are voluntary. I always turn mine back in blank or, if it’s available, check the “decline to state” box. I find these sorts of forms nearly as offensive as regular racism.
Haj
If it is offensive or bothersome to you, the best thing to do is simply refrain from providing the data. It is a completely voluntary endeavor.
To intentionally provide false data to skew data that can be used to help improve the diversity of your workplace is just juvenile and unprofessional. If you don’t want to share your information in a totally anonymous fashion, that’s one thing, but to lie? There’s just no excuse.
Well, lying about it subverts the AA system. If you’re required to fill it in but you disagree with it, it seems like the most sensible option.
Note that I’m not saying whether or not it’s ethical.
andymurph64:
Okay. And are we supposed to just assume that you’re of the “default race” since you didn’t feel the need to tell us what you really are?
I am goddamned sick and tired of smoking, steaming shits like you who say “that white man over there has a job, so it’s just the same as you having a job.” When will you learn that we are individual human beings, bitch?
So maybe I’m just going to start adopting your shit-for-brains rhetoric. “That minority member over there has a job, so you can’t complain about being discriminated against.”
Or, to put it another way, “that woman over there has a dick up her ass, so evidentlly cher3 has a dick up her ass.”
Pizzabrat,
I had no idea that my rebellion against these forms and attempted subversion of them could actually hurt future chances of me being hired in the company (since they think more minorities are applying). I will stop doing that immediately (though I haven’t been sent one in years)
Whenever I have to deal with a form that asks me my race, I give the following answer (if the form’s design permits it):
OTHER: Human
So what do you do when it’s time for the face-to-face interview?