OSNews

Hmm... let us do a little exercise:

Ten people are vying for the same position - as a L1 Code QA C++ Tech at a small/medium - stable, profitable, and well-respected - company. The job pays $65k/year starting, with a typical benefits package. This person will be critical to your operation's ability to deliver quality products on time due to increased demands. You currently employee 28 white males, 2 white females, 5 Hispanic males, 1 Hispanic female, one black female, and one Asian male.

Or 34 males, and 4 females. This is a very typical ratio, in my experience, but you have been told to give women priority because of the government's regulations. Further, you have been informed that your racial ratio is out-of-whack for your area, as blacks make up 35% of the local population, Hispanics make up 28%, and whites take up most of the remainder.

You then look through the applications summary:

SEX, RACE, DEGREE(S) @ GPA, EXP

01. M, W, BS (CS) @ 3.76, 2 yrs
02. M, W, BS (CS) @ 3.83 & BA(PS) @ 3.41, none
03. F, B, BS (CS) @ 3.11, 1 yr internship
04. M, H, BA (MK) @ 3.52, 4 yrs
05. M, W, -- (--) @ -.--, 20 yrs
06. M, W, MA (CS) @ 3.81 & BS (PH) @ 3.74, 3 yrs
07. M, W, BS (SA) @ 3.76, 6 years
08. M, B, MA (CH) @ 3.31 & BS (CS) @ 3.04, 7 yrs
09. M, W, DR (CS) @ 3.92 & BS (SA) @ 3.58, 2 yrs
10. F, W, BS (CS) @ 3.63, 3 yrs

Which would be best qualified for the job?

You can't afford to try someone with no experience, so you disqualify those completely. You want to disqualify the guy without a degree (#5), but his 20 years of experience in the field seems that it should make up for the lack of a degree.

You do not exclude any females.

One female has a Bachelor's in Computer Science degree and 3 years of experience - but she's white, while your other female is black. So you give them equal footing in your consideration - even though the black female has only a year of intern work under her belt, and a weaker GPA. BUT, thanks to the recession, you have a white male DOCTORATE Graduate competing for this position - he obviously needs a job! He only has two years of experience, but that degree certainly must be worth something!

Please note, you have now discarded all the other qualified males without even a second look, but have kept the two females. One white, and one black. The white one being more qualified, but you considered them equal anyway... but you're favoring the black woman because you need to fix your ratios to be considered "Equal Opportunity."

You make your decision. You hire the black woman. Not because she was more qualified for the job at hand, but because she gets the government off your back.

Sadly, you are still out of ratio, so you will repeat this process every time a non-white female comes in, only accepting the males when you really really can't afford to suffer the loss of talent - or when your ratio is decent enough.

See anything wrong with these practices now?

How about this:

In the military, women do no compete against the men for their ranks or jobs. They compete entirely against other women.

Men applying are typically 15-20% better scorers than women. Meaning a man scoring an exam score of 95 will 'flunk out' of the same job that a woman passed with a score of 89.

Does that sound right to you?

It doesn't to me.

--The loon