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originally posted by: KnightFire
So this thread is sort of a rant, but it has political value from the business world perspective. That's why I have added it to the Political Madness forum. Mods if you feel it should be in a different forum, please move where appropriate. Thanks!
I work in the business world for a very large conservative corporation that praises themselves as a corporation that is very diverse. Recently, one of my team members left her position, moving on to a better opportunity. I contacted our talent management team to open up a position req to back-fill the person that left my team. This is where it gets good....
As I'm speaking with the talent management recruiter, reviewing all the detailed requirements for the position I need filled, she begins to tell me that we need to fill the position with a more diverse candidate. So, I begin to tell her the diversity make-up of my team.
My team consists of:
6 white women in their 50's
2 white males in their 50's
1 Indian male in his early 30's
2 Black males in their early 40's
1 black female in her 40's
1 Indian female in her late 20's
1 Asian female in her 40's.
A pretty diverse team in my opinion.
So, I asked the talent management recruiter if she could provide more detail into her definition of a diverse candidate? Now, let's backup a second for a little team background; My team is a Compliance and Regulatory team working on a legacy mainframe environment using mostly COBOL. It's an environment that's over 30+ years old. The talent management recruiter knows this and fully understands what type of people I need on the team and what the market has in filling the role as I have worked with this recruiter many times.
Back to the conversation of me asking for the recruiter's definition of a diverse candidate; As I ask her what is meant by a diverse candidate she tells me my open role should be filled by a woman of Indian descent only. Now, this is were my brain goes from zero to 100 and I say, that's discrimination. She tells me no, its diversity hence the title of this thread.
Now, for those out there that understand the environment I'm working with, the odds of me finding an Indian woman, the knows how write code in COBOL on a legacy mainframe environment is next to impossible. I will have been odds finding a landed UFO because most Indian women the write code are Java or .Net developers.
Anyway, with that said, I tell the recruiter that's an impossible task, but I will try. So 2 weeks go by and only 1 Indian male and 1 Indian female apply for the open role and both of them had zero knowledge of the mainframe environment. I also had 2 older white males and 5 older white females apply. After interviewing them I picked the best candidate and offered one of the older females the position because they were best qualified. The recruiter tells me again, we are not accepting white candidates because we are driving diversity. If we don't pick a diverse candidate, we have to provide documentation with proof stating why the position wasn't filled with a diverse candidate. The recruiter then tells me to pick one of the Indian candidates. I tell her no, they are not qualified and I hired one of the older white females and called it a day.
But to my point, when does diversity because discrimination? I totally felt the policies of our human resources department are discriminating against others that are not of Indian decent.
I would love to know what other ATSers think, whether you agree with how I felt or not and why?
Thanks,
Knight
originally posted by: burdman30ott6
We need freedom from regulations in this country, not more red tape.
I work in the business world for a very large conservative corporation that praises themselves as a corporation that is very diverse.