Originally Posted by
dr dre
From what I'm also told most of the recruiting process is de-identified, when sorting through interview results, aptitude and sim test results the candidate's details and even name aren't disclosed to ensure process is as fair as possible.
Nope. Not ‘most’. Normally only the final step where those deciding who gets in don’t see the names/ sex/ etc. The rest of the process is definitely not- why would they bother asking ‘male’ or ‘female’ as part of the recruiting process.
The question you should ask is who puts the de-identified names forward to the decision makers. They most certainly DO know the identities of those they are putting up.
There was also an interesting study done in the Public service a couple of years back where they discovered that when using de-identified applications,
less women and people of colour got jobs. IE if there was a bias,
it was a bias against white blokes.
The results showed that overall, de-identifying applications at the shortlisting stage does not appear to assist in promoting diversity within the APS in hiring. Overall, APS officers discriminated in favour of female and minority candidates.
Notice too the language used to describe the study results? Not explicitly stated is that the processes already in use show there is a bias in the normal process towards women and minority candidates, but that the blind methodology does not ‘assist in promoting diversity’.
Originally Posted by
dr dre
In reality it is a combination of a lot of things, and I think there's now probably more emphasis on things that women may do slightly better at, especially in late teens early twenty somethings. It has been proven that females generally mature a bit quicker than men. I wonder if that is observed more in recruiting these days? Maybe that's the cause of cadet recruits, who are likelier to be younger, to be more skewed toward women.
This is a fair point. Certainly in larger organisations you should ask who is designing the assessment process? Female representation in HR far exceeds male representation. (
Try this link.) Do you think that this could result in a selection process that is also skewed towards traits that females find important? Certainly the lack of technical questioning in certain airlines in recent times seems to devalue the technical expertise in the job. The lines of ‘they’ve got a CPL so they’ve demonstrated their technical skill’ and the follow on of ‘we assess technical competency in the sim’ were particularly eye opening.
I don’t care what sex you are/ were/ want to be, I just want someone competent sitting beside me- and we’re doing ourselves a disservice if we’re not seeking the best person available. There shouldn’t be anything in the selection process that detracts from that outcome.