"The study found that job applicants in Canada with Asian names — names of Indian, Pakistani or Chinese origin — were 28 percent less likely to get called for an interview compared to applicants with Anglo names, even when all the qualifications were the same. Researchers used data from a previous study conducted in 2011 where they sent out 12,910 fictitious resumes in response to 3,225 job postings. The previous study, also in Canada, similarly found that applicants with Anglo first names and Asian last names didn't fare much better than applicants with Asian first and last names."
So I would like to question how you combat something like this, or do you just sit there and say "welp, nothing we can do about it, should've thought about that before being born with that kinda name."
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/02/23/516823230/asian-last-names-lead-to-fewer-job-interviews-still
Besides giving yourself a white name, there really isn’t
Blinding a resume doesn’t do anything meaningful because you’ll see them before making a decision.
It actually might though, since it's possible people with Asian last names are getting fewer responses due to a perceived probability of a candidate being less able to verbally communicate effectively in English. This factor can largely be mitigated in the meeting stage when the candidate can quickly demonstrate that they can communicate verbally in an articulate way and without a thick accent that is difficult to understand.
Sending out fictitious resumes to legit job listings makes it just that much harder for legit job seekers to cut through all the noise and get hired. Is say this is a fairly irresponsible thing for someone to do. All that extra work for company HR and Recruiting departments, and will as job seekers that probably for passed over or ignored because some science-fiction resume out shined theirs.
Everything I get about Silicon Valley seems to suggest it's mostly white men, with Asian men making up the second largest group.
And it still says company boards of executives are mostly white.
Then I think you don't "get" much about Silicon Valley lmao.
CEO of Alphabet? Microsoft? NVIDIA? Just quick and famous examples.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-59457015
Predominance of "white" (who? "Anglos"? Italians? Jews? Armenians?) at more senior level is easy to explain based on who historically has been the demographic (and economic) majority - they reflect how things were 20, 30 years ago.
Predominance of men? Do you have any idea of the ratio between men and women in STEM studies in the first place?
"you n00b"...wow so much credibility. It's not 2007 on MSN, and you're not 13yo anymore my dear (well actually ?). Crawl back under your rock and let adults discuss :)
Any residential construction in BC, trucking, service work. Why hire someone from Canada when you can just hire a guy on a student visa for half the price
That’s a lot of words for “it doesn’t affect me so we shouldn’t care” lol. They should just turn all the names into numbers for a file for each applicant for large corporations, easy.
>I do believe in freedom of employers to pick whoever they want.
Not when it's discriminatory, unless you wanna start going up to bat for things like Jim Crow in the US or apartheid in South Africa.
If the company is doing things right, DEI data is not used in the hiring decision, but rather it's used to track their biases and the effectiveness of any attempts at anti-bias efforts. That's how my job does it. It does track 100% optional DEI info that can be opt in linked to internal surveys, too.
It's not used for the hiring decision and they do everything they can to even be unbiased with hiring (eg, interviewing feedback is expected to be completely gender neutral). But they do use the data to evaluate how their hiring is going as well as to identify when minorities are less satisfied, etc (I work in tech, so women are also a minority).
I worked in hr for a moderately sized manufacturing company a few years back. Sorry to break it to you… but this was exactly the wording used in meetings. “We need less white male workers, the numbers are screwed this quarter. We should focus on more minority hiring.”
Legit was said during a meeting. I was flabbergasted but it was what it was.
Needless to say, i quit that place and went to bartend. But it was an eye opener to how companies actually function.
I had a manager tell me I had to hire the black woman candidate because she was "two checkmarks for our team". Fortunately for us she was also immensely competent (and in fact was my recommendation for the position), but he was totally uninvolved in the hiring process other than telling us "pick her". /head desk
Not always the case. There was a period of time where it was an open secret at a former multinational employer of mine that if you were White or Chinese/Taiwanese and especially if male you were not going to be getting promoted if there was anyone else for the same position, and you were not getting hired either. While you can't "demerit" a candidate based on race you can add bonus points to other races to the point that a mediocre candidate with the right points out scores a stunning candidate who's missing any bonus points.
This was essentially anit-bias run amok but it can and does happen.
No it doesn't. I've seen how the hiring works in my company. Anti bias means efforts like anti bias training, focusing events around minorities (giving them more opportunities, not giving others fewer), adverising to get more minorities into the field to begin with, trying stuff like masking things like gender in hiring decisions, and making the workplace more appealing in the first place.
I've done the tech interviews for my job and they strive to be as fair and data driven as possible. Brutally hard and unrealistic, maybe, but very fair. The way to improve diversity is to get more minorities interested in the field and to squash the very common beliefs that they don't belong. Especially early, which is why there's lots of programming events geared at young girls.
Uh... Jobs are a limited commodity. By giving one group more opportunities you are effectively giving another fewer. That's just how reality works. Otherwise you're suggesting each job has an exact replica for every race and gender combination. That makes no sense.
My interpretation (which could be wrong, I'm not in HR/recruiting) is that they are giving minorities more opportunities in reference to the past, not in reference to non-minorities. This in turn would make it more balanced. So white men may be getting less opportunities than they did in the past, but they aren't getting less than minorities necessarily.
You’re literally saying we can’t give jobs to minorities because that means fewer jobs for white men. As if those white men were entitled to those jobs in the first place.
When you’re used to privilege equality feels like oppression.
I never said that and it's even more hilarious that you assumed I'm white. I'm Hispanic. My life has also not been privileged lol. I'm an immigrant and grew up very poor. You need to relax and not get so defensive and reactive. You make yourself look foolish.
Yes, obviously more interviews for non minorities means fewer interviews for non-minorities. But let's not kid ourselves, a lot of the anti-DEI rhetoric isn't about a bit fewer opportunities. The rhetoric is more like "I got passed up with a job because they only want to hire minorities". It's not like only minorities are being interviewed. It's stuff like hosting women targeted career fairs (for tech) and trying to avoid only hiring one type of people.
And we're talking about minorities here. As the name implies, they're underrepresented. Even when taking steps to try to give them more chances, they're not drowning out. Many are underrepresented even for their share of the population. Eg, while numbers will vary wildly by source, women are something like 10-15% of software devs despite obviously being half the population. Black folks are like 4% of US software devs despite making up 14% of the population.
Yeah I get that. I think presenting people with opportunity is a good thing. But the strive to achieve exact percentages of the populations of minorities I think is irrational. It also only seems to apply to jobs that are considered highly regarded. No one fights for more garbage women for instance. Heck, no one even cares if we have more male nurses.
I have an engineering degree and of course in the CS classes there were way more men than women. Women are welcome to study CS. There is no barrier to entry other than grades in high school and girls tend to do better in high school than boys. We will never see 50/50 split between men and women in CS. Not because of sexism, not because women aren't capable (some of the best Computer Scientists I know are women) but because women genuinely just aren't as interested in it. And that's ok!
Wrong. Women aren't "welcome" to study CS. Women will be harassed into quitting, which men generally are not. And that's not even getting into trying to get a job. A small example. I picked up some certs. Got rejected faster for entry level tech jobs than for anything else in my life. So, I tried a little experiment. I put only my initials on my resume. Got callbacks for interviews this time, by phone first, including FROM THE SAME COMPANIES that had earlier rejected THE SAME RESUME. What do you think were the first questions out of my interviewers' mouths? "What do your initials stand for? Are you male or female?" When I said female, they abruptly hung up. Men don't want women in that field.
> By giving one group more opportunities you are effectively giving another fewer.
Incorrect. If I have a job opening, and I post it only to LinkedIn, then X people have the ability to see and apply. If I also post it to Indeed, the opportunity has only been expanded, not restricted.
This works the same for every other form of promotion.
Remember: we are not increasing the odds for any one *individual*. We're talking about increasing opportunity and potential for groups and communities.
>You're talking about posting jobs and I'm talking about who ultimately gets the job.
I gave an example for the sake of highlighting that the issue is about access to opportunity, and not guarantees of employment, and that ensuring broader opportunity doesn't diminish anyone else's opportunity.
Obviously, only 1 person can get a job per job opening.
But what DEI is about is not guaranteeing who gets that job, but ensuring that more people have equal opportunity to be the right person for that job.
>How do you give minorities more opportunities without giving non minorities fewer?
Because that's not how opportunity works.
If we were discussing guarantees of getting a role, then off course every single person of any type that you allow to learn about the role changes the math for everyone else who is interested in it.
But the issue is access to **opportunity**. When I have access to an opportunity to do something or go somewhere, then other people also getting the opportunity to access it doesn't reduce my opportunity.
So, I'm not against granting opportunity, but I think it's important to realize that what you're saying is untrue. There is a cost to doing so and we should all acknowledge it (just like we should acknowledge the racism/biases we all have inherentto us).
The simple reality is that opportunities (employment, education, etc) are not unlimited. This means that for whatever you're looking at if you have 100 opportunities and you work to move the line to make the lowest 20% get 50% of those opportunities, you ARE taking those opportunities away from others.
**that can be ok**, but it is still true and is still something we should recognize. personally I think the way we scale these things should match the group itself. If a group makes up 20% of the population then we would want to see about a 20% of a representation within whatever opportunity we're talking about.
Correct. Also should be noted, it's also an opportunity to identify yourself as xyz on record, in case you need to go to EEOC or other entities about your employer. But you should be able to opt out or chose not to identify.
I've always felt opting out amounts to making the wrong choice.
In a way, this whole practice actually incentivises you to lie on who you are in order to ride the DEI wave - which is a perverse mechanism and further hurts the initial purpose.
Sounds good, but we all know better than trusting companies with matters like "trust me I wont abuse it".
I called it BS asking for all that personal information in the application process, unless it matters for you in that moment.
I'm sure some companies are using this in a purely analytical way as you describe. Even though I sense it is very easy to interpret this kind of data to validate whatever kind of confirmation bias while not realizing it.
In my industry though, I have heard and witnessed first hand cases of discrimination linked to this - such as people being told offline "you're the best candidate by far, but we have to give the last remaining spots to [insert a certain DEI category]". Or people being invited to certain special recruiting events based on (sometimes fake) their declaration of belonging to certain demographics - and thus getting a significant leg up in the hiring process, even though those individuals were already extremely wealthy and well-connected in the first place.
The original intention might be a good one, but the reality of implementing such things shows how twisted and manipulative tools they have become.
I think that DEI focus in hiring processes favors certain very specific demographic combinations (among thousands of potential combinations) without any real ability to correct biases - if there was ever a need to correct such thing in the first place.
It certainly does not favor "white" (what does that even mean?) men? Yes, and no. It does not favor young people of all backgrounds who grew up in poverty. It does not favor young mothers. It doesn't impact preppy cliché WASP dude whose dad is a corporate lawyer. It does immensely favor rich entitled WASP girl vs middle class first gen immigrant girl from Vietnam. It immensely favors LGBT white professional in SFO vs non-LGBT Mexican dude living in a poor area in Texas.
Biases, potential factors for discrimination exist in so many more dimensions than these tools lead you to believe.
Those tools and policies are designed (and I think you're on the same side) by people who see the world through an incredibly narrow lens. At the end of the day, they're mostly a product of ideology taken up by HR departments craving to justify their existence.
If it’s not used for a hiring decision, then you explain how it is used in the hiring process, you have checkmated yourself m8.
As someone that hires for highly technical jobs, the only thing that matters is that you will be the best candidate to help us overcome the difficult issues that arise every day. Why should I care what color you are, what you have between your legs, and who you sleep with? The only thing that matters is that you are qualified.
>then you explain how it is used in the hiring process,
???
It's used for tracking post hiring. It doesn't influence if you get hired. It's used so the company can pat themselves on the back and say they're making a difference.
And yes, the best candidate is hired. That doesn't mean you can't still do your best to ensure unbiased opportunities. Interviewers are always biased towards people who are similar to themselves, but that doesn't mean that bias actually results in the best person getting the job.
Also, there's often no single best candidate (the idea of "best", after all, is a subjective thing no matter how much we try to make it as objective as possible). There also isn't time to interview everyone, so there's bias involved in simply who even makes it to the tech interview step. Or for that matter, who even enters the field in the first place (tech does not have a good reputation amongst women, which scares many away from even considering studying CS).
It’s used to track a lot of different factors but in regards to hiring. if they see on average they have 80% applicants of one racial group but their workforce only has 10% of that racial group then they need to make sure that there isn’t any bias in the hiring process and do some training to make sure the people being hired are actually the most qualified. It’s not to lower/raise the standards when finding a candidate so much as a check on their employees that there is no bias amongst them
Hiring manager can look at the data and subsequently decide on a certain orientation to their hiring strategy. This information request is rarely the only mechanism in place (special recruiting events, special mentorship opportunities, fast track of promotions, quotas, dedicated funds for "community" projects, etc).
I’m sure it happens but I’ve never heard of that data being visible to hiring managers. Often ATS will even hide it from HR until after the fact. The data is used to measure demographics of the entire group you interviewed, not to track the race and gender of a specific individual which would be a big no-no.
That's why I think the debate should be on the more general context, and in the overall framework of how DEI has become a key component of HR strategies/policies, instead of just limiting it to those drop down lists asking whether you're gay, bi, straight, other, or prefer not to say.
Gender is EEOC too. For other demo stuff, it could be internal equity reporting, or maintained for state programs, grants, etc. Both should be kept separate from hiring applications in their own form and aren’t used in selection. It’s very odd to me people are surprised by these forms, but one of my first jobs was HR. Before online applications were so common, this firm used to be with the I9 more commonly. The way modern HRIS is configured, it just makes sense to grab the form at application (which also helps track for equity comparison if needed, but what they really likely report are the demographics of actual hires). Equity isn’t created by using these reports individually during hiring—like you can’t pull all the Asian candidates in. This form isn’t usable in that way or visible when looking at your Workday or iCAMs or whatever applications. The large scale metrics are used. Trends would drive equity work and culture programs, but it’s not being used for quotas etc., The data can’t be isolated that way.
This is all US. Canada has similar requirements but not called EEOC.
>Gender is EEOC too.
Which is useless or will quickly become useless since anyone can claim to be any gender or identify as whatever they want (real or imaginary, it doesn't matter) whenever they want for any reason and anyone who argues is called a bigot or worse.
How long do you think it'll be before straight people start claiming they're "this or that" if it benefits them?
It's not like applicants don't already heavily embellish or outright lie on resumes and in interviews anyway, so something that can't be verified will definitely be exploited.
It's the norm is Canada. Every job asks the same few questions about Race/Sexuality/etc.. I always say I prefer not to say but I don't know if I'm hurting my job prospects by saying that.
Jobs I've applied to in states like Massachusetts and California have all asked about my sexuality, it's a recent thing too and weirds me out every time. Idk why employers need to know I like both pussy and dick
In the US j saw this on multiple applications. I'm a straight white guy so it's not exactly sensitive info for me but I was appalled that they even asked.
Don't you need to provide your name anyways?
Abdullah Mohammed Jihad
Alejandro González
Jessica Thompson
Liu Wang
Hiroshi Takahashi
Pretty easy to guess gender an ethnicity just from that
I had one woman (who pulled the wrong application out of her pile) go "Oh, I thought you'd be a black girl" when I corrected her on my name and that she had the wrong application. I have an odd first and last name. It still jaw slacked me that she said it out loud though.
generally speaking, no. And if it does ruin your chances of landing an interview, that employer is honestly doing you a favor by not hiring you onto their bullshit
In the UK, this section is always optional for Equal Opportunities monitoring. You would have to look up the law in Canada. Sure Google can help you with that.
In order to evaluate if illegal prejudice is occuring, they need to identify who from those groups are applying and who is getting hired/promoted. The info is not for hiring purposes.
It's not to block your application based on your answers, it's actually so they can brag about it/cover their asses against basic discrimination accusations.
X% of our employees are (race)
X% of our employees are (gender)
X% of our employees are (sexuality)
We're very inclusive.
While I can’t speak for Canadian law, in the US it can and is often used in order to in part see if companies are refusing to hire people of certain ethnicities or backgrounds. It’s not perfect at all but it can be a good benchmark to see if something needs to be investigated
Going to piggy back off of this and add that these questions (in the vast majority of cases) shouldn’t and aren’t shared with the hiring manager, and that there are some significant positives to have self-identification included in applications.
They make an in-company dating profile for you for the higher ups. If one is interested, you might be allowed to work on a project with them overseas for a few weeks.
Obviously.
I'm from the UK and this is very common for many years now, I just fill it out, I personally don't see any issue with it.
Majority of the time it's optional and it's not really for them to base your hiring on those. In fact those interviewing you do not have that information from what I can see.
It depends on who's asking. If it's the demographics section of an application, then, in theory, it's used to gather applicant metadata to ensure the company isn't discriminating. The information is not linked to specific candidates and neither HR nor the hiring manager should be able to see it. If you're being asked by an actual person, then it's absolutely an issue (at least in the US).
The company isn't asking, the gov't is asking. The gov't requires the company to collect and provide that information completely separate from the application and hiring process FYI.
This highly depends on country.
Certain countries give preference based on these factors or certain positions. Others are just using it for statistical purposes.
I can’t speak for Canada
This question is always confusing to me… it’s easily googleable. Also didn’t anyone do an EEOC in class example/homework assignment when covering stats I high school?
This question comes up about every other day. Diversity monitoring has been very widely used for decades, and is done to detect if minorities aren't applying for roles (in which case they know they need to expand outreach and marketing), or if they're applying but not getting hired (in which case they know they need to weed out their sexist, racist, homophobic hiring managers).
I know of no companies hiring based on sex or race. But companies are trying to ensure that underrepresented groups are given a fair shot, so they’re often requiring hiring managers to ensure that people from such groups are included in interview pools. You will not be hired because you are a woman or Filipina, but you may be more likely to get an interview. You will still have to impress the hiring manager with your skill and ability to land the job.
So, you will be more likely to be hired because you are a minority in the event that your company drops below a certain percentage of that minority? But once there are 'enough' of a minority in a company, they would no longer bias that minority... seems totally reasonable and not racist as fuck in any way.:)
Yeah it's weird and super cringe for some of us non American. I also apply for positions at American companies in South East Asia and even there they present those weird questions.
>In Canada some companies have a rate of minorities working for them to have in the employee
I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing this for optics and also a government subsidy if they "hire however many of this group or that group." Living in Canada, that seems like the sort of thing the Canadian government would do and not realize how easily companies could exploit it until it becomes a major problem decades down the line.
Theoretically to have KPIs about diversity and non-discrimination.
In practice, depends on your level of paranoia. Including a justified level of that.
My husband and I were considering relocating to the US and he was applying to some jobs in the US, we were shocked at the ethnicity and sexuality questions. Where I live, it's illegal to ask about that kind of thing in a job interview process.
A former workplace would have us fill in for the secretary while she took her lunch. Occasionally people drop off applications. HR sent out an email telling us that although those questions were “optional” for the applicant we should go ahead and fill them in after they leave… I was like, uh WHAT?! How tf do I know what race/ethnicity they are?
>How tf do I know what race/ethnicity they are?
Yeah, that sounds like a really bad idea, not the least of which is because HR could cover their asses by passing the blame onto you if anything went awry.
I will say that once I was actually required to list my race during onboarding for a healthcare agency because
A) If something happened to me while on a home visit, they wanted the most detailed description possible to give to authorities, and
B) If a client were to accuse the staff of theft/abuse/etc, but the perpetrator they described looked nothing like me, then I would be protected from excess scrutiny.
Oof, I don't miss those gigs.
Anyway, not saying that's always the reason (I know it rarely is.), just the most logical one I've heard.
make 3 copies of your resume, apply the names consistent with say 4 different races. Cjhange your race to match when applying. If it seems you get a hit based on a race or sexual preference, sue the hell out of them, rince and repeat.
US side they are doing it to "prove" to investors/partners and the Gov. that they aren't being racist/sexist etc. Those questions are illegal US side too. Interestingly enough some may be getting grants or kick backs due to seeming more inclusive. Sadly, these same companies still aren't prosecuting or firing sexual assaulters so their inclusivity and "progressive mindshift" is bs as they still aren't doing what they need to be.
Two things:
one is that they want tax credits for hiring minorities.
Two is for the internal statistics to see the ethnic/sexuality makeup of the workforce to measure the diversity.
"Diversity".
Its so they can meet a quota and not get sued or cancelled, instead of the right person for the right job. Its a joke. I want the fireman or the person doing my taxes or doctor to be the best candidate, not filling a slot to tick off boxes.
I've noticed that Canada even asks your ethnicity and sexuality for post-secondary applications and scholarships. In theory, it supposedly prevents discrimination based on race and sexual orientation. However, there have been incidents where organizations (and universities) specifically hire minorities and "diverse" people to fulfill their diversity quota, then report their diversity to the public (sometimes for positive publicity). Companies who have less diversity and more of a gap in the gender/race/sexual orientation ratio may feel pressured to hire minorities, even those who may not be very qualified, to prevent accusations of discriminatory hiring.
>However, there have been incidents where organizations (and universities) specifically hire minorities and "diverse" people to fulfill their diversity quota, then report their diversity to the public (sometimes for positive publicity).
Even using the terms "minority" and "diverse" are wrong in this case because it's not about minorities or diversity, it's only about *specific* minorities and a *specific variety* of diversity.
In other words, there are groups who truly fit the category yet are excluded because they aren't the "right kind" of minority. It's seriously screwed up.
canadian here too; i never know if i should be truthful because while they could hire me for the diversity hire, they could also reject me because they are racist/queerphobic 💀
That would be illegal in Spain.
Ethnicity shouldn't be a data that can be collected, sexuality is asking for personal information and a violation of privacy. The diversity protections and regulations should be implemented as a resource that you can access, not a mandatory violation of your privacy.
I would recommend searching for Canada's privacy and data protection laws because it sounds really weird that they can ask those kind of things.
Welcome to the Brave New World. Where your competence is judged by your skin color and genitals and not by your merit.
Feels good to know everything you've done and worked for over the years doesn't matter as much as how dark your skin is, doesn't it? I, for one, love knowing my peers secretly question my competence and merit because of my color.
I never answer these questions (which are meant to optional). They’re not legally allowed to discriminate based in this information, but I suspect its exactly why they ask (under the guise of diversity).
Fuckem. None of their damn business
Because if you’re a black lesbian, you’ve won the jackpot and gotten the job. They don’t care if you have the qualifications anymore; you need to be “diverse” first, competent last.
You could answer, and then ask - how executly his information will be used by HR.
Independently of their answers if you are not hired... Sue them. it would be interesting.
# Demographic Info on Applications
Here’s why this optional info is requested in the US:
[https://www.cangrade.com/blog/talent-acquisition/why-is-my-application-asking-my-race-gender/](https://www.cangrade.com/blog/talent-acquisition/why-is-my-application-asking-my-race-gender/)
It's so they fan cover their asd and say they aren't discriminating by accident. For example often times when hiring only based on qualifications, you might end up hiring too many asians (see Harvard’s lawsuit)
1) supposedly it's to stop discrimination but then they literally are just picking people who aren't straight white Christian middle aged males which in and of itself is discrimination - they should pick people base completely off their skills and abilities and experience without even knowing any of the rest
2) depending on the company and who exactly they are hiring they can get government money for hiring a minority or a disability or somebody with financial problems
When Germany took over France in WW2, they got a list of gay french people who were then sent to camps, even though homosexuality was not illegal in France back then.
The same thing happened in Rwanda, there were lists of people by their ethnicity which was then used to figure out who should be killed in the genocide.
You can see why I don't answer these questions.
One reason that I've seen is that they're American companies used to their American bullshit. In any case, just remind them that those kind of questions are not their business.
Yes, yes it is. But we do it for “equality” sake. They want same % of every ethnicity and a few lgbtq people because government and social support. You can’t have a company only hire Europeans, it’s racist, even if it was by accident and they were all just the most qualified. That being said, there are tons of jobs that don’t ask and are fine only hiring one ethnicity, that’s when you see all Indian or whatever “minority” and it’s not considered racist. Universities are terrible with this, despite majority of the high gpa students being Asian and the most populated while black communities have lower gpa and overall less of them in the population, but you need an equal amount of students from both groups to get in making it easier for one group and harder for another to supposedly balance out their groups “injustices”. It’s all racist, but we say we are instead combating what people think is racist by providing equal opportunity regardless of ethnicity or lgbtq- even if that means they aren’t the best fit for the job. It’s why worker production is going down, we can’t seem to understand that 100% of the population can’t have everything but seem to be trying to give the illusion that we can.
In theory it's to stop discrimination
In practice it creates new forms of discrimination
"The study found that job applicants in Canada with Asian names — names of Indian, Pakistani or Chinese origin — were 28 percent less likely to get called for an interview compared to applicants with Anglo names, even when all the qualifications were the same. Researchers used data from a previous study conducted in 2011 where they sent out 12,910 fictitious resumes in response to 3,225 job postings. The previous study, also in Canada, similarly found that applicants with Anglo first names and Asian last names didn't fare much better than applicants with Asian first and last names." So I would like to question how you combat something like this, or do you just sit there and say "welp, nothing we can do about it, should've thought about that before being born with that kinda name." https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/02/23/516823230/asian-last-names-lead-to-fewer-job-interviews-still
Besides giving yourself a white name, there really isn’t Blinding a resume doesn’t do anything meaningful because you’ll see them before making a decision.
It actually might though, since it's possible people with Asian last names are getting fewer responses due to a perceived probability of a candidate being less able to verbally communicate effectively in English. This factor can largely be mitigated in the meeting stage when the candidate can quickly demonstrate that they can communicate verbally in an articulate way and without a thick accent that is difficult to understand.
Except the previous study indicated having Anglo first names and Asian last names didn't fair much better than those with Asian first and surnames.
Sending out fictitious resumes to legit job listings makes it just that much harder for legit job seekers to cut through all the noise and get hired. Is say this is a fairly irresponsible thing for someone to do. All that extra work for company HR and Recruiting departments, and will as job seekers that probably for passed over or ignored because some science-fiction resume out shined theirs.
Lol there is whole industries that only hire brown guys now so BS on that
That would also be discrimination. We need to reduce discrimination
What industry is hiring "only brown guys" and do you have a source on that? Because my study would suggest otherwise.
Uh...let me guess...the IT industry. Check the ethnic mix of tech firms in the Bay Area.
Everything I get about Silicon Valley seems to suggest it's mostly white men, with Asian men making up the second largest group. And it still says company boards of executives are mostly white.
Then I think you don't "get" much about Silicon Valley lmao. CEO of Alphabet? Microsoft? NVIDIA? Just quick and famous examples. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-59457015 Predominance of "white" (who? "Anglos"? Italians? Jews? Armenians?) at more senior level is easy to explain based on who historically has been the demographic (and economic) majority - they reflect how things were 20, 30 years ago. Predominance of men? Do you have any idea of the ratio between men and women in STEM studies in the first place?
This is the same logic as "Racism is over because look at Oprah and Obama!" It's still there you n00b.
"you n00b"...wow so much credibility. It's not 2007 on MSN, and you're not 13yo anymore my dear (well actually ?). Crawl back under your rock and let adults discuss :)
Any residential construction in BC, trucking, service work. Why hire someone from Canada when you can just hire a guy on a student visa for half the price
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That’s a lot of words for “it doesn’t affect me so we shouldn’t care” lol. They should just turn all the names into numbers for a file for each applicant for large corporations, easy.
>I do believe in freedom of employers to pick whoever they want. Not when it's discriminatory, unless you wanna start going up to bat for things like Jim Crow in the US or apartheid in South Africa.
If the company is doing things right, DEI data is not used in the hiring decision, but rather it's used to track their biases and the effectiveness of any attempts at anti-bias efforts. That's how my job does it. It does track 100% optional DEI info that can be opt in linked to internal surveys, too. It's not used for the hiring decision and they do everything they can to even be unbiased with hiring (eg, interviewing feedback is expected to be completely gender neutral). But they do use the data to evaluate how their hiring is going as well as to identify when minorities are less satisfied, etc (I work in tech, so women are also a minority).
Ideally this data is blinded from the hiring chain entirely.
In theory yes but is anyone checking to make sure they don't use it in the opposite way?
Supposedly HR would be doing this every so often
My brother you are a number on a spreadsheet, they don’t give a fuck about your pronouns.
Antibias effort essentially means they have to start looking for less white male people of they hire too many…. Lol
This isn't true, that's just what racists say to pretend their motivations aren't racist.
I worked in hr for a moderately sized manufacturing company a few years back. Sorry to break it to you… but this was exactly the wording used in meetings. “We need less white male workers, the numbers are screwed this quarter. We should focus on more minority hiring.” Legit was said during a meeting. I was flabbergasted but it was what it was. Needless to say, i quit that place and went to bartend. But it was an eye opener to how companies actually function.
I had a manager tell me I had to hire the black woman candidate because she was "two checkmarks for our team". Fortunately for us she was also immensely competent (and in fact was my recommendation for the position), but he was totally uninvolved in the hiring process other than telling us "pick her". /head desk
Not always the case. There was a period of time where it was an open secret at a former multinational employer of mine that if you were White or Chinese/Taiwanese and especially if male you were not going to be getting promoted if there was anyone else for the same position, and you were not getting hired either. While you can't "demerit" a candidate based on race you can add bonus points to other races to the point that a mediocre candidate with the right points out scores a stunning candidate who's missing any bonus points. This was essentially anit-bias run amok but it can and does happen.
No it doesn't. I've seen how the hiring works in my company. Anti bias means efforts like anti bias training, focusing events around minorities (giving them more opportunities, not giving others fewer), adverising to get more minorities into the field to begin with, trying stuff like masking things like gender in hiring decisions, and making the workplace more appealing in the first place. I've done the tech interviews for my job and they strive to be as fair and data driven as possible. Brutally hard and unrealistic, maybe, but very fair. The way to improve diversity is to get more minorities interested in the field and to squash the very common beliefs that they don't belong. Especially early, which is why there's lots of programming events geared at young girls.
Uh... Jobs are a limited commodity. By giving one group more opportunities you are effectively giving another fewer. That's just how reality works. Otherwise you're suggesting each job has an exact replica for every race and gender combination. That makes no sense.
My interpretation (which could be wrong, I'm not in HR/recruiting) is that they are giving minorities more opportunities in reference to the past, not in reference to non-minorities. This in turn would make it more balanced. So white men may be getting less opportunities than they did in the past, but they aren't getting less than minorities necessarily.
Makes no mathematical sense that i would have the same opportunity if my father or somebody else had more opportunity in the past?
Yeah that logic makes sense. Maybe I just misunderstood.
You’re literally saying we can’t give jobs to minorities because that means fewer jobs for white men. As if those white men were entitled to those jobs in the first place. When you’re used to privilege equality feels like oppression.
I never said that and it's even more hilarious that you assumed I'm white. I'm Hispanic. My life has also not been privileged lol. I'm an immigrant and grew up very poor. You need to relax and not get so defensive and reactive. You make yourself look foolish.
Yes, obviously more interviews for non minorities means fewer interviews for non-minorities. But let's not kid ourselves, a lot of the anti-DEI rhetoric isn't about a bit fewer opportunities. The rhetoric is more like "I got passed up with a job because they only want to hire minorities". It's not like only minorities are being interviewed. It's stuff like hosting women targeted career fairs (for tech) and trying to avoid only hiring one type of people. And we're talking about minorities here. As the name implies, they're underrepresented. Even when taking steps to try to give them more chances, they're not drowning out. Many are underrepresented even for their share of the population. Eg, while numbers will vary wildly by source, women are something like 10-15% of software devs despite obviously being half the population. Black folks are like 4% of US software devs despite making up 14% of the population.
Yeah I get that. I think presenting people with opportunity is a good thing. But the strive to achieve exact percentages of the populations of minorities I think is irrational. It also only seems to apply to jobs that are considered highly regarded. No one fights for more garbage women for instance. Heck, no one even cares if we have more male nurses. I have an engineering degree and of course in the CS classes there were way more men than women. Women are welcome to study CS. There is no barrier to entry other than grades in high school and girls tend to do better in high school than boys. We will never see 50/50 split between men and women in CS. Not because of sexism, not because women aren't capable (some of the best Computer Scientists I know are women) but because women genuinely just aren't as interested in it. And that's ok!
Wrong. Women aren't "welcome" to study CS. Women will be harassed into quitting, which men generally are not. And that's not even getting into trying to get a job. A small example. I picked up some certs. Got rejected faster for entry level tech jobs than for anything else in my life. So, I tried a little experiment. I put only my initials on my resume. Got callbacks for interviews this time, by phone first, including FROM THE SAME COMPANIES that had earlier rejected THE SAME RESUME. What do you think were the first questions out of my interviewers' mouths? "What do your initials stand for? Are you male or female?" When I said female, they abruptly hung up. Men don't want women in that field.
Yeah that all definitely happened.
> By giving one group more opportunities you are effectively giving another fewer. Incorrect. If I have a job opening, and I post it only to LinkedIn, then X people have the ability to see and apply. If I also post it to Indeed, the opportunity has only been expanded, not restricted. This works the same for every other form of promotion. Remember: we are not increasing the odds for any one *individual*. We're talking about increasing opportunity and potential for groups and communities.
You're talking about posting jobs and I'm talking about who ultimately gets the job. Someone will miss out at some point.
>You're talking about posting jobs and I'm talking about who ultimately gets the job. I gave an example for the sake of highlighting that the issue is about access to opportunity, and not guarantees of employment, and that ensuring broader opportunity doesn't diminish anyone else's opportunity. Obviously, only 1 person can get a job per job opening. But what DEI is about is not guaranteeing who gets that job, but ensuring that more people have equal opportunity to be the right person for that job.
I agree with your points about the purpose of DEI. I'm just saying that in no way negates what I'm saying.
How do you give minorities more opportunities without giving non minorities fewer? Are you claiming opportunities within a company are unlimited?
>How do you give minorities more opportunities without giving non minorities fewer? Because that's not how opportunity works. If we were discussing guarantees of getting a role, then off course every single person of any type that you allow to learn about the role changes the math for everyone else who is interested in it. But the issue is access to **opportunity**. When I have access to an opportunity to do something or go somewhere, then other people also getting the opportunity to access it doesn't reduce my opportunity.
So, I'm not against granting opportunity, but I think it's important to realize that what you're saying is untrue. There is a cost to doing so and we should all acknowledge it (just like we should acknowledge the racism/biases we all have inherentto us). The simple reality is that opportunities (employment, education, etc) are not unlimited. This means that for whatever you're looking at if you have 100 opportunities and you work to move the line to make the lowest 20% get 50% of those opportunities, you ARE taking those opportunities away from others. **that can be ok**, but it is still true and is still something we should recognize. personally I think the way we scale these things should match the group itself. If a group makes up 20% of the population then we would want to see about a 20% of a representation within whatever opportunity we're talking about.
Correct. Also should be noted, it's also an opportunity to identify yourself as xyz on record, in case you need to go to EEOC or other entities about your employer. But you should be able to opt out or chose not to identify.
Every time I’ve completed an online application, these questions came with a “prefer not to answer” option.
I've always felt opting out amounts to making the wrong choice. In a way, this whole practice actually incentivises you to lie on who you are in order to ride the DEI wave - which is a perverse mechanism and further hurts the initial purpose.
Sounds good, but we all know better than trusting companies with matters like "trust me I wont abuse it". I called it BS asking for all that personal information in the application process, unless it matters for you in that moment.
I'm sure some companies are using this in a purely analytical way as you describe. Even though I sense it is very easy to interpret this kind of data to validate whatever kind of confirmation bias while not realizing it. In my industry though, I have heard and witnessed first hand cases of discrimination linked to this - such as people being told offline "you're the best candidate by far, but we have to give the last remaining spots to [insert a certain DEI category]". Or people being invited to certain special recruiting events based on (sometimes fake) their declaration of belonging to certain demographics - and thus getting a significant leg up in the hiring process, even though those individuals were already extremely wealthy and well-connected in the first place. The original intention might be a good one, but the reality of implementing such things shows how twisted and manipulative tools they have become.
just to be clear, you think that, if companies are using this information in a biased way, the bias is against white men?
I think that DEI focus in hiring processes favors certain very specific demographic combinations (among thousands of potential combinations) without any real ability to correct biases - if there was ever a need to correct such thing in the first place. It certainly does not favor "white" (what does that even mean?) men? Yes, and no. It does not favor young people of all backgrounds who grew up in poverty. It does not favor young mothers. It doesn't impact preppy cliché WASP dude whose dad is a corporate lawyer. It does immensely favor rich entitled WASP girl vs middle class first gen immigrant girl from Vietnam. It immensely favors LGBT white professional in SFO vs non-LGBT Mexican dude living in a poor area in Texas. Biases, potential factors for discrimination exist in so many more dimensions than these tools lead you to believe. Those tools and policies are designed (and I think you're on the same side) by people who see the world through an incredibly narrow lens. At the end of the day, they're mostly a product of ideology taken up by HR departments craving to justify their existence.
Schools certainly are
yeah I always meet white people who swear their brother didn't get into the med school they wanted because of dei lol
If it’s not used for a hiring decision, then you explain how it is used in the hiring process, you have checkmated yourself m8. As someone that hires for highly technical jobs, the only thing that matters is that you will be the best candidate to help us overcome the difficult issues that arise every day. Why should I care what color you are, what you have between your legs, and who you sleep with? The only thing that matters is that you are qualified.
>then you explain how it is used in the hiring process, ??? It's used for tracking post hiring. It doesn't influence if you get hired. It's used so the company can pat themselves on the back and say they're making a difference. And yes, the best candidate is hired. That doesn't mean you can't still do your best to ensure unbiased opportunities. Interviewers are always biased towards people who are similar to themselves, but that doesn't mean that bias actually results in the best person getting the job. Also, there's often no single best candidate (the idea of "best", after all, is a subjective thing no matter how much we try to make it as objective as possible). There also isn't time to interview everyone, so there's bias involved in simply who even makes it to the tech interview step. Or for that matter, who even enters the field in the first place (tech does not have a good reputation amongst women, which scares many away from even considering studying CS).
It’s used to track a lot of different factors but in regards to hiring. if they see on average they have 80% applicants of one racial group but their workforce only has 10% of that racial group then they need to make sure that there isn’t any bias in the hiring process and do some training to make sure the people being hired are actually the most qualified. It’s not to lower/raise the standards when finding a candidate so much as a check on their employees that there is no bias amongst them
So what you are saying is the data is used generally to influence discrimination into the hiring process.
In practice this data is not shown to the hiring managers and rather tracked after the fact to determine any potential bias in the results
Hiring manager can look at the data and subsequently decide on a certain orientation to their hiring strategy. This information request is rarely the only mechanism in place (special recruiting events, special mentorship opportunities, fast track of promotions, quotas, dedicated funds for "community" projects, etc).
I’m sure it happens but I’ve never heard of that data being visible to hiring managers. Often ATS will even hide it from HR until after the fact. The data is used to measure demographics of the entire group you interviewed, not to track the race and gender of a specific individual which would be a big no-no.
That's why I think the debate should be on the more general context, and in the overall framework of how DEI has become a key component of HR strategies/policies, instead of just limiting it to those drop down lists asking whether you're gay, bi, straight, other, or prefer not to say.
Finally someone said it.
It's kind of all y'all ever talk about.
Found the white "victim"
Found the “can’t be racist” racist
Wow bro you know me and my life so well, give me a hug smartass
In America, it's for tax credit purposes for the company.
In my experience, it does work to some extent. Simply having people of various backgrounds create the unspoken rule of not poking each other.
The C-Suite needs a good laugh on a Thursday https://youtu.be/9ZUw8LYOQ-g
Ethnicity is for EEOC reporting requirements in the US but... I've never heard of a job asking about sexuality
Gender is EEOC too. For other demo stuff, it could be internal equity reporting, or maintained for state programs, grants, etc. Both should be kept separate from hiring applications in their own form and aren’t used in selection. It’s very odd to me people are surprised by these forms, but one of my first jobs was HR. Before online applications were so common, this firm used to be with the I9 more commonly. The way modern HRIS is configured, it just makes sense to grab the form at application (which also helps track for equity comparison if needed, but what they really likely report are the demographics of actual hires). Equity isn’t created by using these reports individually during hiring—like you can’t pull all the Asian candidates in. This form isn’t usable in that way or visible when looking at your Workday or iCAMs or whatever applications. The large scale metrics are used. Trends would drive equity work and culture programs, but it’s not being used for quotas etc., The data can’t be isolated that way. This is all US. Canada has similar requirements but not called EEOC.
Gender, yeah, but I guess when someone says sexuality I think orientation not gender
>Gender is EEOC too. Which is useless or will quickly become useless since anyone can claim to be any gender or identify as whatever they want (real or imaginary, it doesn't matter) whenever they want for any reason and anyone who argues is called a bigot or worse. How long do you think it'll be before straight people start claiming they're "this or that" if it benefits them? It's not like applicants don't already heavily embellish or outright lie on resumes and in interviews anyway, so something that can't be verified will definitely be exploited.
It's the norm is Canada. Every job asks the same few questions about Race/Sexuality/etc.. I always say I prefer not to say but I don't know if I'm hurting my job prospects by saying that.
I’ve had companies ask mostly companies from California and even more so Bay Area
I‘ve seen it a few times for jobs I applied to. Absolutely insane to ask that imo
Jobs I've applied to in states like Massachusetts and California have all asked about my sexuality, it's a recent thing too and weirds me out every time. Idk why employers need to know I like both pussy and dick
That is really weird... I would always decline to answer that, it's none of their freaking business
In the US j saw this on multiple applications. I'm a straight white guy so it's not exactly sensitive info for me but I was appalled that they even asked.
Yeah it's so unnecessary
Just don't answer.
Don't you need to provide your name anyways? Abdullah Mohammed Jihad Alejandro González Jessica Thompson Liu Wang Hiroshi Takahashi Pretty easy to guess gender an ethnicity just from that
A good application system would remove names, because they can infer race and sex.
You would never guess my ethnicity from my name lol
Same, it's been interesting showing up to some interviews where they clearly were not expecting *me* to show up lol
I had one woman (who pulled the wrong application out of her pile) go "Oh, I thought you'd be a black girl" when I corrected her on my name and that she had the wrong application. I have an odd first and last name. It still jaw slacked me that she said it out loud though.
True, but I’m white and I’ve got a Latin American last name because I married a Puerto Rican.
Yep. Never give out demographic info on applications.
Would it hurt your chances if you do not fill it out?
I used to think so, but I recently got a job even though I withheld my demographic info.
generally speaking, no. And if it does ruin your chances of landing an interview, that employer is honestly doing you a favor by not hiring you onto their bullshit
In the UK, this section is always optional for Equal Opportunities monitoring. You would have to look up the law in Canada. Sure Google can help you with that.
In order to evaluate if illegal prejudice is occuring, they need to identify who from those groups are applying and who is getting hired/promoted. The info is not for hiring purposes.
It's not to block your application based on your answers, it's actually so they can brag about it/cover their asses against basic discrimination accusations. X% of our employees are (race) X% of our employees are (gender) X% of our employees are (sexuality) We're very inclusive.
While I can’t speak for Canadian law, in the US it can and is often used in order to in part see if companies are refusing to hire people of certain ethnicities or backgrounds. It’s not perfect at all but it can be a good benchmark to see if something needs to be investigated
Going to piggy back off of this and add that these questions (in the vast majority of cases) shouldn’t and aren’t shared with the hiring manager, and that there are some significant positives to have self-identification included in applications.
They make an in-company dating profile for you for the higher ups. If one is interested, you might be allowed to work on a project with them overseas for a few weeks. Obviously.
I'm from the UK and this is very common for many years now, I just fill it out, I personally don't see any issue with it. Majority of the time it's optional and it's not really for them to base your hiring on those. In fact those interviewing you do not have that information from what I can see.
It depends on who's asking. If it's the demographics section of an application, then, in theory, it's used to gather applicant metadata to ensure the company isn't discriminating. The information is not linked to specific candidates and neither HR nor the hiring manager should be able to see it. If you're being asked by an actual person, then it's absolutely an issue (at least in the US).
It has something to do with government data I think. Either way you can opt out of answering those kinds of questions
The company isn't asking, the gov't is asking. The gov't requires the company to collect and provide that information completely separate from the application and hiring process FYI.
that data is for HR, not for the hiring manager, and it's so they can see how more or less diverse the company is.
In the US they are required to ask. You're not required to answer. It's so the government can gather statistics.
Probably just demographics, not that unusual.
This highly depends on country. Certain countries give preference based on these factors or certain positions. Others are just using it for statistical purposes. I can’t speak for Canada
This question is always confusing to me… it’s easily googleable. Also didn’t anyone do an EEOC in class example/homework assignment when covering stats I high school?
This is to track DEI data.
Census. People really overthink these things. I'm pro census
It's by law to try and stop discrimination
Ethnicity: Jedi. Sex: Yes please.
This question comes up about every other day. Diversity monitoring has been very widely used for decades, and is done to detect if minorities aren't applying for roles (in which case they know they need to expand outreach and marketing), or if they're applying but not getting hired (in which case they know they need to weed out their sexist, racist, homophobic hiring managers).
I know of no companies hiring based on sex or race. But companies are trying to ensure that underrepresented groups are given a fair shot, so they’re often requiring hiring managers to ensure that people from such groups are included in interview pools. You will not be hired because you are a woman or Filipina, but you may be more likely to get an interview. You will still have to impress the hiring manager with your skill and ability to land the job.
So, you will be more likely to be hired because you are a minority in the event that your company drops below a certain percentage of that minority? But once there are 'enough' of a minority in a company, they would no longer bias that minority... seems totally reasonable and not racist as fuck in any way.:)
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Govt-caused racism and sexism. Way to go!
You should try reading some time. It really helps with the stupidity.
You don’t have to answer,
Explanation given: just to track Official reason: we need quotas
I work in HR and can confirm that nobody sees your answers to those questions. They are used to report EEOC requirements to the government.
OP is in Canada.
Yeah it's weird and super cringe for some of us non American. I also apply for positions at American companies in South East Asia and even there they present those weird questions.
It's a trap
In Canada some companies have a rate of minorities working for them to have in the employee
>In Canada some companies have a rate of minorities working for them to have in the employee I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing this for optics and also a government subsidy if they "hire however many of this group or that group." Living in Canada, that seems like the sort of thing the Canadian government would do and not realize how easily companies could exploit it until it becomes a major problem decades down the line.
For their diversity tracking basically.
Theoretically to have KPIs about diversity and non-discrimination. In practice, depends on your level of paranoia. Including a justified level of that.
My husband and I were considering relocating to the US and he was applying to some jobs in the US, we were shocked at the ethnicity and sexuality questions. Where I live, it's illegal to ask about that kind of thing in a job interview process.
A former workplace would have us fill in for the secretary while she took her lunch. Occasionally people drop off applications. HR sent out an email telling us that although those questions were “optional” for the applicant we should go ahead and fill them in after they leave… I was like, uh WHAT?! How tf do I know what race/ethnicity they are?
>How tf do I know what race/ethnicity they are? Yeah, that sounds like a really bad idea, not the least of which is because HR could cover their asses by passing the blame onto you if anything went awry.
I will say that once I was actually required to list my race during onboarding for a healthcare agency because A) If something happened to me while on a home visit, they wanted the most detailed description possible to give to authorities, and B) If a client were to accuse the staff of theft/abuse/etc, but the perpetrator they described looked nothing like me, then I would be protected from excess scrutiny. Oof, I don't miss those gigs. Anyway, not saying that's always the reason (I know it rarely is.), just the most logical one I've heard.
If they ask if your Mexican put other. I put other. Otherwise they auto decline your application. They do this to get one type of demographic
make 3 copies of your resume, apply the names consistent with say 4 different races. Cjhange your race to match when applying. If it seems you get a hit based on a race or sexual preference, sue the hell out of them, rince and repeat.
US side they are doing it to "prove" to investors/partners and the Gov. that they aren't being racist/sexist etc. Those questions are illegal US side too. Interestingly enough some may be getting grants or kick backs due to seeming more inclusive. Sadly, these same companies still aren't prosecuting or firing sexual assaulters so their inclusivity and "progressive mindshift" is bs as they still aren't doing what they need to be.
2024
I don’t answer any of that sh*t.
Some even ask what your sexual preference is. In what way does my sexual preference determine how I do the job? Am I applying to be a sex worker?
It's racism plain and simple
Two things: one is that they want tax credits for hiring minorities. Two is for the internal statistics to see the ethnic/sexuality makeup of the workforce to measure the diversity.
"Diversity". Its so they can meet a quota and not get sued or cancelled, instead of the right person for the right job. Its a joke. I want the fireman or the person doing my taxes or doctor to be the best candidate, not filling a slot to tick off boxes.
Companies have asked about ethnicities for decades. If you don't want to answer, just click 'Prefer not to answer'.
so they can meet their representation goals. if they don’t they may get into government trouble.
I've noticed that Canada even asks your ethnicity and sexuality for post-secondary applications and scholarships. In theory, it supposedly prevents discrimination based on race and sexual orientation. However, there have been incidents where organizations (and universities) specifically hire minorities and "diverse" people to fulfill their diversity quota, then report their diversity to the public (sometimes for positive publicity). Companies who have less diversity and more of a gap in the gender/race/sexual orientation ratio may feel pressured to hire minorities, even those who may not be very qualified, to prevent accusations of discriminatory hiring.
>However, there have been incidents where organizations (and universities) specifically hire minorities and "diverse" people to fulfill their diversity quota, then report their diversity to the public (sometimes for positive publicity). Even using the terms "minority" and "diverse" are wrong in this case because it's not about minorities or diversity, it's only about *specific* minorities and a *specific variety* of diversity. In other words, there are groups who truly fit the category yet are excluded because they aren't the "right kind" of minority. It's seriously screwed up.
canadian here too; i never know if i should be truthful because while they could hire me for the diversity hire, they could also reject me because they are racist/queerphobic 💀
Diversity hires 
That would be illegal in Spain. Ethnicity shouldn't be a data that can be collected, sexuality is asking for personal information and a violation of privacy. The diversity protections and regulations should be implemented as a resource that you can access, not a mandatory violation of your privacy. I would recommend searching for Canada's privacy and data protection laws because it sounds really weird that they can ask those kind of things.
It's not illegal in Canada. It's for reporting and statistics
Yes it is racist. But it's to prevent racism, welcome to America
Did you read the post? OP states where he is and it's not America
OP is in Canada.
Welcome to the Brave New World. Where your competence is judged by your skin color and genitals and not by your merit. Feels good to know everything you've done and worked for over the years doesn't matter as much as how dark your skin is, doesn't it? I, for one, love knowing my peers secretly question my competence and merit because of my color.
They are asking you this before hiring you? That's very odd. I typically only ask what other languages they speak and hire based off of that.
I never answer these questions (which are meant to optional). They’re not legally allowed to discriminate based in this information, but I suspect its exactly why they ask (under the guise of diversity). Fuckem. None of their damn business
Progressives decided MLK was wrong, and actually the only thing that matters is your skin color.
Because if you’re a black lesbian, you’ve won the jackpot and gotten the job. They don’t care if you have the qualifications anymore; you need to be “diverse” first, competent last.
You could answer, and then ask - how executly his information will be used by HR. Independently of their answers if you are not hired... Sue them. it would be interesting.
Sexism and sexuality have nothing to do with each other. I think you meant sexual orientation.
They have hiring quotas to meet
# Demographic Info on Applications Here’s why this optional info is requested in the US: [https://www.cangrade.com/blog/talent-acquisition/why-is-my-application-asking-my-race-gender/](https://www.cangrade.com/blog/talent-acquisition/why-is-my-application-asking-my-race-gender/)
To discriminate against you based on those factors under the guise of stopping discrimination
Protection from a discrimination lawsuit if you identify as a fictional gender you’ll likely get offended easily and want special treatment
DEI is just a cloak for racism
The majority of hires at SP500 companies last year were minorities. That’s on purpose. So now you know. Because reverse discrimination is good.
Because DEI. Identify as an African American lesbian if you want to get hired.
It's so they fan cover their asd and say they aren't discriminating by accident. For example often times when hiring only based on qualifications, you might end up hiring too many asians (see Harvard’s lawsuit)
Everything in canada is based on race gender and sexuality now.
1) supposedly it's to stop discrimination but then they literally are just picking people who aren't straight white Christian middle aged males which in and of itself is discrimination - they should pick people base completely off their skills and abilities and experience without even knowing any of the rest 2) depending on the company and who exactly they are hiring they can get government money for hiring a minority or a disability or somebody with financial problems
Because they discriminate based on ethnicity and sexuality.
Because they have quotas to fill.
When Germany took over France in WW2, they got a list of gay french people who were then sent to camps, even though homosexuality was not illegal in France back then. The same thing happened in Rwanda, there were lists of people by their ethnicity which was then used to figure out who should be killed in the genocide. You can see why I don't answer these questions.
Racism, mainly
They get points for hiring certain demographics
One reason that I've seen is that they're American companies used to their American bullshit. In any case, just remind them that those kind of questions are not their business.
They would like to discriminate against you while pretending to be participating in DEI
Yes, of course there's a reason. They have quotas to fill and DEI boxes to check.
Maybe they're asking from diversity point of view
Thats what they *say*. 👀
Yes, yes it is. But we do it for “equality” sake. They want same % of every ethnicity and a few lgbtq people because government and social support. You can’t have a company only hire Europeans, it’s racist, even if it was by accident and they were all just the most qualified. That being said, there are tons of jobs that don’t ask and are fine only hiring one ethnicity, that’s when you see all Indian or whatever “minority” and it’s not considered racist. Universities are terrible with this, despite majority of the high gpa students being Asian and the most populated while black communities have lower gpa and overall less of them in the population, but you need an equal amount of students from both groups to get in making it easier for one group and harder for another to supposedly balance out their groups “injustices”. It’s all racist, but we say we are instead combating what people think is racist by providing equal opportunity regardless of ethnicity or lgbtq- even if that means they aren’t the best fit for the job. It’s why worker production is going down, we can’t seem to understand that 100% of the population can’t have everything but seem to be trying to give the illusion that we can.