Last year we did an experiment to test the job waters in Ohio. 700 resumes were sent out and the results were not good at all. We received just 3 phone calls, 1 interview, and no job. This year we decided to actually interview hiring managers and applicants. It's hard to believe what we found.
There is definitely a lot of race and gender bias when it comes to hiring employees but it isn't across the board. We noticed that while all the companies have different preferences, all of them have quotas to fill. Apparently Affirmative action is alive and well with hiring managers but if you are an attractive female your chances are even greater. Yes in one case we sent a couple to apply for a position. The male had ten years experience and a college degree. The female did not have any experience and did not even posses a GED but she was given the job while the male was told he didn't have enough experience. Enough experience at what became my question. The hiring manager at this particular place even asked the female if she was single which is illegal.
At a temporary service our female investigator was harassed by the man finding her a job. He called her home and cell phone to ask her out on dates and according to one woman working for the firm he showed up where she worked to see how she was doing and asked her out. I guess that will continue until someone reports it to the proper authorities but who is the proper authorities?
A few factories we found in lake county hired mostly Hispanics and it was reported that many did not speak English. Talking to another hiring manager we found they were required to have a certain amount of blacks and females working. He also went on to say that every year the State comes in to interview him and make sure he is doing what they say. According to the Census whites are 2% away from becoming the minority. Will affirmative action stop when the numbers are even? The person also told us the government employees that came to visit him pretty much had the run of the office and he was advised to be submissive to them.
After talking to some laid off workers we also found that whites were more likely to be laid off than blacks. In one incident a white electrician had seniority but his black coworker got to stay. The man said his coworker cried racism and the manager was sympathetic in not so many words. Is this happening more? We don't have all of the facts to support it so we really can't say for sure. It is rather interesting though and could be a future investigation.
All of this has saddened me and I know this article won't be read by many because every time one of my articles reaches a search engine they have to pay me too much money (that's why you can't find them in a google search). Hopefully the few that do read this will do something about this madness. There are many good men out there who just want to provide for their families. How can they with all of this bias going on?
Comments
Oh man! You are right on! I have heard from a lot of people this stuff really goes on. At least someone has the guts to publish it. Great job!
Not saying that I disagree with you, but what job did the college grad and pretty girl apply for? It matters. I have an MBA. If I apply for a full time job at McDonald's working the drive-thru and am up against a 17 yr old in high school, I won't get the job. They aren't going to hire somebody with an MBA for that job. They feel that the MBA will leave as soon as they find a better job, and the MBA has the skills to get a better job. Better to hire the 17 yr old since they will stay for a while.
Again, not saying I disagree, but the job applied for makes a big difference and should be noted.
Not saying that I disagree with you, but what job did the college grad and pretty girl apply for? It matters. I have an MBA. If I apply for a full time job at McDonald's working the drive-thru and am up against a 17 yr old in high school, I won't get the job. They aren't going to hire somebody with an MBA for that job. They feel that the MBA will leave as soon as they find a better job, and the MBA has the skills to get a better job. Better to hire the 17 yr old since they will stay for a while.
Again, not saying I disagree, but the job applied for makes a big difference and should be noted.
Keep on writing the truth, and make sure the articles have search-engine friendly titles that people will likely search for in order to get a higher profile in search engines. (For example a search on "regionalism good bad" returns your article "Regionalism Good or Bad" as the #1 result in Yahoo and the #3 result in Google at the time of this writing, which is a great example!) The trick is to come up with phrases with keywords that people will search for, but which also don't already have thousands of competing hits either.
RJ- Thanks for the tip.
Jon- I get what you are saying and you are right. The position was a supervisor position in a semi clean factory environment. Those seem to be the only jobs available. He was a former supervisor with 10 yrs experience and an associates degree in programming. It was obvious though why she was hired. He did flirt with her quite a bit.
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