It was reported recently that Amazon shut down an AI-powered recruitment system because it discriminated against women. The system was designed to look at a collection of resumes and pick the best candidates, but most of those it picked were…
Discrimination
The First Step to Creating an Equitable Company Culture Is Asking the Right Questions
I recently asked my Facebook friends, many of whom are in staffing, if they noticed that leaders in recruiting are disproportionately male. I explained that what I had experienced wasn’t that there were necessarily more men in recruiting leadership roles…
Instead of Complaining About a Talent Shortage, Let’s Expand the Definition of Talent
Recruiting today misses talented people who may not directly fit the job description, or model of the “ideal hire.” Traditional hiring practices assess on experience (what you have done) rather than potential (what you are capable of), with a disproportionate…
ACLU Raises Gender Bias Charge Against Facebook’s Recruiting Tools to EEOC
The recruiting world should monitor the ACLU’s recent charges against Facebook alleging that its employment advertising discriminates against women and non-binary persons by allowing employers to target employment advertising to gender groups. The ACLU filed these charges with the U.S….
How Not to Write a Job Posting
Seventh Circuit Holds That the ADEA Also Covers Job Applicants, Not Just Employees Employers should keep an eye on a case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit holding that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act covers…
Don’t Embed Your Bias in Your Algorithm
AI, algorithms, and machine learning are the buzzwords in recruitment at the moment. Although many don’t really know what they entail, everybody wants them. But because of a lack of understanding the true nature of what we are building and…
This Group Is Having a Tough Time Getting Jobs, Often for No Good Reason
Back in 2012 we took a look at what the blind experience on career sites. But what are they experiencing in the job market overall? Charles Curti, director of human resources at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard…
Dice Survey on Tech Industry Finds Discrimination, Bias, Ageism Are Still Big Problems
This shouldn’t come as any great surprise: Dice’s new Diversity and Inclusion Report 2018 finds that discrimination and bias are still major problems in the tech industry, particularly as they relate to gender. The Dice report surveyed nearly 4,000 technology…
Job Seeker Nation Report: 82% of Workers Seeking New Opportunities
If there’s one thing that jumps out from Jobvite’s 2018 Job Seeker Nation Study, it’s this: they hit you immediately with the huge changes going on today in the world of recruitment and talent acquisition. This wasn’t the case with…
#MeToo Movement’s Gretchen Carlson to Talent Leaders: Be Fierce!
Gretchen Carlson, the accomplished journalist, former Miss America, long-time Fox & Friends host, author, Ted Talker, prominent member of the #MeToo movement, spoke at the Spring ERE Recruiting Conference, and I was fortunate to have snagged a few minutes with her…
Direct From Women in Tech: Here’s How to Attract and Retain Us
More than half of U.S.-based women in tech say their ideas are ignored in meetings until a man repeats them. Are you kidding me? More than half also say they’re left out of professional/social events and are often assigned low-level…
How to Screen Out Sexual Harassers During the Hiring Process
Recruiting leaders must realize that they are exposing their firm to “negligent hiring” charges if they fail to do everything possible to prevent the hiring of candidates who later go on to sexually harass. Prevention is key, because once sexual…
Corporate Shame — Why Doesn’t Your Firm Predict and Prevent Sexual Harassment?
Note: This “think piece” is designed to stimulate the thinking of board members and executives about the need for a corporate program for predicting where sexual harassment is likely to occur Sexual harassment may be the corporate risk factor…
Me Too: Sex Had an Effect on My Job Hunt
Me too … countless times, but this story is relevant to ERE. It speaks to what we do. It may have something to do with why I hate the EEOC, despite otherwise considering myself a champion for equality and equal…
Employment Contracts Behaving Badly: ‘We’re Not Harvey Weinstein!’
Unless media is talking about Russians, natural disasters, or Donald Trump, gender issues seem to be at the forefront of every news story these days. Uber is in trouble for allegedly treating women badly. Google is in trouble for allegedly paying…
Unconscious Bias Could Be Stopping You From Harnessing The Potential Of New Grads
Anyone who has been a recent graduate searching for a job knows how difficult it can be. Intimidating advice like, “it’s not what you know; it’s who you know” and a plethora of exclusive job description phrases like, “five to…
Engineer’s Anti-Diversity Memo Gets Sharp Rebuke From Google
A political firestorm has erupted at Google over a 10-page memo by a software engineer challenging the company’s diversity efforts, declaring that biology and not society explains why there are so few women in tech and leadership. Posted internally last…
The Definitive Action Guide for Minimizing Bias and Increasing Diversity Hires (Part 1 of 2)
There has been a great deal of recent coverage on unconscious biases. However, almost all of the attention has been on becoming aware of these unconscious biases. This is problematic because even data-driven Google could not prove that unconscious bias…
The OFCCP Paradox: Government Actions Create a New Diversity Hiring Fallacy
Over the past year, the Department of Labor has taken a newfound interest in the number of Asians working at tech companies in Silicon Valley. New allegations and statistical analysis methods strike at the core of long-standing hiring practices and…
Even in Jobseeking, Men Are From Mars, Women Are from Venus
It’s been 25 years since John Gray published the now famous — or maybe infamous — treatise on gender relationships, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” Gray’s thesis was that for cooperation to flourish in romantic relationships, both…