I don’t usually call companies out. I limit myself to exposing situations. In this case, I’ll make an exception for two reasons: first one, it touches me on a personal level and secondly, because the perpetrators of this type of unethical behavior need to be tagged and unearthed.
There are many reasons why a candidate can be dispositioned from a recruitment process. This time, I’ll focus on one particular type: the candidate having two deceases, capable of threatening the workplace environment: getting married and potential pregnancy.
Last week, my wife received a call from an HR consulting company who was recruiting for a small consulting company, Talenters. She’s not actively looking for a job but the proposal seemed good so she was willing to hear to what they had to offer.
She had an initial phone screen with the broker last week and yesterday she received a phone call from them. They told her that the hiring company really liked my wife’s profile but that they were going to pass on her because she had just gotten married and was “at risk” of becoming pregnant in the near future. By the way, we are not even planning on having kids for the next couple of years but they wouldn’t bother asking either. According to their archaic logic, getting married means “maternity leave”… and if that’s the case, so what?
It’s funny how a company that on its website claim as one of their values (translating from the website) “building long term bonds with their clients and candidates becoming their strategic allies”, forge these so called alliances by discriminating those they claim to be allys with.
They also claim to specialize in hiring high potential professionals. In this case, getting married kills all potential because, you know, when women get married, they have kids, flush their professional careers down the toilet and become housewives… so Victorian.
I guess these people haven’t heard about single moms, concubines getting pregnant without a ring, couples not living together that have kids (willingly or by accident) or single parents that decide to adopt or use assisted fertilization. I guess these people are living in a different century and are pretty disconnected from the real world. Tip for you guys at Talenters: this is not 1837 anymore.
Gender discrimination is often conceived as a battle of sexes: males vs. females or viceversa. What’s curious in this case is that this company is composed by females.
You may be screaming sue them! Well, in the US (and most parts of the civilized world) this is one of those situations when you would call your lawyer in the blink of an eye. Here in Argentina things don’t work like that. Companies are allowed to disposition candidates based on pretty much whatever reason they can come up with and it’s not an unusual practice. Still, the fact that something is legal, does not mean it’s ethically correct.
Have you ever been discriminated during the recruitment process? What are your experiences?
Edit: here’s the discussion about this post on Linkedin
Article by Fernando
The guy in charge of this blog - husband, Psychologist, former Manager, Blogger, Job Coach, Recruiter and Information Junkie. Yes, I am all that.
Fernando has written 254 awesome articles for us at FT Careers
Twitter: @ftarnogol | Facebook | Google+ | Blog → I'mpossible - Personal Blog
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Twitter: BrianHumek
May 26, 2012 at 11:37 pm
Sorry this happened to your wife. Congratulations on the marriage too. While reading your story I was shocked that a company would come out and blatantly say that was the reason they wouldn’t hire her. Reading on, I found out you aren’t in America so that explains so much. I thought Kirchner (believe that’s the President) was so forward thinking on many subjects. Does she approve of this practice or is it so ingrained in the thinking of companies and the public that there’s no way to change the backward hiring practices there?
Brian invites you to read..Congressman Solis Introduces a Bill Named After a Pizza Blog
Twitter: ftarnogol
May 28, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Thanks, Brian. I’m afraid that this is so deep rooted in our culture that unless the government takes action and creates legislation, things will not change. Adding insult to injury, this is way deep down (if it even exists) in the government’s priority list.
Thing is that discrimination in ARG is not a big “social issue” like it is in the US; so, by lacking that cultural background, Argentina also lack from a legal framework to protect individuals from these actions.
OK no discrimination between two sex should be made
peter invites you to read..Stop Traditional Ways Search Job Online
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