According to news reports, civil servants have sent out thousands of bogus job applications to businesses in an effort to expose race discrimination in the recruitment process. The fake job application scheme was devised by the Department of Work and Pensions, the ministry responsible for paying most benefits and trying to get the jobless back into work.
Officials conducted the exercise by putting in two or more applications for each of 1,000 job vacancies using false identities to see whether firms were unfairly rejecting job-hunters with foreign-sounding names. CVs would be similar, but the applications would be signed either with a traditional British name or one that looked as if it belonged to an applicant from an ethnic minority. Employers who offered interviews to the fake applicants were put through to a mobile phone number, where their offer was declined.
Solicitor General, Vera Baird, has said initial results suggested 'there was quite a strong sense that there is race discrimination going on'. Miss Baird, has said the research could lead to an addition to the Equality Bill banning employers from asking for names from applicants before they offer an interview, in an attempt to stamp out such dicrimination.
Do you think race discrimination really is systemic in recruitment?
Do you think there is merit in imposing a ‘no-names’ rule in the Equality Bill?
Sandy wrote:
I have applied for hundreds of jobs here in UK but never got any response. The most recent one (usual case with me) i had applied for a job that best meets my experience and was quite successful as the agency directly told me that I'm perfect for the job, during my interview with them. She informed that the position her client has needs to be filled up asap which was fine with me as hard work don't scare me at all. But its been 4 days now and no calls from her end and my calls were being rejected with an excuse that she's busy and that she's chasing the client. The question arise...does her client rejected my application just because i'm from a different ethnic community, is my experience and qualification and the strong desire to work and get off benefits does not count?? I dont want to fight nor do i want to accuse them of anything...honestly i dont want anything but just a chance to work and get off benefits and support my family, thereby stand on my own feet and feel like a responsible person.
Emma cross wrote:
Equal Opportunities Review (www.eordirect.co.uk) recently featured an article on this topic by Lynne Featherstone MP which they have kindly allowed us to share with our readers. To view it please click here.
Fiona Hamor wrote:
I was pleased to see that the DWP recognises that inspite of the legislation in place to prevent discrimination, there is still a problem. It would be interesting to try a similar exercise as between male and female applicants... I wonder how many companies, when faced with two similar applications, would give the job to a woman in her early 30s as opposed to a man!
Shams wrote:
ironic that on this comment form the name field is "required"(!)
Shams wrote:
And yet ironically now in August the only news on this incident you can find doesn't mention the findings, it just targets the ministry in question for spending 170,000 pounds or something like that. In my opinio the real cost to our country is the failure to do anything about it. I gave up jobhunting after I conducted my own experiments, exactly the same. My white alias got so many interviews and so much flirtation that I felt too envious to try and compete with him, once I realised how bad I really had it. My own mother was putting me down for not being able to get a good job - racism has so many knock-on effects. Luckily I am self-employed in internet advertising and anyone well-read knows that this is the best job to have in the world.
Shams Pirani wrote:
Yes, I applied through [an employmnet agency] to about 50 jobs as myself and then 50 jobs as James Jarvis - even the cv was the same (I applied to different agencies, I made sure) I did get 3 good responses as James Jarvis (well I went to Oxford and am very well-educated in many areas) but as myself I got no responses. Jarvis had one interview and two potentials - not that he went. One female agency worker also flirted with Jarvis on her first email to him.... I have no faith that the government will do anything about it ever. Newspapers may talk, occasionally intelligent women and men may scrutinize, but no one will change anything. I'm 32 - 3 decades of my life have already been spent being pushed down simply because of what my identity is to the xenophobes who are in control of most parts of most societies.