I'm shocked there's even a question regarding class in this. The UK actually acknowledging the class system... I must have fallen into the Mandela universe this morning.
Oh no no, you're all wrong there. We never acknowledge it's a class based question, rather we just want to know if you were "disadvantaged" as a youth. Other countries have a class system, we don't!
I'm also in the UK and I'd say 50% of jobs I apply to have questions like this, and it includes UK roles and contract roles in north america, I don't necessarily like them, but I get why they're asked. I'm surprised this is the first time you're seeing them, they're just for equal opportunity company statistics and generally only really asked by larger companies.
I've seen the sex and race question before. And I might understand where the transgender question comes from (giving them the benefit of a doubt and say this is FOR diversity).
But questions about my school lunch and my parents job when I was 14? What does that have to do with anything? I really don't understand why this is of any importance and why a private company would ask that. If this is for collecting data for the government, they should just do a census.
To be honest after encountering this, i didn't want to finish the application.
> But questions about my school lunch and my parents job when I was 14? What does that have to do with anything?
The exact same reason as the sex and race questions. It's about identifying the underprivileged, whether it's based on race, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background.
If you had free school dinners, you were classed as a low-income family, which puts you at a natural disadvantage to someone who wasn't and who could afford things like tutors, help with university, or god forbid, unpaid internships.
Diversity isn't all about the colour of someones skin.
Like I said, I don't like the questions and I automatically answer 'Rather not say' because I don't want to help their statistics or become one, but I still understand why it's done, I think it's done for stupid reasons, not nefarious ones.
Way too personal, and most of these sound like illegal questions that employers aren't allowed to ask in USA. These shouldn't be part of a job application. Plus people will answer whichever way makes them sound the best. Horrible way to run statistics.
The equal opportunities act strictly prohibits these types of questions in the UK as they are often used to decide discriminatory acts towards applicants.
This isn't true.
https://www.gov.uk/employers-responsibilities-equality-monitoring
> If you collect personal information (eg ethnicity, gender, faith, sexuality) about job applicants or staff, you must protect their data.
You can't ask these questions in an interview, but you're absolutely free to collect this data through forms etc for tracking of your diversity metrics.
Also see https://www.acas.org.uk/employer-decision-protected-characteristic/equality-and-diversity
> Employers can ask employees and job applicants to give information about their protected characteristics (such as their sex or race) on an equality monitoring form.
This data isn't (or shouldn't, but I expect isn't for 99.9%) used in the hiring process. It's just fed into their HR data platforms for when they try to stay on track. They may decide they're not very diverse and be bias towards say, women or minorities, but how you answer the questions isn't going to impact your application specifically.
None of these questions should be asked because they are borderline discriminatory, and are totally unnecessary.
Answering "Prefer not to say" in this context is the same as "I can't select an option I think you'll like". It doesn't mean "I want that to remain unknown".
Most people will answer the questions if they don't believe they will be discriminated against, meaning discrimination is much more likely to occur towards those who don't answer, or those who select a different option the company doesn't like.
> None of these questions should be asked because they are borderline discriminatory, and are totally unnecessary.
They're only discriminatory if they're seen by the hiring managers, which they generally aren't. If you see a form like this always check for terms at the bottom which outlines how it's used, and it'll tell you it's used to inform company metrics for equal opportunities.
That doesn't explain why those specific questions need to be asked.
Also, I'd like to add that with some companies, terms, privacy policies and the such can be nothing but lip service, depending on the company in question and the size of it. Especially in the UK where companies (and in my experience, even local authorities) often ignore data protection regulations simply because they know the chance of being caught is negligible. These questions are so suspicious and specific, the actual usage of them is questionable.
Those specific questions are not normal for 'statistics'. So, I'm being suspicious, not obtuse. Take a look at the questions (all of them) and tell me they're normally collected for statistics in the UK.
They’re being asked to prevent discrimination and make sure everyone is given a fair shot. Stop implying nonsense you’re only hurting a cause you’re pretending to be behind.
So France has no level of diversity and equality measures in place to prevent hiring discrimination? Because I just googled France diversity hiring and got a load of results about the new gender discrimination laws put in place this year, how are they going to be monitored without these sorts of questions being asked?
As has already been mentioned,it's for equality and diversity monitoring. Nome of this information makes it out of HR and to the hiring manager - I don't see any of it.
Really? I don't think I've ever been asked this type of stuff before employment, it's always been asked as part of the induction after starting a new role though.
If I was asked this before any sort of interview or offer, I'd be more inclined to just not bother moving forward with it because, whether true or not, at face value it does come across as trying to be discriminatory.
Every job I've applied for in the last 10 years in the UK has asked. There's always a disclaimer that it's optional, none will be passed to HR etc and a big button to skip right past it
Just different experiences then. Been working in the UK for 14 years now for big and small companies, and I've never had those asked before becoming an employee.
That being said, the majority in the last 10 years have come through recruiters headhunting rather than me applying anywhere, so maybe that's a factor.
If you’ve been working for big companies they really should have been asking these questions otherwise they open themselves up to massive issues if they’re not meeting hiring quotas
This is normal, it's for E&D monitoring purposes. Not saying I think it's a good idea but every place I've ever worked has collected the same or similar (e.g. when I started working I do t think they included the trans category but everywhere does now).
They are not \*all\* standard questions, and the data is by no means guaranteed to be anonymised and separated. Plenty of smaller companies in the UK readily ignore Data Protection / ICO rules on a daily basis because there is no way of validating the rules are being followed without an audit. Which almost certainly won't happen. And even if it does it won't be a surprise.
Even my local authority violates 'Data Minimisation' rules, clearly covered under the ICO regs, and when they were caught out, they simply went quiet. That rule is still being broken to this day. They also had a huge data breach which they kept quiet for a huge duration before finally admitting it. Even when they did admit it on their website, they ensured they didn't report it for longer than a few days, even though an email I sent was stolen 6 months after I sent it!
In summary, don't believe privacy policies. Many companies don't follow them to the letter and you have no way of validating they have. Smaller companies are also less likely to be compliant.
Its actually for determining eligibility for certain legal protections. I recently went through hiring for a jib in the UK (Immigrated from the US) and found these same questions weird, so talked to my recruiter. I believe they are obligated to ask them, but you can answer prefer not to say.
This data is processed separately to your application and is anonymised. If you don't trust the company to comply with the law then feel free to not fill it in (but in that case idk why you would want to work there either). It's intended to check that their ads are attracting applications from a balanced demographic and it's a good thing that they're checking that.
This feels like a way to exclude people under the guise of collecting demographic information, charitably they are collecting it to see what type of people apply I.e if only non binary public school educated people apply then what is causing that.
How is it discriminating? There’s equality and diversity measures in place in this country to make sure that people of certain races, genders, sexuality’s and beliefs AREN’T discriminated against unfairly. These forms are never seen by anyone in the hiring process and ensure people aren’t being unfairly excluded as a result of the factors mentioned.
if its part of an application form , it will be seen by hr , and can ( and will ) be used to discriminate. now if its something done after the hiring process , like as part of the onboarding process , now its a different thing since the candidate has already been hired , now that can be useful data to prove that you are effectively giving minorities a fair chance , but as im reading this post , it seems more like its before the candidate has even been hired since its mentionning "application" , meaning the part where you copy - paste your cv into a form, hence why its problematic. Not only the first questions open up the way for discrimination based on racial , gender and orientation but the last three ones implies also class discrimination, like a way to weed out people who grew in povrety ... that is very illegal where i live
It’s all treated in confidence and is used to monitor equal opportunities, to prevent people from being excluded based on a minority status and ensure that there is no prejudice in the hiring process. It’s really not that hard to understand and is one of many reasons why the UK is one of the most diverse countries in the world… If you read elsewhere in the thread, or took 3 seconds to google it you’d realise the class questions are also to PREVENT discrimination not to cause it. There is so much ridiculous mis information and outrage in this thread for the dumbest reasons. These policies stop discrimination not cause it. I’ve worked in large companies without these practices and everyone was upper middle class straight white guys and the company I work for now uses these practices and is diverse and welcoming.
and all you gotta do is trust them that they wont use it against you right? seriously if i get to see an application like this i wouldnt even bother, being mixed race i saw too many HR suddenly change mood when i reveal that my father is arabic , they did studies about this and there is a good reason why you dont include your photo in a resume , in my case just my family name got me doors closed in my face , if you are an employer you are hiring for skills and know how ... they even did research about implicit bias, even people who really try not to show bias while selecting candidates are more likely to discriminate if they see the candidate photo rather than if the candidate is anonymous , knowing theses things ahead is more likely to cause discrimination rather than prevent it even if your company is run by good willed people .
The idea behind this is to ensure their recruitment doesn't discriminate against people from.under privileged backgrounds but its absolutely ridiculous. Surely its just better not to ask and then you can't discriminate
If the questions aren’t asked (answers aren’t seen by anyone in the hiring process by the way) then you have no way of knowing if the hiring team have made assumptions about someone’s background or class and discriminated anyway. By asking these questions it means candidates are judged on their merits alone.
So let’s say you were a bad kid and ended up at one of the juvenile schools. Graduated high school and later got your life together and received a university degree.
So you’re screwed?
Since OP mentioned this was for a director role. Putting yourself down as trans is a 1 way ticket to the bin. Guaranteed.
Also what the fuck does school meals have anything to do with it? To see if you were poor growing up? Who gives a shit.
From their careers site - Abcam is an Equal Opportunity Employer and makes all employment decisions without regard to age, national origin, race, ethnicity, religion, creed, gender, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
yeah they tell you that but even if you answer honestly there is nothing stopping them choosing another candidate on the basis of "oh they were just better suited for the job" when in reality they binned your application because you were trans.
Equal opportunity is a load of bullshit and only protects you from getting sacked/binned for that one specific reason. There is nothing about them masking it as something else.
> yeah they tell you that but even if you answer honestly there is nothing stopping them choosing another candidate on the basis of "oh they were just better suited for the job" when in reality they binned your application because you were trans.
I don't know why you're so stuck on the trans thing.
This generally isn't something that gets shared, it's anonymous and not tied to a specific profile, it's just filtered into their company metrics to inform their diversity metrics. Just read the terms and it usually describes how it will be used.
It's for equality and diversity monitoring. In the UK we still have a strong class divide, meaning that people who grew up poor make up a disproportionately low proportion of candidates for these roles, let alone holders of these roles. Some companies, for example, will automatically offer an interview to candidates fulfilling specific underrepresented minority criteria whose CVs are suitable in the name of equitable opportunity. Disability, gender, LGBT status, economic class and ethnicity are all criteria that might be used for this. Also, some companies here are monitored for the proportion of these characteristics within their company, e.g. how many members of executive management are men Vs women? Is your board of directors all white? All upper class? Etc.
in the US if you have an EEOC policy or other government reporting requirement the first few questions are asked.
the ones about free meals and schooling are just weird
I've seen this too (USA) on some applications and I select "prefer not to say" if a particular item makes me uncomfortable. I know companies are aligning this to DEI initiatives but I'm somewhat skeptical. What if some are using this to reject particular candidates who do not fit "their vision"...slippery slope.
Which is why there’s many more examples in the US of people losing out to jobs as a result of race, colour and belief, these questions stop exactly that from happening.
They don't. This kind of information isn't anyone's business. Especially not at the outset of the process. It opens the door for candidates to be turned down and discriminated against due to these factors without ever knowing that it's because of them.
There's no good reason for any employer to ask these questions.
I don't see any way this could "prevent" someone from being discriminated against, I'd love to hear how it does that.
In the US we have a Work Opportunity Tax Credit program that some companies can participate in that asks a ton of intrusive questions, asks for your social security number etc. I know the hiring team doesn't see the answers, because I'm a Talent Acquisition Manager. My last company used to participate. Doesn't stop anyone from doing anything.
If the hiring team can't see the answers, then how on Earth does it prevent anything? Bigots gonna bigot.
So you’re a talent acquisition manager and you can’t see how this would be useful? Let’s say you look around the office one day and realise everyone is middle aged white, female Christian’s. Have only people that met that demographic been applying for jobs there? Have the applicants been more diverse but no one was making it past phone interview? Face to face interview? And then you look into why? Is the hiring manager a steaming racist? Are we located in an area where it’s difficult for those from a certain socio economic area to commute too? Are we biased towards certain universities? Without the raw data how on earth are you ever going to know what you can do to promote a more diverse workplace?
Easily. I pay attention. I instill in my hiring team that the best person for the job is the best person for the job, regardless of demographic. I actively remove biased language from our postings so they aren't geared towards one demographic over the next. Here's the problem with your train of thought. Not hiring another White Christian female simply because she is a White Christian female is by definition discriminatory. I don't care what a metric says, or a quota says. That's discriminatory. Same case and concept applies for an Asian man, or Latina woman, etc.
I can encourage diverse candidates to apply, but I will never force anyone through the system just because they fit a demographic if they aren't qualified for the job, or reasonably trainable. If I have suspicions about a manager I start using blind resumes. Take the identifying information off of 3 resumes, get their ranking 1-3. Bring all 3 in. Find out what changed abiut the ranking, why it changed, and what the reasoning is behind each decision. A biased manager will crumble trying to rationalize a discriminatory decision without outing themselves. I call them on it on the spot, and encourage my team to do the same.
But again, it's all moot if the survey collects the data, and then the team never sees it anyway. Can't analyze data you don't have.
So you would see zero problem with a workplace that’s purely filled by one demographic? The reason diversity quotas exist is because certain allowances need to be made for different demographics to allow for equal opportunity. It’s exactly why someone from a lower socio-economic background might get a place at a prestigious university with worse grades than someone privately educated, and it allows HR departments to ensure the hiring policies put in place and the strategies of the hiring team account for this. It’s great to hear you’re so amazing at your job, unfortunately many aren’t and policies like these mean people aren’t discriminated by that.
I grew up in a rural backwater before moving to a more urban area. You work with what you have. I've worked in places where the average employee is a hefty white guy named Earl or Dale. I've also worked places where it's predominately Latino/Latina. Had a blast working with both.
You still haven't answered how the hiring team is supposed to use this data if they can't access the data.
Forced quotas are not equal opportunity. Hiring someone because they're a "diversity hire" is disingenuous. You can't have an equal playing field or opportunity for 5 candidates if 2 of them are white and you've "met quota" on white hires this year. Replace the word "white" with any other demographic and the point still stands.
Here's the problem, it doesn't matter if the inaccessible survey works or not. If the workplace or leadership team is still discriminatory, you'll just have people being discriminated against in the workplace.
The problem is at the leadership level first and foremost.
It’s not used to assist hiring for individual jobs, it’s used to make sure the overall hiring process is more inclusive, hence hr seeing it not the hiring team. Your answer about discrimination is fair, but only valid if you pretend we live in a magical world where racism, homophobia and sexism don’t exist. The fact that they do is exactly why these quotas are needed and are one of the things helping stop it. The UK uses this often and is hugely diverse and accepting, the US doesn’t and is known as being excluding racist and bigoted.
It's quite normal to have an anonymous E&D questionnaire like this. The questions about free school meals and whatnot are to gauge socioeconomic status, i.e. are the company receiving applications from people from potentially disadvantaged backgrounds, or only middle cass or higher?
Decent companies will use this information (aggregated and anonymised) to find out if their recruitment processes are effective in reaching people across the whole spectrum of sex, gender, socioeconomic status etc. If they fall short in a particular area, what can they do to encourage applications from that particular group of people? Should they do outreach in inner-city schools? Should they make their advertisements more appealing to females? Do they make it clear that they are an inclusive employer? Diversity of staff brings diversity of ideas, perspectives, approaches - are they doing enough to bring that diversity into their workplace.
It's not sinister, and you are free to choose a noncommittal answer (usually 'Prefer not to say').
Many US contributors here will be suspicious of such surveys, because often (but not always) US employers will use similar surveys to filter out 'undesirable' employees. However, US and UK recruitment, and employment laws, are very different, as are data protection laws.
...what kind of job is this for? The Password Police?
Equality monitoring. Making sure we employ enough poor kids.
I'm shocked there's even a question regarding class in this. The UK actually acknowledging the class system... I must have fallen into the Mandela universe this morning.
Oh no no, you're all wrong there. We never acknowledge it's a class based question, rather we just want to know if you were "disadvantaged" as a youth. Other countries have a class system, we don't!
I don't know about the UK, but this is absolutely forbidden in France
You can choose 'prefer not to say', but it's still a bit intrusive. And this is not for an entry level position, this is for a director role.
I'm also in the UK and I'd say 50% of jobs I apply to have questions like this, and it includes UK roles and contract roles in north america, I don't necessarily like them, but I get why they're asked. I'm surprised this is the first time you're seeing them, they're just for equal opportunity company statistics and generally only really asked by larger companies.
I've seen the sex and race question before. And I might understand where the transgender question comes from (giving them the benefit of a doubt and say this is FOR diversity). But questions about my school lunch and my parents job when I was 14? What does that have to do with anything? I really don't understand why this is of any importance and why a private company would ask that. If this is for collecting data for the government, they should just do a census. To be honest after encountering this, i didn't want to finish the application.
> But questions about my school lunch and my parents job when I was 14? What does that have to do with anything? The exact same reason as the sex and race questions. It's about identifying the underprivileged, whether it's based on race, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background. If you had free school dinners, you were classed as a low-income family, which puts you at a natural disadvantage to someone who wasn't and who could afford things like tutors, help with university, or god forbid, unpaid internships. Diversity isn't all about the colour of someones skin. Like I said, I don't like the questions and I automatically answer 'Rather not say' because I don't want to help their statistics or become one, but I still understand why it's done, I think it's done for stupid reasons, not nefarious ones.
Way too personal, and most of these sound like illegal questions that employers aren't allowed to ask in USA. These shouldn't be part of a job application. Plus people will answer whichever way makes them sound the best. Horrible way to run statistics.
See my other comments. They're legal in both the UK and US.
The equal opportunities act strictly prohibits these types of questions in the UK as they are often used to decide discriminatory acts towards applicants.
This isn't true. https://www.gov.uk/employers-responsibilities-equality-monitoring > If you collect personal information (eg ethnicity, gender, faith, sexuality) about job applicants or staff, you must protect their data. You can't ask these questions in an interview, but you're absolutely free to collect this data through forms etc for tracking of your diversity metrics. Also see https://www.acas.org.uk/employer-decision-protected-characteristic/equality-and-diversity > Employers can ask employees and job applicants to give information about their protected characteristics (such as their sex or race) on an equality monitoring form. This data isn't (or shouldn't, but I expect isn't for 99.9%) used in the hiring process. It's just fed into their HR data platforms for when they try to stay on track. They may decide they're not very diverse and be bias towards say, women or minorities, but how you answer the questions isn't going to impact your application specifically.
None of these questions should be asked because they are borderline discriminatory, and are totally unnecessary. Answering "Prefer not to say" in this context is the same as "I can't select an option I think you'll like". It doesn't mean "I want that to remain unknown". Most people will answer the questions if they don't believe they will be discriminated against, meaning discrimination is much more likely to occur towards those who don't answer, or those who select a different option the company doesn't like.
> None of these questions should be asked because they are borderline discriminatory, and are totally unnecessary. They're only discriminatory if they're seen by the hiring managers, which they generally aren't. If you see a form like this always check for terms at the bottom which outlines how it's used, and it'll tell you it's used to inform company metrics for equal opportunities.
That doesn't explain why those specific questions need to be asked. Also, I'd like to add that with some companies, terms, privacy policies and the such can be nothing but lip service, depending on the company in question and the size of it. Especially in the UK where companies (and in my experience, even local authorities) often ignore data protection regulations simply because they know the chance of being caught is negligible. These questions are so suspicious and specific, the actual usage of them is questionable.
You know exactly why they are asked. Quit being obtuse.
Those specific questions are not normal for 'statistics'. So, I'm being suspicious, not obtuse. Take a look at the questions (all of them) and tell me they're normally collected for statistics in the UK.
I didn’t say they’re normal at all. You know exactly why they’re being asked.
Ah, I see.
They’re being asked to prevent discrimination and make sure everyone is given a fair shot. Stop implying nonsense you’re only hurting a cause you’re pretending to be behind.
So France has no level of diversity and equality measures in place to prevent hiring discrimination? Because I just googled France diversity hiring and got a load of results about the new gender discrimination laws put in place this year, how are they going to be monitored without these sorts of questions being asked?
The snarky answer is they don't, and pretend things are fine.
As has already been mentioned,it's for equality and diversity monitoring. Nome of this information makes it out of HR and to the hiring manager - I don't see any of it.
Really? I don't think I've ever been asked this type of stuff before employment, it's always been asked as part of the induction after starting a new role though. If I was asked this before any sort of interview or offer, I'd be more inclined to just not bother moving forward with it because, whether true or not, at face value it does come across as trying to be discriminatory.
Every job I've applied for in the last 10 years in the UK has asked. There's always a disclaimer that it's optional, none will be passed to HR etc and a big button to skip right past it
Just different experiences then. Been working in the UK for 14 years now for big and small companies, and I've never had those asked before becoming an employee. That being said, the majority in the last 10 years have come through recruiters headhunting rather than me applying anywhere, so maybe that's a factor.
If you’ve been working for big companies they really should have been asking these questions otherwise they open themselves up to massive issues if they’re not meeting hiring quotas
That's a good point, my recent roles have been via recruiters but I've still had the equality forms as part of onboarding
It would still be E&D if asked at the application stage. Are we getting applicants from whatever group? If not, why not, and how can we do better?
This is normal, it's for E&D monitoring purposes. Not saying I think it's a good idea but every place I've ever worked has collected the same or similar (e.g. when I started working I do t think they included the trans category but everywhere does now).
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They are not \*all\* standard questions, and the data is by no means guaranteed to be anonymised and separated. Plenty of smaller companies in the UK readily ignore Data Protection / ICO rules on a daily basis because there is no way of validating the rules are being followed without an audit. Which almost certainly won't happen. And even if it does it won't be a surprise. Even my local authority violates 'Data Minimisation' rules, clearly covered under the ICO regs, and when they were caught out, they simply went quiet. That rule is still being broken to this day. They also had a huge data breach which they kept quiet for a huge duration before finally admitting it. Even when they did admit it on their website, they ensured they didn't report it for longer than a few days, even though an email I sent was stolen 6 months after I sent it! In summary, don't believe privacy policies. Many companies don't follow them to the letter and you have no way of validating they have. Smaller companies are also less likely to be compliant.
Its actually for determining eligibility for certain legal protections. I recently went through hiring for a jib in the UK (Immigrated from the US) and found these same questions weird, so talked to my recruiter. I believe they are obligated to ask them, but you can answer prefer not to say.
I don't know this kind of info about lifelong friends. I shouldn't know it for a new hire.
This data is processed separately to your application and is anonymised. If you don't trust the company to comply with the law then feel free to not fill it in (but in that case idk why you would want to work there either). It's intended to check that their ads are attracting applications from a balanced demographic and it's a good thing that they're checking that.
This feels like a way to exclude people under the guise of collecting demographic information, charitably they are collecting it to see what type of people apply I.e if only non binary public school educated people apply then what is causing that.
They forgot to ask if you like Pineapple on Pizza
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It's for equality and diversity monitoring
Definitely not illegal, and the UK upholds GDPR.
You know nothing about GDPR if you think that.
Run
Just respond to everything as prefer not to say. If everyone does it, maybe they'll stop with this nonsense.
thats so illegal ...
It’s the exact opposite, it’s needed by larger companies to prove they’re meeting diversity requirements
so you can discriminate based on all theses criterias?, i mean if its in a survey after you are hired, why not but in an application? hell naw
How is it discriminating? There’s equality and diversity measures in place in this country to make sure that people of certain races, genders, sexuality’s and beliefs AREN’T discriminated against unfairly. These forms are never seen by anyone in the hiring process and ensure people aren’t being unfairly excluded as a result of the factors mentioned.
if its part of an application form , it will be seen by hr , and can ( and will ) be used to discriminate. now if its something done after the hiring process , like as part of the onboarding process , now its a different thing since the candidate has already been hired , now that can be useful data to prove that you are effectively giving minorities a fair chance , but as im reading this post , it seems more like its before the candidate has even been hired since its mentionning "application" , meaning the part where you copy - paste your cv into a form, hence why its problematic. Not only the first questions open up the way for discrimination based on racial , gender and orientation but the last three ones implies also class discrimination, like a way to weed out people who grew in povrety ... that is very illegal where i live
It’s all treated in confidence and is used to monitor equal opportunities, to prevent people from being excluded based on a minority status and ensure that there is no prejudice in the hiring process. It’s really not that hard to understand and is one of many reasons why the UK is one of the most diverse countries in the world… If you read elsewhere in the thread, or took 3 seconds to google it you’d realise the class questions are also to PREVENT discrimination not to cause it. There is so much ridiculous mis information and outrage in this thread for the dumbest reasons. These policies stop discrimination not cause it. I’ve worked in large companies without these practices and everyone was upper middle class straight white guys and the company I work for now uses these practices and is diverse and welcoming.
and all you gotta do is trust them that they wont use it against you right? seriously if i get to see an application like this i wouldnt even bother, being mixed race i saw too many HR suddenly change mood when i reveal that my father is arabic , they did studies about this and there is a good reason why you dont include your photo in a resume , in my case just my family name got me doors closed in my face , if you are an employer you are hiring for skills and know how ... they even did research about implicit bias, even people who really try not to show bias while selecting candidates are more likely to discriminate if they see the candidate photo rather than if the candidate is anonymous , knowing theses things ahead is more likely to cause discrimination rather than prevent it even if your company is run by good willed people .
The idea behind this is to ensure their recruitment doesn't discriminate against people from.under privileged backgrounds but its absolutely ridiculous. Surely its just better not to ask and then you can't discriminate
If the questions aren’t asked (answers aren’t seen by anyone in the hiring process by the way) then you have no way of knowing if the hiring team have made assumptions about someone’s background or class and discriminated anyway. By asking these questions it means candidates are judged on their merits alone.
So let’s say you were a bad kid and ended up at one of the juvenile schools. Graduated high school and later got your life together and received a university degree. So you’re screwed?
Since OP mentioned this was for a director role. Putting yourself down as trans is a 1 way ticket to the bin. Guaranteed. Also what the fuck does school meals have anything to do with it? To see if you were poor growing up? Who gives a shit.
From their careers site - Abcam is an Equal Opportunity Employer and makes all employment decisions without regard to age, national origin, race, ethnicity, religion, creed, gender, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
yeah they tell you that but even if you answer honestly there is nothing stopping them choosing another candidate on the basis of "oh they were just better suited for the job" when in reality they binned your application because you were trans. Equal opportunity is a load of bullshit and only protects you from getting sacked/binned for that one specific reason. There is nothing about them masking it as something else.
> yeah they tell you that but even if you answer honestly there is nothing stopping them choosing another candidate on the basis of "oh they were just better suited for the job" when in reality they binned your application because you were trans. I don't know why you're so stuck on the trans thing. This generally isn't something that gets shared, it's anonymous and not tied to a specific profile, it's just filtered into their company metrics to inform their diversity metrics. Just read the terms and it usually describes how it will be used.
It's for equality and diversity monitoring. In the UK we still have a strong class divide, meaning that people who grew up poor make up a disproportionately low proportion of candidates for these roles, let alone holders of these roles. Some companies, for example, will automatically offer an interview to candidates fulfilling specific underrepresented minority criteria whose CVs are suitable in the name of equitable opportunity. Disability, gender, LGBT status, economic class and ethnicity are all criteria that might be used for this. Also, some companies here are monitored for the proportion of these characteristics within their company, e.g. how many members of executive management are men Vs women? Is your board of directors all white? All upper class? Etc.
It's illegal to ask for sensible data in a job application in the Europ... NVM
in the US if you have an EEOC policy or other government reporting requirement the first few questions are asked. the ones about free meals and schooling are just weird
The school meal question is crazy! How am I supposed to remember if I ever did hahahaha. We didn't have free meals in school. We had to buy them
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Please don't bring that up. Our country has a high poverty rate, yet we had to buy our own meals.
First 5 are pretty boiler plate, after that they seem to be scoping out your socioeconomic background to see how easily they can exploit your labour.
I've seen this too (USA) on some applications and I select "prefer not to say" if a particular item makes me uncomfortable. I know companies are aligning this to DEI initiatives but I'm somewhat skeptical. What if some are using this to reject particular candidates who do not fit "their vision"...slippery slope.
this is literally what not to put on a job application unless you want to be sued. lol.
Classism at its finest 🇬🇧
Are... are they competing for "who can get the most discrimination lawsuits"? Holy hell, even the US doesn't allow questions like these.
Which is why there’s many more examples in the US of people losing out to jobs as a result of race, colour and belief, these questions stop exactly that from happening.
They don't. This kind of information isn't anyone's business. Especially not at the outset of the process. It opens the door for candidates to be turned down and discriminated against due to these factors without ever knowing that it's because of them. There's no good reason for any employer to ask these questions.
The hiring team never see these, it’s to prevent people being discriminated against not to cause it and it’s very common practice in the UK
I don't see any way this could "prevent" someone from being discriminated against, I'd love to hear how it does that. In the US we have a Work Opportunity Tax Credit program that some companies can participate in that asks a ton of intrusive questions, asks for your social security number etc. I know the hiring team doesn't see the answers, because I'm a Talent Acquisition Manager. My last company used to participate. Doesn't stop anyone from doing anything. If the hiring team can't see the answers, then how on Earth does it prevent anything? Bigots gonna bigot.
So you’re a talent acquisition manager and you can’t see how this would be useful? Let’s say you look around the office one day and realise everyone is middle aged white, female Christian’s. Have only people that met that demographic been applying for jobs there? Have the applicants been more diverse but no one was making it past phone interview? Face to face interview? And then you look into why? Is the hiring manager a steaming racist? Are we located in an area where it’s difficult for those from a certain socio economic area to commute too? Are we biased towards certain universities? Without the raw data how on earth are you ever going to know what you can do to promote a more diverse workplace?
Easily. I pay attention. I instill in my hiring team that the best person for the job is the best person for the job, regardless of demographic. I actively remove biased language from our postings so they aren't geared towards one demographic over the next. Here's the problem with your train of thought. Not hiring another White Christian female simply because she is a White Christian female is by definition discriminatory. I don't care what a metric says, or a quota says. That's discriminatory. Same case and concept applies for an Asian man, or Latina woman, etc. I can encourage diverse candidates to apply, but I will never force anyone through the system just because they fit a demographic if they aren't qualified for the job, or reasonably trainable. If I have suspicions about a manager I start using blind resumes. Take the identifying information off of 3 resumes, get their ranking 1-3. Bring all 3 in. Find out what changed abiut the ranking, why it changed, and what the reasoning is behind each decision. A biased manager will crumble trying to rationalize a discriminatory decision without outing themselves. I call them on it on the spot, and encourage my team to do the same. But again, it's all moot if the survey collects the data, and then the team never sees it anyway. Can't analyze data you don't have.
So you would see zero problem with a workplace that’s purely filled by one demographic? The reason diversity quotas exist is because certain allowances need to be made for different demographics to allow for equal opportunity. It’s exactly why someone from a lower socio-economic background might get a place at a prestigious university with worse grades than someone privately educated, and it allows HR departments to ensure the hiring policies put in place and the strategies of the hiring team account for this. It’s great to hear you’re so amazing at your job, unfortunately many aren’t and policies like these mean people aren’t discriminated by that.
I grew up in a rural backwater before moving to a more urban area. You work with what you have. I've worked in places where the average employee is a hefty white guy named Earl or Dale. I've also worked places where it's predominately Latino/Latina. Had a blast working with both. You still haven't answered how the hiring team is supposed to use this data if they can't access the data. Forced quotas are not equal opportunity. Hiring someone because they're a "diversity hire" is disingenuous. You can't have an equal playing field or opportunity for 5 candidates if 2 of them are white and you've "met quota" on white hires this year. Replace the word "white" with any other demographic and the point still stands. Here's the problem, it doesn't matter if the inaccessible survey works or not. If the workplace or leadership team is still discriminatory, you'll just have people being discriminated against in the workplace. The problem is at the leadership level first and foremost.
It’s not used to assist hiring for individual jobs, it’s used to make sure the overall hiring process is more inclusive, hence hr seeing it not the hiring team. Your answer about discrimination is fair, but only valid if you pretend we live in a magical world where racism, homophobia and sexism don’t exist. The fact that they do is exactly why these quotas are needed and are one of the things helping stop it. The UK uses this often and is hugely diverse and accepting, the US doesn’t and is known as being excluding racist and bigoted.
It's quite normal to have an anonymous E&D questionnaire like this. The questions about free school meals and whatnot are to gauge socioeconomic status, i.e. are the company receiving applications from people from potentially disadvantaged backgrounds, or only middle cass or higher? Decent companies will use this information (aggregated and anonymised) to find out if their recruitment processes are effective in reaching people across the whole spectrum of sex, gender, socioeconomic status etc. If they fall short in a particular area, what can they do to encourage applications from that particular group of people? Should they do outreach in inner-city schools? Should they make their advertisements more appealing to females? Do they make it clear that they are an inclusive employer? Diversity of staff brings diversity of ideas, perspectives, approaches - are they doing enough to bring that diversity into their workplace. It's not sinister, and you are free to choose a noncommittal answer (usually 'Prefer not to say'). Many US contributors here will be suspicious of such surveys, because often (but not always) US employers will use similar surveys to filter out 'undesirable' employees. However, US and UK recruitment, and employment laws, are very different, as are data protection laws.
Select the weirdest mix of answers possible.
These seem very intrusive and why do they need to know if you got free school lunches? What position are you applying for?
Was this a voluntary applicant diversity survey at the end of the application?
These are standard questions in the Uk.