For Better Or Worse, Additional Search Criteria Produce A Challenge For Many Recruiters
The intersection of overlapping criteria – e.g. TS-SCI clearance + minority – in fields where qualified candidates are already hard to find, is darn near impossible.
Security requirements for many government and government-related roles require citizenship and background searches that are simply not feasible or practical with foreign-born candidates.
In many cases, even competitive recruiters are forced to look at candidates who are already employed, and inquire about whether their current role is working.
To add a requirement (or preference) that said candidate is a woman, or a racial minority, is often simply more than many recruiters can deliver.
It’s often not law, but appearances, that drive such decisions. Despite aggressive recruiting efforts for programs like STEM in colleges, trying to recruit women, and study after study showing – if anything – it’s becoming more and more that white males from poorer backgrounds are being disenfranchised and left behind, some workplaces are pushing for half the Navy SEALs to be female, irrespective of whether as many women want such roles.
We don’t have an opinion in this debate, but as recruiters, we feel it our duty to submit that such requirements make the search more difficult.
We’re – for the first time in decades if ever – now facing a 3+% GDP growth rate, year-over-year, under the current administration (2019). There are more jobs than people. There are inner city schools filled with white teachers from Indiana, trying to uplift impoverished minorities. The biggest risk factor for generational poverty and disadvantage for minorities is an absentee father (two-parent black families have lower poverty rates than white people, on average).
It could be – just maybe – that a meritocracy, like Dr. Martin Luther King spoke about, is in order, and that the best candidate gets the role.
That, or an ‘adversity adjustment’ like the College Board is considering with the SAT. Sadly, high-performing women and minorities will be lumped-in with other minorities whose scores were boosted, under this program.
Ok, it appears we do have a viewpoint on this. We at Bull Staffing Co. are Americans, we don’t discriminate beyond the character of a given individual; America was founded as a meritocracy with equal opportunities, and not outcomes.
If you have a diversity hire, in the verticals we recruit for, be forewarned: that’s heavy lifting.
