Although I help to run a New York executive sales and marketing recruiters, it has happened to me more times than I can count that if I answer the main phone line, the default assumption is that I am a receptionist or secretary, when in fact I am a co-owner. Also more times than I can count, I have been called "honey" and other names more descriptive, but just as indicative of what is a ubiquitous and casual sexism in the American work force.
While we have surely come a long way since the Mad Men days, certain pockets of corporate America are very much still an old boys’ club - with younger "boys" and indeed women joining up and supporting sexist or otherwise discriminatory behavior in the workforce without even realizing it. Discrimination in the workforce is of particular concern in hiring, and our firm runs across it more than I would like to (which would be not at all).
During the preliminary stages of speaking with potential clients, my colleagues and I have been told, among other things, that the client is not interested in married younger women without children (they might get pregnant soon); married men with more than one child (their base salary expectations might be higher, and they might be less able to work frequent late nights); and untold times we have been told that a certain background is, "just too old." I have even been on the receiving end of such bald statements as, "No women," which always strikes me as odd since I am, in case they didn’t notice, a woman. Needless to say, we make a habit of telling these potential clients, "Thanks, but no thanks," and seeking clients whose working environments will be pleasant and productive for any candidate, male, female, young, old, etc.
But what is to be done about the easy relationship some companies and managers have with discriminatory hiring practices? One tactic of which I am always in favor is honesty. It is the practice of our firm, when turning away a potential client like those described above, to tell the hiring entity outright that the limits they seek to place on their employee search are unethical (and in some cases illegal). They may not want to hear it from a recruiter who has just declined to work with them, but every epiphany has got to start somewhere.
Many larger firms, while hiring through recruiters or through their websites, use discrimination-discouraging software that censors all personal information about candidates for a position. The hiring manager can see what degree the person holds, but not the year it was attained; the candidate’s sex is not revealed, and in some software affiliations in charities, etc., that suggest ethnic background are also blocked. Once the hiring manager has determined a candidate is qualified to interview, the candidate’s name, career dates, etc. will be revealed.
But not everyone is a hiring manager, and not every hiring manager is in a Fortune 500 company who can invest in numerous software packages for different aspects of business. An even more basic step than speaking up or deliberately blinding hiring is to foster a respectful, fair workplace in your own company, your own division, your own office, or however far your sphere of professional influence extends.
If you hear or see an employee or colleague laughing at sexist, racist, or otherwise offensive jokes, make it clear that this behavior is not acceptable in the professional world. (Ideally, it wouldn’t exist in the personal world either, but that is another article entirely!) Federal law (and some state law, depending on the state) may say that discriminatory atmosphere and other malignant workplace realities are wrong, but it takes individual workers enacting that reality to change the workforce for the better.
The Equal Pay Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, Title VII and the ADA did not immediately stamp out sexism, racism or disability discrimination, as we can tell just by looking at the wide range of time over which these acts were passed. My first reaction when I am told, "we don’t want any women" (or what have you) may be to make a snarky remark and hang right up. But if I hang up, I lose an opportunity not only to teach this hiring manager that antique, discriminatory attitudes are not okay in the twenty-first century, but also to practice what I preach and try changing the workforce for the better one battle at a time.
By Ken Sundheim
