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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the doing-science dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A measure aimed at boosting female employment in the workforce may actually be making it worse, a major study has found.

Leaders of the Australian public service will today be told to "hit pause" on blind recruitment trials, which many believed would increase the number of women in senior positions. Blind recruitment means recruiters cannot tell the gender of candidates because those details are removed from applications. It is seen as an alternative to gender quotas and has also been embraced by Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Victoria Police and Westpac Bank.

In a bid to eliminate sexism, thousands of public servants have been told to pick recruits who have had all mention of their gender and ethnic background stripped from their CVs. The assumption behind the trial is that management will hire more women when they can only consider the professional merits of candidates. Their choices have been monitored by behavioural economists in the Prime Minister's department — colloquially known as "the nudge unit".

Professor Michael Hiscox, a Harvard academic who oversaw the trial, said he was shocked by the results and has urged caution. "We anticipated this would have a positive impact on diversity — making it more likely that female candidates and those from ethnic minorities are selected for the shortlist," he said. "We found the opposite, that de-identifying candidates reduced the likelihood of women being selected for the shortlist."


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:37PM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:37PM (#551921) Journal

    Isn't the goal to find the most qualified people, regardless of race, sex, religion

    Chuckle. What color is the sky in your world, traveler?

    That hasn't been the object of the game for decades. The goal is to "prove" or "demonstrate" that no such traits affect qualifications, by what ever means necessary.

    For some reason society can not handle the fact that certain groups prefer certain fields. Society can not allow preference to trump the shared fiction of "equality". Freedom of choice must be sacrificed on the alter of equality.

    making it more likely that female candidates and those from ethnic minorities are selected for the shortlist

    They started with false assumptions, and false goals. Qualifications didn't even appear on their radar.
    They got what they consider a false result.

    They may have IN FACT got the best qualified candidates. But that was never the goal. It clearly WASN'T THE GOAL.

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