Woman awarded €45,000 after man got job ahead of her

Newaglish

Interesting one here - a woman has successfully sued her employer after losing out in an interview to a less qualified male counterpart. On the surface it seems to be fair enough, but there are a few things which I thought were strange, in particular:

On two previous occasions in the months before the job interview he had asked her how many children she had.

I mean, if you work with someone, doesn't this seem like a reasonable thing to ask someone? Should people avoid discussing such matters completely in the workplace? I would often ask both male and female colleagues about their kids when making small talk.

Full story here:
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/woman-awarded-45-000-after-man-got-job-ahead-of-her-1.1464544

Morag

A persons parental status is one of the things which is covered by discrimination law.
Big difference between talking with colleagues and a management level person checking on how many kids you have. There is also the assumption that women are the default carer.

mariaalice

They gave the job to a less qualified and less experienced person, whatever about the in and out of the case that surely says a lot about what was going on in the interviewers mind.

seamus

Morag wrote: »

Big difference between talking with colleagues and a management level person checking on how many kids you have.

In a smaller company though these things can be one and the same. No reason why someone in management wouldn't be having a friendly chat over lunch.

Anyone with the tiniest bit of cop on though would refrain from asking personal questions like this when they know the person will have to do an interview in the near future.

There's obviously more in this than can be fit into a small newspaper article. The defense's side as presented in the article seems reasonable in that she didn't appear to be completely qualified for the position. But then they give it to someone who's not qualified and less experienced, which basically nullifies any argument they have.

Not really surprising the company has gone under if they were making hiring decisions like this.

Outkast_IRE

mariaalice wrote: »

They gave the job to a less qualified and less experienced person, whatever about the in and out of the case that surely says a lot about what was going on in the interviewers mind.

The most qualified person doesn't always get the job, personality and the employer thinking you are a good fit for the company are just as important.

A less qualified, less experienced person might actually give a better interview.

cantdecide

If the company is in liquidation, I wonder how much of the award she'll actually receive.

The thing is with accountancy roles are that soft skills are hugely important. If it were strictly a technical role, it would be a no-brainer.

nicowa

cantdecide wrote: »

If the company is in liquidation, I wonder how much of the award she'll actually receive.

The thing is with accountancy roles are that soft skills are hugely important. If it were strictly a technical role, it would be a no-brainer.

From the article it does say that she didn't fill the role from a technical perspective. And that she admitted that in the interview.

mitosis

Notes taken during the interview which she had requested showed that on an issue on which she scored low points there was a different answer written down to the one she had in fact given.

Company deserved the judgement they got. If you are going to do this sort of thing at least be organised enough to hide it.

mariaalice

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

The most qualified person doesn't always get the job, personality and the employer thinking you are a good fit for the company are just as important.

A less qualified, less experienced person might actually give a better interview.

Maybe but "fitting in" is too nebulous and hard to define so you are always better to stick to a competence based interview along with appraisals as a way of doing it, also the fitting in idea can stray in the realms of bulling so you have to be very careful.

In reality they should not have had interviews and they should have just promoted the person they wanted.

Clarehobo

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

The most qualified person doesn't always get the job, personality and the employer thinking you are a good fit for the company are just as important.

A less qualified, less experienced person might actually give a better interview.

This point exactly.

I applied for and got a role within my company. I was an internal candidate with an engineering background and no relevant qualification in design. I was up against external candidates with high level qualifications.
I only found this out a few weeks ago from my boss while chatting about where I should go with my training plan. His point was just because someone looks good on paper, he knew these other candidates wouldn't be suited to the job because of various personality traits as well as a lack of technical understanding.

The woman in this article won the damage as a result of discrimination by the company. It is not an easy thing to prove so it must have been an open and shut case.

MagicMarker

2 of the 3 interviewers are women with children.

Were they being sexist too?

Amirani

Clarehobo wrote: »

The woman in this article won the damage as a result of discrimination by the company. It is not an easy thing to prove so it must have been an open and shut case.

This is my feeling on it. There must have been some decent evidence. The "less formal qualifications" can't be the only real basis for the decision.

seamus

MagicMarker wrote: »

2 of the 3 interviewers are women with children.

Were they being sexist too?

No reason why they couldn't have been. Women can be just as guilty of sexism against women as men.

However in this case the company was found to be in the wrong. The specifics of each interviewer weren't revealed in the article. For all we know the other two interviewers were window dressing and the decision had been made before the process even started.

Deise Vu

It is impossible to make any judgements based on the very brief report but there are a couple of things that stick out for me here. The company is in liquidation so does her claim rank above other creditors or will it be claimed from the Dept of Labour like an unpaid redundancy? ie are the taxpayers picking this up. If so it was a very easy decision for the Equality Tribunal to make given they think the Govt has endless pockets. Then there is the level of the award. The company went bust within 2 years of the role being offered. Was there €45,000 difference in pay between the two roles. If so, the salary for an unqualified accountant must have been savage. I better get my CV out there sharpish.

Amirani

Deise Vu wrote: »

The company went bust within 2 years of the role being offered. Was there €47,500 difference in pay between the two roles. If so, the salary for an unqualified accountant must have been savage. I better get my CV out there sharpish.

Presumably there was some compensatory portion as part of the payment. It can be argued that missing this (justified) promotion is impacting on her ability to achieve similar positions in other companies.

seamus

Deise Vu wrote: »

Was there €47,500 difference in pay between the two roles. If so, the salary for an unqualified accountant must have been savage. I better get my CV out there sharpish.

The logic behind the year's salary wasn't that being the difference between the two jobs. It was a compensatory amount for being discriminated against.

That said, the logic behind the judge's thinking was probably that she had been made redundant in 2010 and the company went into liquidation in 2012. Had she been given the promotion, she would probably have remained in that position for at least a year longer than she did. Therefore, a year's salary as compensation.

The taxpayer doesn't pick up this bill. I don't know what she has to do to get it - I suspect it ranks higher than normal creditors, but lower than revenue and the banks. So whether she'll see any of that money is a big question mark.

Sleepy

That article would certainly suggest that either the judgement was unsound (which we'd have no way of knowing without reading the entire court transcript) or that the author (a woman, unless it was written by a more junior male journalist and she has the by-line) felt it was so.

I've certainly seen questionable promotions in my time though I've never seen it be due to gender*, more typically it's good old-fashioned Irish nepotism or promotion based on personal relationship with the hiring manager rather than ability (incidentally, the two most blatant examples where I believe it to have happened were women being promoted over men). Outside of the most defined of roles though, I'd question how definitively one could ever prove such discrimination.

*I've seen it where a woman was passed over for a man who was of equal ability but more junior in terms of length of service (albeit less so in terms of actual experience due to maternity leave) where it was presumably on the basis that as a single man was far more amenable to working late and short-notice business travel whereas she was the primary care-giver in her family and couldn't offer that flexibility. Personally, I see that as justifiable selection based on lifestyle choices rather than discrimination based on gender but would be curious as to whether many of the posters here would see it that way?

Sauve

Sleepy wrote: »

I see that as justifiable selection based on lifestyle choices rather than discrimination based on gender but would be curious as to whether many of the posters here would see it that way?

I'd agree with you tbh.
If a person (male or female) applies for a job and is unable to fulfill the already stated requirements of that job due to other committments (whatever they may be) then they are not the person for the job.
It would be a different scenario if a primary caregiver had set hours and a role which they could fulfill, but was then told that they had to be available to travel/work odd hours at short notice.

SeventySix

I think that the fact that they altered her answers in the notes from the interview was pretty damning. It certainly gave the impression that they were looking for reasons to turn her down.

Sleepy wrote: »

*I've seen it where a woman was passed over for a man who was of equal ability but more junior in terms of length of service (albeit less so in terms of actual experience due to maternity leave) where it was presumably on the basis that as a single man was far more amenable to working late and short-notice business travel whereas she was the primary care-giver in her family and couldn't offer that flexibility. Personally, I see that as justifiable selection based on lifestyle choices rather than discrimination based on gender but would be curious as to whether many of the posters here would see it that way?

Did the woman you mentioned above go for the job, while saying that they wouldnt have the flexibility to actually do the role, or did the company assume she wouldnt have the flexibility. If its the latter then that is definitely descrimination!

Sleepy

I wasn't privy to the details of the decision process but knew both candidates and the hiring manager well enough to be fairly confident that my own conclusions would be correct. Having always worked in SME's I've rarely really seen promotions "advertised", they're more often than not simply offered to the best candidate internally or advertised externally if no good candidate exists in the organisation. In the case above, had the woman not had a family, I suspect she'd have been offered the promotion before the man as she'd have had greater experience through not having taken maternity leave and the same level of flexibility regarding travel and OT.

I wonder where the line is on making assumptions around flexibility here? If two employees have a track record where candidate A regularly puts in a few hours overtime (unpaid as it usually is outside of institutions) and candidate B is out the door at 5:30 to collect his child from the creche can you assume candidate A will be more flexible in a promotion which would result in more need for travel or unpaid overtime? Or do you have to ask the potentially litigious questions about their ability to alter their child-minding arrangements? It's stuff like this that'd put you off ever running your own business!

SeventySix

I would say you are best off not making assumptions at all. Its not discriminatory to set out that the job requires an amount of flexibility and overtime and that failure to live up to that means demotion, once that is the terms given to all workers at that level. There is no need to actively mention childcare. By making the assumption you are not giving the person any chance at all. Perhaps they are very career focused and the extra pay from the promotion leaves them able to have more flexible childcare. Maybe with the new job their over half will be able to stay at home.

Another drawback in the example you gave is potentially never promoting the woman as there are always younger, up and comers that are staying around the clock as they have nowhere else they have to be. Will eventually her extra experience be enough? If she feels constantly passed over for promotion it will lead to a lot of resentment and you will potentially loose a good employee on the assumption that you made that she wouldnt be flexible enough for occassional travel. Is it worth it? Also I would never judge an employee on how long they stay, but on the amount of work they get done. I have know a lot of people that might be here all hours, but achieve the same or less than those that work their hours - sometimes cos they are just not as good at their job, and sometimes cos they spend loads of time faffing about and have to stay late to make it up

meeeeh

Anybody who thinks that business are going under just because they are not nice to their employees is either an idiot or working for public sector.

I think she could have been discriminated against or she could have been just a bad employee. I've worked in SMEs my whole life. I remember two cases in more than 15 years of being sued or threatened to be sued. Both of them were male employees and completely useless. There was nothing out of one case and with the other one settlement of 2000 was reached just to avoid high legal costs. From an employer point of view not everybody who considers themselves to be qualified actually is any good at the work they are supposed to do. And it's completely gender, age or any other way unspecific. The last overqualified masters student cost us over 10k in damage he cause not using his brain before he was fired after a month. And yet he was perfectly qualified for what he was hired. Anyway the ran over...

The company tempering with interview documentation is just dumb. And only for that they deserve to be punished. BTW I would never ask anybody about their children or any other personal details in the interview but once they are employed kids, partners, hobbies are common topic of conversation. Tbh I think she was discriminated because they didn't like her, not so much because of here gender. If there were two women on the panel it's very likely that company was used of employing women into accounting positions.

mariaalice

meeeeh wrote: »

Anybody who thinks that business are going under just because they are not nice to their employees is either an idiot or working for public sector.

I think she could have been discriminated against or she could have been just a bad employee. I've worked in SMEs my whole life. I remember two cases in more than 15 years of being sued or threatened to be sued. Both of them were male employees and completely useless. There was nothing out of one case and with the other one settlement of 2000 was reached just to avoid high legal costs. From an employer point of view not everybody who considers themselves to be qualified actually is any good at the work they are supposed to do. And it's completely gender, age or any other way unspecific. The last overqualified masters student cost us over 10k in damage he cause not using his brain before he was fired after a month. And yet he was perfectly qualified for what he was hired. Anyway the ran over...


That's a very good post, however I still think relying on vaguer ideas such as fitting in above competency is not a good way to conduct an interview and give someone a job.

highgiant1985

mariaalice wrote: »

That's a very good post, however I still think relying on vaguer ideas such as fitting in above competency is not a good way to conduct an interview and give someone a job.

I disagree. For me someone who is the right fit is critical.

Otherwise while they may have great skills for the role you are looking for, the overhead of managing and integrating the person into the team will be extremely difficult, likely to negate any benefit of compentcy and has huge risk for causing unrest amoung existing team members.

Ideally you want some one who is strong competency and strong fit but I'd prefer mid competency over someone who is strong but a poor fit.

meeeeh

mariaalice wrote: »

meeeeh wrote: »

That's a very good post, however I still think relying on vaguer ideas such as fitting in above competency is not a good way to conduct an interview and give someone a job.

Oh sorry I didn't mean it in that way. But when you have someone with economics degree who is afraid to call another country (actual example) or somebody who thinks quotation can be sent hand written on paper with dirty finger marks on it, or someone who calls in the middle of important meeting with a client that her printer needs to be fixed because she really has to print out her daughters assignment. There are actually worse examples around too.

One of the most capable employees my parents have is a woman working in a very male dominated position. I don't think my father likes here very much, she has probably the highest number of missed days due to illness and she doesn't overly work overtime (more likely less). And yet she is by far the best employee in that position and would be the last to go. Sometimes it's hard to quantify those things.

Oh and just to make clear I know some dreadful examples of employee mistreatment (in good times) and by the company in hard hit sector yet they are still around and some much fairer companies went under. Things just aren't that simple.

mariaalice

highpoint wrote: »

I disagree. For me someone who is the right fit is critical.

Otherwise while they may have great skills for the role you are looking for, the overhead of managing and integrating the person into the team will be extremely difficult, likely to negate any benefit of competency and has huge risk for causing unrest among existing team members.

Ideally you want some one who is strong competency and strong fit but I'd prefer mid competency over someone who is strong but a poor fit.

However that could lead to the situation we are discussing because again how do you define " fit in" and how do you make sure it not a personal dislike of the person that lead to them not getting the job, where as a competency based interview is very black and white.

seamus

meeeeh wrote: »

I think she could have been discriminated against or she could have been just a bad employee.

The article does state that all of her performance reviews up until the interview had been "excellent".

Tbh I think she was discriminated because they didn't like her, not so much because of here gender.

"I don't like you", let's be honest isn't a good enough reason to not promote or hire someone.

If you dislike someone because of the way they do their job or because of the way they interact with other employees, then this is an issue which could and should be dealt with in performance reviews.

Using a personal dislike or some kind of personal grudge as a reason for not hiring/promoting someone is just as bad as discrimination IMO. It's nepotism in reverse and is a big sign of an incompetent interviewer.

downonthefarm

in the place I Work half the people are relatives of hr so when any of the promotion chances come up they get first refusal. it's quite disheartening

clairefontaine

seamus wrote: »

The article does state that all of her performance reviews up until the interview had been "excellent".
"I don't like you", let's be honest isn't a good enough reason to not promote or hire someone.

If you dislike someone because of the way they do their job or because of the way they interact with other employees, then this is an issue which could and should be dealt with in performance reviews.

Using a personal dislike or some kind of personal grudge as a reason for not hiring/promoting someone is just as bad as discrimination IMO. It's nepotism in reverse and is a big sign of an incompetent interviewer.

Several people in management positions have told me they hire whom they they think they will get along with the best.

meeeeh

seamus wrote: »

Using a personal dislike or some kind of personal grudge as a reason for not hiring/promoting someone is just as bad as discrimination IMO. It's nepotism in reverse and is a big sign of an incompetent interviewer.

I didn't say it is right. I just find accountancy one of the areas where there is the least bias against women, very often the numbers are actually in favor of women. That is why I doubt it was gender based discrimination.

WhatNowForUs?

meeeeh wrote: »

I didn't say it is right. I just find accountancy one of the areas where there is the least bias against women, very often the numbers are actually in favor of women. That is why I doubt it was gender based discrimination.

But it was accountancy in an Engineering Firm.