When I apply for a job and it asks for sexuality/etc at the end, why is that? Does it

granturismo wrote: »

I've been involved in the application process for several public sector posts and one civil service post in the past 12 months and also in recent years. None of the application processes have asked candidates to indicate which of the categories relevant to discrimination they identify as. They may have issued a questionnaire to the successful candidate on accepting the post - I wasnt involved in that part.

Were they run through PAS? In that case, they ask these questions as part of the registration process (and I presume can pull out the statistics if required for particular competitions - e.g. 10% of people applying for this role were female, not Joe Bloggs who applied for this role identifies as...).

wherearewe45 wrote: »

Just curious why they ask my sexuality (I'm gay) so does that mean it works in my favour to declare that as I'd have a tiny edge as it'd help their pool of diversity in the company.

I assume it's a public service role. I was asked on my last two applications the same thing. I assume they've to fill quotas judging by the amount of gay people they hired in the last round, roughly 50%.

It's nice to see how progressive we've become, asking someone where they stick their genitals is obviously the best way to go, not experience or suitability to the role.

gameoverdude wrote: »

This is where I have a slight doubt about gathering this information(from what people have said, will not go towards the interview panel). What happens end of year the board or whoever look at the replies and see 10% of interviews were a certain cohorts but only 5% hired? Does that change maybe future hiring practices? I'm not say this info will be released and people will be discriminated against (perhaps indirectly?), but its a concern. Best person for the job should get it. See no need for these questions at all.

Actually, having over 20 years experience in hiring my own teams, although I know those questions were asked, my understanding was that answers were not known by HR (certainly not by me as a hiring manager) but by a separate reporting company.

Regarding hiring practices, I have never been told "we're down on the female/LBGT/etc quota so make sure you hire ....."

But who knows? Perhaps someone was looking at my hires and I would have been pulled if there was an issue?

gameoverdude wrote: »

Who in the company new about the details then?

Honestly? I don't know. Perhaps someone who works in HR can confirm if they have access? I seem to remember that it may say that the data is held anonymously? I certainly had dealings with the NI Equality Commission in regard audits in relation to my interview questions/notes/scoring/shortlisting for roles. Diversity was never specifically mentioned by them to me. They always just spoke about fairness in general.

ByTheSea2019 wrote: »

This was in the UK, but I previously saw a job I would have liked and couldn't apply for because it said "LGBT only" in the job title. I'm assuming they are allowed to reserve a number of jobs for under-represented groups.

What was the job for ?

breezy1985 wrote: »

It's not common in the UK either despite what people are saying.

Infact it's the opposite and people would normally be terrified of asking about your sexuality or race in an interview except to ask are you form the UK or hold a valid passport/permit for work

No one is asked any such questions in an interview. (they certainly shouldn't be anyways)

Its a voluntary diversity questionnaire that people do not have to respond to, when making a job application.

it’s all over the place in Iteland and has been standard for big companies for years - that along with illegal screening questions demanding to know the caring responsibilities you have, if you have a disability, in MANY public service instances the year you did your leaving cert and ‘grades’ - so they can exactly pinpoint your age which is illegal to ask, also standard question in drop down box about sex - male/female/other/prefer not to say, and the standard and totally illegal requirement for Most university (ie government jobs) of three written references along with job application yet ‘ canvassing discriminates’.

If you think all this information is not going to be accessed by others in some form of other that will identify you in your career or will not be used to actively discriminate in some way against someone then you are delusional.

I think what Kathleen37 was saying was that it doesn't go to interviews or asked to ask the potential employees about any of the discrimination 9(please correct me if I misinterpreted) . I don't know uk interviewing procedures or if common to ask, specifically about sexuality, as I've never been asked.

However, I see no need to ask...again outside applying to the job, I've written job specs, interviewed loads, I don't care.

The curious thing I learned that it's an outside company gathering data, but who sees it in the company. I find it hard to fathom no one does and it won't be made available to future recruitment pushes. Above my pay grade I imagine. Pr probably.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000 wrote: »

I assume it's a public service role. I was asked on my last two applications the same thing. I assume they've to fill quotas judging by the amount of gay people they hired in the last round, roughly 50%.

It's nice to see how progressive we've become, asking someone where they stick their genitals is obviously the best way to go, not experience or suitability to the role.

No it's so they can sit you next to Ryan in Accounting who is super cute, h.r. is just a woke dating agency nowadays they've nothing else to do with their time.

ByTheSea2019 wrote: »

This was in the UK, but I previously saw a job I would have liked and couldn't apply for because it said "LGBT only" in the job title. I'm assuming they are allowed to reserve a number of jobs for under-represented groups.

I sincerely doubt this is true....it would likely be illegal

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000 wrote: »

I assume it's a public service role. I was asked on my last two applications the same thing. I assume they've to fill quotas judging by the amount of gay people they hired in the last round, roughly 50%.

It's nice to see how progressive we've become, asking someone where they stick their genitals is obviously the best way to go, not experience or suitability to the role.

I'm in the public service for the last 18 months-This is not a thing. You are spouting complete nonsense.

breezy1985 wrote: »

What was the job for ?

It was an analyst role in financial services.

gmisk wrote: »

I sincerely doubt this is true....it would likely be illegal

I definitely saw it on a linkedin job ad. I assumed at the time they would be entitled to do it if they did it, but it seems like positive discrimination is illegal in the UK. It made me think, how many people would pursue something like that. They are going to have more jobs. Better off applying for another one.

mike_cork wrote: »

I'm in the public service for the last 18 months-This is not a thing. You are spouting complete nonsense.

I'm almost 20 years in public service and I deal with HR forms, reference requests etc and this is definitely not on any of our documents!

Just thinking about this a little more..we have established that some sectors in Ireland collate data from their employees regarding things like sexuality, religion etc.

Apparently to monitor diversity levels and so on.

So what use is this information? In other words if the workforce is not diverse enough, how do they propose changing it without hiring people based on discrimination?

Are there employment laws in Ireland that allow for the sort of "positive discrimination" along of the lines of improving catholic hiring in the North?

This is interesting stuff actually.

JayRoc wrote: »

Just thinking about this a little more..we have established that some sectors in Ireland collate data from their employees regarding things like sexuality, religion etc.

Apparently to monitor diversity levels and so on.

So what use is this information? In other words if the workforce is not diverse enough, how do they propose changing it without hiring people based on discrimination?

Are there employment laws in Ireland that allow for the sort of "positive discrimination" along of the lines of improving catholic hiring in the North?

This is interesting stuff actually.

It's not just about positive discrimination.

The first step would be to remove opportunities for unintentional bias, where people tend to recruit people that are like themselves. So things like removing name, gender, school name, dates of school /college exams from the details reviewed by decision makers would be a good step. Making sure that your electronic application form can be used by people with disabilities would be a good step.

Training for interviewers to help them navigate through these sensitive issues would help.

Retaining diverse staff is probably as big an issue as recruiting staff. If gay staff have to endure sniggers and gossip and puff jokes from the fifty-something CEO, then they're not going to hang around for too long.