From: luisg@hadar.fai.com (Luis Galleguillos)
Subject: Re: Sad Day for Liberty
Originator: luisg@lugano
Organization: Fujitsu NTS
Distribution: ba
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 01:40:21 GMT


In article <CARL.92Nov11132619@atlantis.Cayman.COM>, carl@Cayman.COM (Carl Heinzl) writes:
|> 
|> >I'm not saying that anybody is actually planning this, or even that it
|> >will happen.  I'm in favor of laws banning discrimination on
|> >irrelevant grounds, provided they don't allow statistical "proof" of
|> >discrimination.
|> 
|> >To those who are going to say "This company hasn't hired and X's,
|> >therefore they must be discriminating.  Why won't you allow that as
|> >proof?"  I'll say "Show me one X who applied and was more qualified
|> >than candidates they did hire.  The existence of such a person implies
|> >discrimination; if you can't find one, then tell me _precisely who_
|> >they discriminated against."
|> 
|> I must beg to differ.  I do not believe that this implies
|> discrimination, however I think that if this systematically happened
|> over a period of time to several people then something could be up.
|> 
|> For example, I have interviewed people that have been extremely well
|> qualified (technically), more so than others, but that most people in
|> the company would have had an extremely hard time working with.  All
|> of this is true for people of any race, creed, color, religion, etc.
|> Qualifications alone do not make someone appropriate for a position.
|> Attitude and personality go along with it.  You cannot simply judge a
|> person by their resume (even if all the resumes are totally accurate
|> portrayals of their technical ability)!!!
|> 
|> -Carl-
|> --

Although attitude and personality will affect the professional
performance of a person, these traits can not be easily ascertained
on the basis of a few interviews unless gross deviations are present.

Most psychologists and  psychiatrists have specialized tests that can be
used to test people over a long period under a number of circumstances
and conditions to determine with some degree of certainty the personality 
and attitudes of people. This tests are clearly not present in an interview
situation and the casual and untrained interviewer will most likely use
his own biases and prejudices to not hire those who even though qualified
do not suit his optical expectations. I say optical, since it is this
first superficial impression that influences most untrained people. Here too
is where most discrimination occurs. The caucasian MD that expects or regards a certain 
look as indicative of proficiency will be disappointed if an asian, black or
Mexican appears before him even though he might have optimal qualifications.
If a hispanic MD is the interviewer he might be biased to hire another hispanic.
etc etc.

I found that many minorities are the most discriminating of all. Often,
minorities feel that there is a right to be won by hiring only their own
kind and "forgeting" that antidiscrimination laws apply also to them. I have
come in contact with whole departments composed of Hindus or chinese etc. that
actually form an unbreakable inner and often vicious circle inside a 
corporation complete with its own secret agendas.

So, I believe, that to have a healthy heterogenous work force one must take his
or her chances by hiring qualified people without gross personality or attitude
traits. Only time can tell the success or failure of our choice. In many cases
this fair hiring practice must be forced on whole corporations and departments
that given the natural segregation tendencies of humans, will unconciously or
conciously will hire their employees
based on race, looks and so called "personality and attitude" traits. More
often it is our own personalities and traits that determines who
gets hired and how effective is the new candidate in his work.


Luis


 


 
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