Father Time said:
Flare Phoenix said:
In your story the guy has more experience than you, but the question is asking whether hiring policies based on gender, race, etc... is acceptable if the people have pretty much the same experience. There is quite a difference there.
First one (different experience levels): Of course not! The one with more experience should get the job.
Second one (same experience levels): Honestly, I don't see the problem here. If the company desires to show they are implementing diversity by hiring people with different genders and races it's just another criteria in the hiring process.
So would you be OK if a company didn't want to hire blacks or whites or Asians? If not, why not?
If a company didn't want to hire someone based on the colour of their skin, that would be discrimination. The problem is it's very easy to get around claims of discrimination in the hiring process. Often companies will have a very specific idea of the kind of person they want for the job. Let's say a company needs a new receptionist, and they decide they want a young attractive female. However if they only interview young attractive females, someone would be well within their right to call discrimination.
So a company would interview a few older women and men, who, even if they had the best qualifications and experience, have no chance in hell of ever getting the position. Now, if someone were to call discrimination, the company can simply say "well we interviewed a wide array of people and this is the one that we felt was most suited to the company".
As I said before, if two people come along with the same experience what are you supposed to use in determining who gets the job? If a problem the company has been having is they are getting claims they are being too rigid in staff they hire, the next person they hire being female would just be another criteria to them.
Let's face it, qualifications are pretty much the last thing that come into consideration when hiring something (alright, if you're going for like a doctor and you don't have necessary qualifications you have no chance in hell of getting the job obviously). If qualifactions were all that important, someone with the best qualifications would be able to rock up in an interview in their pajamas and still get the job. In fact, if qualifications meant anything, there wouldn't need to be the interview process at all. The person doing the hiring would be able to just look at each resume, determine who has the most qualifications, and hire them straight away.
