I'm doing an online MBA program through a school whose main campus is in DC.

I'm taking two classes now one of which is a management class. The topic of discussion this week was recruiting and diversity. Oh shit...

I made the comment that if you want to hire the best people, leave off identifying information such as name, sex, age, etc. That way you're looking at abilities. I said, "I wouldn't want my dentist or doctor to be the one who got hired because of a quota..."

Silence...

Professor broke the ice by saying, "Well we need to remember that 1/2 of the class for medical school graduated at the bottom half of their class" and we continued the lecture.

Was I wrong there?

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
I'm doing an online MBA program through a school whose main campus is in DC.

I'm taking two classes now one of which is a management class. The topic of discussion this week was recruiting and diversity. Oh shit...

I made the comment that if you want to hire the best people, leave off identifying information such as name, sex, age, etc. That way you're looking at abilities. I said, "I wouldn't want my dentist or doctor to be the one who got hired because of a quota..."

Silence...

Professor broke the ice by saying, "Well we need to remember that 1/2 of the class for medical school graduated at the bottom half of their class" and we continued the lecture.

Was I wrong there?

Depends on your goal. Sometimes the audience doesn’t want the truth...

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
Was I wrong there?

Only if you want a good grade in that course.

Many years ago I started at a college that was originally a seminary. Even though the school changed, there was a left-over requirement for all first year students to take one religious course.

I took "Philosophy of the Old Testament Prophets," as from the course descriptions, it seemed to be the least offensive to me.

It turned out to be the only college course I ever flunked. That sort of taught me when to keep my mouth shut.

I wonder how the professor would feel if he had been denied the chance to pursue his chosen field because a less worthy applicant had bumped him due to some quota.

I have sorta been there. I went to apply to the local power, water and sewer utility company for an open position. I was told frankly up front that the next hire had to be black because they had lost a couple black employees.
They hired a black alright, I actually knew the man. He worked for a horse barn, cleaning stalls etc. I had ~18 years experience as a plumber / electrician.

quote:

I took "Philosophy of the Old Testament Prophets," as from the course descriptions, it seemed to be the least offensive to me.

It turned out to be the only college course I ever flunked. That sort of taught me when to keep my mouth shut.

Did you have to take the course over? That would be torture.

I don’t think you were wrong.
For better or worse most new hires need to go through an interview process. If you can figure out a way to interview where the prospective employee’s traits that shouldn’t be relevant to hire can be masked, I might say you are at an advantage to protect yourself from accusations of discrimination.
On the other hand. When you hire, you hire the whole package. Some people simply cannot remove themselves from their personal issues/identity for the part of the day that they have to work.
At one time there was unanimous agreement that vegan, CrossFit people were the hardest to tolerate. They may be highly qualified for the job but you also have to consider the new hire’s affect on your existing employees and their productivity.

What I learned in college is to do the work, read the material, and figure out what the professor wanted to hear. Then I told them what they wanted to hear and did well. The times I thought I was smart, and debated them in class, I didn't do well, because they don't like that.

It's unfortunate that this is the way it works, but it's the way it works.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
...I made the comment that if you want to hire the best people, leave off identifying information such as name, sex, age, etc. That way you're looking at abilities. I said, "I wouldn't want my dentist or doctor to be the one who got hired because of a quota..."

...Professor broke the ice by saying, "Well we need to remember that 1/2 of the class for medical school graduated at the bottom half of their class" and we continued the lecture.

You and the Professor are not using the same example.

You are discussing historically discriminating traits such as ethnic heritage (name), gender (sex), and age all of which are illegal in the work place. By removing them from consideration (including interviews where the candidate is viewed or heard), you are expecting to stop further discriminaton in these areas.

Your Professor is stating that in every graduating class there is a student who graduated first and graduated last based on ranking of their earned grade point average.

The items you stated are not related to the ability of the candidate to do the job successfully. Because these are areas that have historically been used to discriminate, I agree with you that these items should not be considered in the hiring process as a method to stop work place discrimination.

The candidate's class ranking is directly related to their ability vs. other student's ability to be successful in the position. Choosing between two candidates based on class ranking is appropriate in the hiring process.

The problem with using class ranking, is:
1) The potential of grade inflation and grade reduction based on the Professor's overt or disparate discriminatory practices.

2) How to compare job candidates who attended different Universities or the same University but graduated in different years. At this point, you are not comparing candidates that were judged the same because grading policies are not consistent across the nation or from one graduating class to another because Professors change, department policy changes, and/or accrediting bodies may apply pressure to fight grade inflation/deflation.

Based on these problems with the reliability of class ranking, I would not use that as an indicator of their potential to be successful in the job.


.

I don't see what's to object about what you said.

How can anyone say, "But we have to know if they're Japanese, Rastafarian who identifies as the 6th sex to confirm they're the best!"

quote:

Originally posted by sleepla8er:

Based on these problems with the reliability of class ranking, I would not use that as an indicator of their potential to be successful in the job.

That makes a certain amount of sense, but barring that, what WOULD you use?

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
What I learned in college is to do the work, read the material, and figure out what the professor wanted to hear. Then I told them what they wanted to hear and did well. The times I thought I was smart, and debated them in class, I didn't do well, because they don't like that.

It's unfortunate that this is the way it works, but it's the way it works.

Their world for the semester or quarter. Learn how they think.

Let me guess... you're a white guy, right?

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
...
I made the comment that if you want to hire the best people, leave off identifying information such as name, sex, age, etc. That way you're looking at abilities. I said, "I wouldn't want my dentist or doctor to be the one who got hired because of a quota..."

Silence...

Professor broke the ice by saying, "Well we need to remember that 1/2 of the class for medical school graduated at the bottom half of their class" and we continued the lecture...

Perhaps the *professor* was hired because of a quota, and knew so.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Let me guess... you're a white guy, right?

Not exactly. Not if, by "white," you mean Caucasian. I know Edmond.

quote:

Originally posted by 41:

quote:

I took "Philosophy of the Old Testament Prophets," as from the course descriptions, it seemed to be the least offensive to me.

It turned out to be the only college course I ever flunked. That sort of taught me when to keep my mouth shut.

Did you have to take the course over? That would be torture.

Nope. I did not graduate from that college, though. I moved on, did my Navy time, and seventeen years after I flunked the religion course, I graduated from Illinois Institute of Technology, with a BS, math major (not religion major ).

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond: I said, "I wouldn't want my dentist or doctor to be the one who got hired because of a quota..."

Professor broke the ice by saying, "Well we need to remember that 1/2 of the class for medical school graduated at the bottom half of their class"

Technically the professor was correct but he had to know that admission to medical school is difficult enough that even the bottom half is made up of very intelligent and able people. It's not a random sampling of the general population.

It's similar to understanding that he worst player in the NFL is still a VERY good athlete.

quote:

Professor broke the ice by saying, "Well we need to remember that 1/2 of the class for medical school graduated at the bottom half of their class" and we continued the lecture.

The professor dodged the issue. You talked about hiring someone for a job. That's the same as someone being selected for admission to medical school.

The "Regents of the University of California v. Bakke" (1978) addressed the quota system used by the university. Under the quota "The school reserved sixteen places in each entering class of one hundred for "qualified" minorities, as part of the university's affirmative action program, in an effort to redress longstanding, unfair minority exclusions from the medical profession. Bakke's qualifications (college GPA and test scores) exceeded those of any of the minority students admitted in the two years Bakke's applications were rejected."

I've always wondered how those quota admissions fared in medical school. Did they even graduate?

Still, stay in the foxhole, keep your head down.


https://www.oyez.org/cases/1979/76-811