The process of hiring is similar to an arranged marriage.
You first come to know each other either through a common friend, through an advertisement or as in the case these todays through an online portal. Next, you have a few meetings to see if you are both compatible – each thinks of their best qualities they can ‘sell’ the other. If all goes well, you meet the family and after a short time period, it is D-Day and you join your new family/office.
However, while the process is the same, where they both differ is that with advertising jobs there are rules (atleast globally) and companies must play fair. This means you can’t discriminate against people based on their age, looks, gender etc – what should matter is their experience and capability to add value to your team. While technically, you shouldn’t discriminate on those factors in a marriage either, that is a post for another day.
Yet, for some reason this is not the case. One only has to flip through the newspaper or through the several advertisements on job portals to notice that gender and age discrimination abound. From an ad for a Front Office Receptionist or flight attendant where only female candidates are wanted to ads for delivery executives where only boys will be considered. Why is this the case? Can a man not proficiently answer calls or serve your meal on the plane or is it that only boys can deliver food and girls can’t?
This discrimination is often taken one step further by airlines where the candidates must only be of a certain age – even for experienced crew (I could understand if the advertisement was for freshers) and in the case of Singapore airlines continue to remain the same weight as they were when they are hired – they are allowed to shift a kilo either way but any more and you must take forced vacation.
We don’t live in the colonial era. The British left India a long time ago, so why this discrimination and why must it permeate down to the very basic of jobs?
In the same breath that companies advertise about their great HR benefits such as paternity leave, in-house crèches and work-from home policies, they ask for candidates photos when applying and don’t even accept applications if you are a month older than the age cut-off. Even worse, some employers such as Jet Airways and Qatar expect you to have ‘unblemished’ skin and be unmarried.
Are older, healthier people not good employees? Do people that are married not require jobs? Or did you think you were on Shaadi.com advertising for a spouse?
It’s about time that Indian enterprises stop thinking they are in high school, grow up and realize that employee discrimination based on gender, age or appearance is if not illegal, downright unethical. We can’t even start talking about the glass ceiling for women in the workplace or equal pay for genders without addressing this core problem in my opinion.
Does your startup discriminate based on any of these factors? What’s the reason – I am genuinely curious!