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I've had this idea for a while, but HireRoulette came up and I
thought it was a good time to finally post this.
This is a garment that a job interviewee wears. It covers their
entire body and keeps the interviewer from seeing anything
that they could unconsciously discriminate based on (gender
presentation, manner of dress, skin color, height, ugliness,
etc.).
Height is disguised by a frame that holds the top of the
garment at some adjustable height above the wearer's actual
head. Interviewers will know this is adjustable, so a tall
person can just set it to zero and the interviewer won't know
they're not a short person who set it higher.
Probably a voice changer should be incorporated too.
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Annotation:
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Absolutely not. For one thing, what if I want to
discriminate? More seriously, why not just conduct
the interview by phone? |
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If the candidate gets hired but turns out to be really ugly, could their contract require them to keep wearing the burqa ? |
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Could that be introduced retrospectively for existing employees ? Now, that WOULD be a truly great idea. |
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Interview by social media. Maybe here, with candidates
judged by how well they can spell and their attitude
towards French cats, exploding mimes, and bee-flavored
custard... |
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More or less how orchestras audition new
musicians - by asking then to play behind a screen |
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I'm pretty sure I haven't heard that one. |
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I did this here already: something like Darth Vader costume for job
interviews. |
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" So do you know who it was that interviewed you for this job ? " |
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" No, man, we all wore that creepy burqa thing with voice changers " |
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"Good news is we found the ideal candidate. Bad
news is we don't know who the fuck it was." |
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Well I think HR gets to take a photo and match it up with
the ID number pinned to the front of the Burqa to avoid
confusion between candidates. |
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Let us assume for the sake of argument that this is
the right solution for the interview process and will
prevent other people's biases influencing their
perception of your interview answers. Logically then,
after you have got the job, you should continue to
wear this burqa while at work, to prevent other
people's biases influencing their perception of your
work. Perhaps after ten years' service you might be
allowed to remove the face covering during tea
breaks, or stop using the voice change while talking
on the phone. |
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// to prevent other people's biases influencing their perception of your work // |
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... or, more importantly, to prevent the milk turning sour and all the clocks stopping. |
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A scanner darkly in a scramble-suit. |
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I don't like this mainly because would want to I screen out people who may actually wear burkas. |
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The core concepts behind this kind of thinking is that
ideals are more important than realities. |
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As someone who hires and fires people, high on my list is
the ability of someone to be a functional member of a
productive team, good interpersonal skills, functional
social processes, whatever physical requirements the
role requires like being fit and healthy, etc. Multiply that
by any requirement for customer or stakeholder service -
sadly enough, average joe the consumer doesn't want
their fries handed out by someone with leprosy or
something major that's likely to put people off, or to be
greeted at a front desk of a multinational legal firm by
someone who can't be pleasant - if not neat and
professional. |
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Ultimately, what's actually wrong with an employer being
selective? Does anybody owe anybody a job? |
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By their nature, interviewers have to discriminate. |
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Where there are many applicants, but only one post to fill, a choice is inevitable. |
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Governments can pass endless laws forbidding discrimination on the grounds of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, height, hair colour, disability, or musical preferences. But in the end, employers have to choose the individual most suited to the role, or they will be at a competitive disadvantage. |
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And even less likely to win one, especially if any potential
employers do a search on you and come up with your
comments on this particular site... |
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Unless they're looking for someone who is not
competitive...
There is a selection issue
here: Job selection processes are biased towards
people who are good at job applications and
interviews irrespective of their actual
job-relevant skills, so the workplace becomes full
of the kind of people who are good at 'selling'
themselves. It's an analogous problem to that of
the selection of politicians, which is actually
more serious - being a politician is risky, because
you're exposed to media scrutiny and you could
easily get voted out of office and be jobless, so
it attracts people who have a high tolerance for
risk in their lives. These people, when in office,
then are comfortable taking risks (with Government
policies, foreign wars, etc.) which most people
would not be comfortable with. A political class
made up of risk-takers is, of course, not
representative of the general public which is a
failure of the democratic process. |
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It's a fundamental and insurmountable flaw of representative democracy. |
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//Burqa-like garment for job interviews// the
French would say "non" - shirley a point in its favour. |
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Makes me wonder, in what job-bearing country, besides
Britain perhaps and maybe France, which doesn't count, are
native white guy Britons actively discriminated against? |
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No, they gave jobs to Lord Haw-haw and P G Wodehouse … |
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Can interviewees be naked under the burka? Can they be subtly and spicily perfumed? Might this person be /'selling' themselves/? Is spicily a word? |
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// Can interviewees be naked under the burka? // |
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Minimal research indicates that, under their clothing, 97.3%* of humans are in fact completely naked. |
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// Can they be subtly and spicily perfumed? // |
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The two would appear to be mutually exclusive. |
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// Might this person be /'selling' themselves/? // |
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Yes, but that statement is open to misinterpretation, and quite possibly civil or indeed criminal proceedings. |
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+1 This would make interviews much easier for socially
anxious people, as we would be judged on our actual merits
rather than the superficial crap that HR types care about. |
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They charge them to parlimentary expenses. |
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What's really needed is a remote control burka-like garment, with a canned set of responses to questions, so I can send it off to job interviews while I do something less tedious. |
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It's called "telepresence" ... |
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// Ultimately, what's actually wrong with an employer
being selective? // |
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Nothing, for job-relevant characteristics. My idea doesn't
block any of the things you listed, except perhaps
leprosy. |
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Have you forgotten which bakery you're in? |
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// What if it gets the job, and does it for you? // |
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I don't see why this would be a problem. |
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