"Equal opportunity employment policy" - Myth or Reality?

Ken Georgie Mathew
Aspiration Management
Professional 

I was going through the "Equal opportunity employment policy" of an organization and was reflecting on the subject in connection with talent acquisition processes and the various challenges that recruiters face today.

The organization policy stated that, candidates or job applicants are considered for employment solely on the basis of their qualifications and competencies. It goes on to state that the policy is designed to ensure that new employees are hired without regard to their race, color, religion, national origin, citizenship, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, socio-economic background or sexual orientation.

Most organizations underline the need to provide equal opportunities to all candidates without discrimination. Equal opportunity employment policy details the organization's stand on equal opportunity in all aspects of employment, including recruitment, training conditions of service, career progression, separation etc. But, when it comes to recruitment, does an organization truly have a "Equal opportunity employment policy"? Having worked on many recruitment assignments in IT industry, I feel that the true sense of equal opportunity has not been accomplished yet.

Most manpower requests come to the recruiter with an "ASAP" tag attached. Line managers need the right people at the right time, which is "as of yesterday". Now, the key performance indicator for the recruiter is meeting the demands of hiring on time, all the time. This being the scenario, let me confess to the fact that I was not a recruiter who could be true to providing equal opportunity because, as soon I received a manpower request with the "ASAP" tag attached, my job search on a job portal pointed to local candidates. In other words, to close recruitment fast and to meet the recruitment demands on time, I preferred candidates in and around the corporate location, which means that I did not give equal opportunity for an open position in a corporate to candidates in locations far from where the company was located. Considering that there could be a few rounds of interviews spanning over days or weeks, it was easier to coordinate with candidates who can come over at short notice. On the other hand, candidates from tier 2 and tier 3 locations, who were also equally capable did not get equal opportunity.

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