Goomba

Director of Shitposts

Hiring bias is real

if I see a team with all or most (insert gender/race combo here) and I'm not that, I know they're hiring someone that is.

Having kept up with that on jobs I saw other people get hired for, it's like the JD should have also said "requiring a physical clone of the HM"

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Filth

Tycoon

Live Filthy or Die Clean

My revenue team has all the diversity in the world and I let my company know it often. We've got em all:

Young White Males, Old White Males, Bald White males, Bald White males with beards, White males with hair and no beard, White males with hair and beards, Tall White males, AND Short White males

with a spread like this, it's no wonder the marketing/HR teams don't say much when I bring it up...

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Damn

Filth

Tycoon

Live Filthy or Die Clean

Fuck man, I miss Omar Little...now I have to go watch The Wire again (and that's OK WITH ME).

RIP Michael K. Williams

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

This is, unfortunately, very true. Even though it shouldn't be.

And then you've got places like Deel that seem to have the Abercrombie & Fitch circa early 2000s hiring style,

salesjoe

Opinionated

Hopefully, the soundtrack on the sales floor isn't as bad as the A&F stores used to be. The worst era of dance music.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Add in the Fierce cologne...

BasstheBear

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

Yeah this happens a lot but sometimes it’s not the hiring managers direct fault.

I was tasked with building out my SDR team and was told by my VP who had the final say on who was hired that I had to start with a woman.

She pretty much said (without saying) either hire a woman or I’ll deny your hire.

Goomba

Opinionated

Director of Shitposts

Thanks for sharing but jfc, maybe it’s how women have treated me in the workplace but shit like this pisses me off. It’s like women forget DEI doesn’t mean just women.

BasstheBear

Valued Contributor

Account Executive

I had to look up what “jfc” meant lol

But yeah I agree, it’s real.

When I was a manager I always went by the metric of whoever is the best fit for the role and since I was hiring SDRs it was literally whoever was the hardest working and ready to go in on an entry level job that required you to be shit on all the time.

Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

Director of Revenue

Anecdotal story, but semi relevant. During the height of the pandemic, there was a big spike in DE&I initiatives. I worked in the recruitment space for an org that specifically targeted placing C level execs in orgs during this time period.

We would be on zoom calls with a company's board of directors, going over specific qualifications that they were looking for in a CXO. They would cover work experience, education, skill sets, etc. But, at the end of this list, they would then let us know that we shouldn't bother sending over applications of any white males.

This was being told to us by a board FULL of white males.

This situation occurred MUCH more frequently that you would probably anticipate. Probably 20-30% of our clients were trying to meet some arbitrary DE&I metric and would flat out refuse to even talk to a white dude.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

I assume that means you’re looking for teams that look like you?

Happened to me when I was the most qualified candidate but the entire existing team was female. I should have seen it coming.

Goomba

Opinionated

Director of Shitposts

And yeah I’ve seen more bias from women than anything. Women hire other women not men.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Especially in the fitness industry. Hey, I can’t hate the choice; there’s a lot of creeps out there and I have fired a few coaches because of how they treat female staff and athletes. They didn’t want to take a chance.

Goomba

Opinionated

Director of Shitposts

This is a good strat. Difficult for anyone that isn’t predominantly of the Caucasian persuasion but hey, this is an idea.

Goomba

Opinionated

Director of Shitposts

For anyone doubting this just look at an example with Shift Group. They only hire white dudes for anything. That’s the template for a lot of sales orgs.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

I don’t know why someone downvoted you. It’s clear and evident that POC have a difficult time breaking into startups on the GTM side if they aren’t founders.

TennisandSales

Big Shot

Head Of Sales

hahahah ohhhhh yeah I worked at a company that was famous for this. Funny thing was the CEO and CTO were of asian decent but almost EVERY employee (especially in sales) were white, athletic, and good looking in a traditional way.....they did eventually get sued for it

Heisenbum

Big Shot

Senior Account Executive

Yup, seems to be the case at Deel and many other "Rocket ships"

oldcloser

Arsonist

💀

This ain't wrong.

mmoneyman

Executive

Sr. Mid-Market Account Executive

could be wrong here, but running interviews. sometimes the buyer's trust a specific tone or personality more than others.

ridiculous, but let's say you're selling to a specific target vertical like soccer mom's, you wouldn't necessarily hire slim shady to cold call em.

that being said, it can be overcome, but it's really more about the buyer than the org imo.

Space_Ghost20

Executive

Account Executive

Yeah I noticed in one of my recent interviews. Not necessarily race or demographic related, but everyone on the team and the two hiring managers were all from San Antonio. I am not, I only moved here 2 years ago (and for the most part it's been a good move for us). I could kind of tell that even though it was the best interview I'd ever done, they didn't like that I was a transplant and not a local. I obviously didn't get an offer.

Gasty

Notable Contributor

War Room Community Manager

While I’ve seen it upfront. I still don’t think it’s happening that widely.

Aren’t people more aware now? They’ll hire based on merits. Regardless of anything.

I mean, I’d never.

It happens in a niche for sure!!

Goomba

Opinionated

Director of Shitposts

SaaS sales is really small. It happens a lot. Specific demos get preferential treatment.

lowhangersalesbanger

Politicker

Account Executive

I’m sure it happens some places on purpose but the teams I have worked for are usually a reflection of the local talent pool. When I lived in mostly black areas I had mostly black teams. I’m in a mostly white area now so the team is mostly white.

Goomba

Opinionated

Director of Shitposts

I can understand that. Been that way for some teams I worked on. Remote changed it up though, with so many applicants if a remote team is like this I’m instantly suss.

cw95

Politicker

Head of SDR

Late to the party here but recently experienced this, or what I presumed to be anyway.

A job went live which I was PERFECT for, I couldn't believe how much the job spec was written just for me. Anyway, it went live around 7pm and I applied for it, the only option to apply was the 'Quick apply' on LinkedIn (nothing on the website etc etc). Anyway, the next morning, the internal recruiter posted it herself on LinkedIn again so I connected with her and said 'Hi X, Saw your post, just wanted to let you know I applied last night and I am interested blah blah blah'

I got a automated email rejection at 10AM the next day. Applied at 7PM got a rejection not even one work hour within applying...this also oddly get sent a minute after I connected with her.

So, I was having a look around the company and saw that ALL of the team I would be managing would be female...but they still had men in the business. I get it, but it did just feel like they saw my name and went NO without knowing anything about me just purely based on gender...but hey ho silver linings and all!