Case study
Graduate recruiting by large organisations is a common practice among both public
and private organisations. One large public organisation regularly visits university
campuses and encourages students to apply to its graduate program. Interested
students are asked to prepare and submit a detailed résumé and on the basis of their
apparent suitability are shortlisted for the interview process. Varinderjeet Singh was a
third-year finance undergraduate, a brilliant student who was going to graduate at the
top of his class. He was one of six applicants shortlisted for a graduate traineeship
program. After the interview process, the six applicants discussed their experiences,
and quickly realised that the female applicants had been treated harshly and
inequitably. Further, the types of questions asked of the women by the interviewers
were difficult and irrelevant and were not asked of the men. The duration of the
women’s interviews was also longer. The women felt they had been patronised and
their confidence was undermined. None of the women were surprised when they were
advised that their applications had been unsuccessful.
Although the male applicants felt that they had been treated fairly, Varinderjeet
suspected that he would be discriminated against like the women and would not get
the job because he belonged to an ethnic minority. However, he was advised he was
successful and asked to attend an orientation meeting the following week. When he
arrived at the meeting everyone was very welcoming, and he immediately felt at ease.
His manager, Tom, began to show him around and introduce him to his new coworkers. Varinderjeet noticed that the female employees occupied only lower
administrative positions. When they went back to Tom’s office to discuss Varinderjeet’s
roles and expectations for the position, Varinderjeet became increasingly
uncomfortable when Tom said that the organisation prided itself on having a
homogenous workforce where everyone looked and acted similarly. Tom then
suggested that Varinderjeet should let everyone call him Victor because Varinderjeet
was too hard to pronounce. Tom also told Varinderjeet that he should remove his turban
because he looked unprofessional. Varinderjeet immediately felt degraded and
discriminated against. How could this organisation believe that his cultural background
and his religious customs were unprofessional?
Sample Solution
