Is this an error in the application form or is it a violation of EEO laws?

Fleamo , 6 months ago

This is extremely common, the purpose is to prevent or at least identify racist hiring practices. How else are they supposed to know? They get an idea of who is applying, and an idea of who gets hired, and they can look at population statistics, and thus tell whether a disproportionate amount of certain minority groups are being rejected by a certain manager or the company as a whole.

Or alternatively you can tell if a job posting disproportionately has applicants of a certain demographic, so maybe white men tend to be hired in that job but it’s because the applicant pool is 95% white men. That would show that it’s not necessarily the hiring managers with the issue but either the HR outreach or the job itself has requirements disproportionately held by white men, and you can decide if that means you need to change something or that’s just something you need to live with for this role.

It’s allowed as long as it is only used for these purposes.

RickRussell_CA , 6 months ago

It’s not inadvertent. Businesses can collect aggregate statistics on race, disability, and veteran status as part of the application process. The responses are anonymized and not visible to hiring managers (except for veteran status, which may be used to provide a positive bias towards veterans for certain roles).

Fiivemacs , 6 months ago

You assume it’s anonymized and not given to hiring managers, meaning it probably is

RickRussell_CA , 6 months ago

Of course anybody can break the rules if they choose.

inspxtr , 6 months ago

IANAL and I have never had this experience. But intuitively, maybe send them an email/complaint asking about it, eg via their tech support or privacy offices, and referencing the relevant laws. If you need to fill this out quickly, try calling them instead. Give it a few weeks (if via email), then maybe contact relevant offices. If you live in certain states in CA, you may try to get this elevated.

edgemaster72 , 6 months ago

Time to make the data contradictory. Select Hispanic or Latino on question 10, then Two or more races (Not Hispanic or Latino) on question 11.