HP is no longer an equal opportunity employer?
“The Hewlett-Packard Company is an equal opportunity employer” is what the site says, and that is what I used to believe till I got a few emails from a few job consultants about some .NET and UNIX positions with HP” with an added line “only female candidates can apply”
Now forget for a moment that fact that the people who sent me this email did not do their homework and sent me an email that is not related to what I do or what I want to do. A larger issue here would be “Is HP still an equal opportunity employer”? Or has there been a change in the policy of being an “equal opportunity employer”?
To me this sounds like gender bias, or discrimination based on gender. Would a female employee make a better .NET or Unix programmer than a male employee? If not, then is this not gender bias? While the logical answer would be that there is nothing that proves that female employees make better .NET or Unix programmers, maybe some secret HP research proves otherwise. Or maybe HP should just stop saying that it is an equal opportunity employer.
Update: Thanks to Nithin for pointing this out. This could have been mistake on the part of the consultants or on the part of HP. However, since I got similar mails (saying only female candidates can apply) from multiple consultants, I suspect that this is part of job description that went to the consultants from HP and not something that the consultants made up.
Posted under: Thoughts
Tagged with: discrimination, employee, equal opportunity, equal opportunity employer, female, gender, gender bias, Hewlett-Packard, HP, male
July 20th, 2007 at 11:41:09
Hey Sajith,
Well don’t you think it’s more of the Consultant’s mistake than of HP itself?
I do agree with you if it’s truly done by HP but I must say that, what you have claimed here as per the mail from “a” consultant, is very absurd and baseless.
July 20th, 2007 at 13:51:20
True Nithin, The only reason I think HP is involved or at least knows about it is this:
I have got the mails from multiple consultants. And while I can understand that one consultant can make a mistake, I think the same mistake by multiple people at the same time is too much of a coincidence.
Sure, it is possible that HP knows nothing about this, but I suspect otherwise.
July 31st, 2007 at 13:36:32
It is more than likely that companies are under pressure to show a good gender balance in their organizations… this pressure will come from govt., NGOs, international do-gooders.
Business should be treated as business.. not some Social Service!