Wall Street encourages poor diversity levels with new hiring strategy
In the modern world, there are many forms of recruitment processes, the more traditional include recruitment agencies, relying on in house HR departments, personality testing and various theory based interview techniques. These more traditional processes are taking a back seat as computer based algorithms are becoming the norm, but do they create a diverse workforce?
For many organisations, staff turnover can prove costly in terms of both time and money. Many are trying to reduce these costs and create an efficient hiring process with computer-based algorithms, in the hope of ensuring a loyal and committed workforce.
This technique has now become questionable after Wall Street increased its use in their hiring strategy. However, this form of recruitment is not new, for many years companies have used personality tests along with aptitude testing to highlight problem candidates and aid in the creation of a short list for final interview.
These more recent algorithms though, have the ability to highlight key information and trends about specific individuals that a HR department simply screening a CV may not notice.
By researching data about past employees including performance levels, organisations such as Wall Street can now ensure their new employees do not share the same traits as their predecessors. This level of screening will help ensure a loyal workforce and reduce turnover costs.
Whilst proven an efficient hiring process, these algorithms are computer based, meaning somebody has to set the criteria for them to work. Due to most people’s cultural beliefs and sub conscious pre composed stereotypes, this input of data can make the whole process incredibly bias.
A huge issue faced for companies using this method is diversity, an issue already synonymous with Wall Street. Whilst in demographic terms such as race, gender and age these algorithms do not necessarily cause a problem with discrimination, due to the nature of the data patterns they are looking for there is reduced diversity amongst skill set, values, education and upbringing.
Wall Street already have a poor reputation for only hiring privileged candidates from wealthy families for their top level positions, and often exclude women and minority races. In their hands, a computer-based algorithm hiring strategy will only further perpetuate this trend.
Many studies show that only a small number of educational bodies are being targeted when using this method. This small pool of candidates will increase discrimination, ensuring Wall Street only hires its usual stereotype, meaning a work force of typically white, rich well-educated employees.
Whilst computer based algorithms can be a good recruiting technique they should not be relied upon as the sole option, or many candidates will see themselves overlooked for positions even if they are the stronger candidate.