I was going to apply for a rather interesting ESG role. Went through the regular education/experience questions, then I saw the "diversity" questionnaire requesting the below information:
- Race affiliation
- Highest level of education achieved by parents by the time you turned 18
- Were you availing of Free School Meals at any point during your school years?
- What type of school did you attend (State-run selective school, state run non-selective, independent fee-paying school etc..)?
- Would you describe yourself as coming from a lower socio-economic background compared to people in general?
I was astonished. What on earth is this? I don't believe these questions are genuinely asked in the name of so-called "diversity". These are quite discriminatory/intrusive questions that no one should be required to answer within the scope of a job application. It infringes several legal principles. Whilst I've seen "race" and "sexual orientation" being listed in questions for another companies, the above listed are the cherry on top. What does my parents' level of education or free school meals have anything to do with my professional capacities and credentials at this stage? Besides, the "compared to people in general" - what does this even mean? Smaller niche companies are sometimes out of this world with their application process.
Definitely cancelled the whole process once I saw these highly discriminatory questions in the same of "diversity". Yeah, right. Supposedly, the data will never be linked back to the individual application or be seen by the hiring manager. Well, surely enough, if they are part of the application questionnaire and you can't submit your application before answering these questions, then yes, by default the answers will be linked to your application. Who on earth are they fooling, I wonder.
I need sleep jesus
