BestWestern
Established Member
- Joined
- 6 Feb 2011
- Messages
- 6,736
Northern are simply trying to encourage more females to apply for a job which is over represented by males - probably (as already said) because there are such a low number of female applicants.
At the end of the day, everyone will still have to pass the assessments/interviews regardless of gender. At the FCC assessment day I went to there was one female out of the 46 of us there. Sort of highlights Northern's point really...
Just because they're encouraging female applicants doesn't mean they're discriminating based on gender!
To be perfectly honest, assuming the job is advertised in an environment which is equally accessible to both men and women, which I presume most TOCs' websites are, if hardly any women go for it then that would perhaps tend to indicate that women aren't as interested in the job as men. If I saw an ad for a job that interested me, particularly with a salary in region of 40k plus, I would go for it, regardless. This would apply even moreso if I was a woman, as the new age of equality in the workplace is hardly a secret.
If a job is fairly advertised and made available to all, then it is up to the individuals to apply for it. Why do management endlessly insist on fretting over the demographics when they get the application forms back? If there aren't any women, or people from a certain background, or people called George, or people with blonde hair, or whatever, then that is because they didn't apply. They could have done, but they didn't. So what?! Move on, and recruit from within the candidates that you have. The fact that it is felt necessary to try and manipulate who applies next time around suggests that there is discrimination going on, however much they might try and dress it up as being 'fair'. I would also have to acknowledge an earlier point that it is incredibly rare to find any organisation trying to encourage male applicants into a female-dominated job role, which is perhaps something that society should be looking at in light of the tireless efforts to get women into typically male workplaces - or is equality in truth only a one way street?