A filter avoids lawsuits? Now your really aren't making sense anymore.
Now _that_ constitutes discrimination. And you condone it? Wow! Scary.
No, you are wrong. One example from your list: In many countries of this world it is customary or even required to have your picture on a job application. Binning those resumes to the discard pile _is_ hardcore discrimination. Our HR department did not do stuff like that, they were a lot more professional. I had a very good relationship with them.
is.
theory
Let's keep out rude insults. If you run out of arguments admit to it.
they
*BEFORE* the
No, they do not. Unless you work at a place with strange policies where the hiring manager doesn't have a say in what gets filtered. I prefer not to work in a management function at such places.
If the manager does not understand that he or she should clearly not be a manager. At least not in this field of work. On a recent consulting assignment I worked with a ME. Most of my work there had to do with the electronics but she clearly understood what I was doing and why. Ok, as a consultant I am used to explain stuff to lawyers, bankers, MBAs and so on but one can always ask. That's what she did, and that's how she was able to successfully manage a rather complex electronics project which involved half a dozen engineers.
This is also something I look for in resumes and interviews. How much of a generalist is the candidate? Just like my clients should be able to expect me to dive into mechanical stuff, hydraulics or whatever when this is needed.
You kind of allude to it above, but I'd lump several of your items into "company culture" in general. Stuff like...
-- Are there seemingly-arbitrary restrictions on what engineers can do, such as laying out PCBs or even soldering (!) that came from various fiefdoms established within the company (e.g., the CAD guys have their own servers and they're not about to let engineering run "their" software) or perhaps bizarre ISO-9000 type processes?
-- Do engineers have access to a good stock of tools and parts... without having to, e.g., fill out a form to get a few resistors? Is access to prototype boards, DigiKey parts, etc. fast and easy?
-- Does management have a technical background? Without it, when you do get disagreements between various engineers or engineers and techs, management is typically ineffective in making decisions or policies that will at least have the respect (if not always agreement) of all.
-- Are your co-workers generally "pleasant" people? That doesn't mean there shouldn't be potentially quite passionate debates about the technical merits of some design or whatever, but rather than the debates focus on the technical aspects and don't degrade into demeaning the individuals involved.
-- This is kinda an odd one, but one metric I like is, "If you asked your co-workers to do something that would take about 5 minutes, and while clearly business-related wasn't obviously something they'd typically be doing... how many would just go ahead and do it, vs. how many would first want you to explain yourself and exactly why it was you were asking them, etc.?" -- This gives you some indication "trusting" a place it tends to be, which IMO tends to say a lot about how pleasant (or not) the place will be when the going gets tough towards, e.g., project deadlines.
Please re-consider this attitude. If you conceal the problem, sure, maybe the engineer does eventually look bad and you feel a bit better that you were able to stick it to the SOB, but in the meanwhile you've hurt the company and hence everyone in it... and surely they're not ALL SOBs, right?
(And of course if it ever comes to light that you did purpose conceal a defect, you might find yourself without a job with no notice, which isn't much fun.)
Yes, they do... but if you really want to just get back at them, go slash their tires or pour sand in their gas tanks or something -- don't punish your entire organization.
Yeah, but using the common HR model of, "experience is a zero sum game," many an HR department actually sees being a generalist as a *negative* since *surely* it means you're lesser-skilled in your primary field than someone *without* additional skills, right? :-)
That is one of many reasons why I prefer resumes not to be culled by HR :-)
Because it's not a zero-sum game. For example, a guy who has repeatedly been out there on a job in the middle of nowhere with zero help but got it done will often have a better grasp of all things engineering than one who so far spent his whole career in the ivory tower of a research lab. Not that I want to diss researchers here, they are needed, it's just that a generalist often makes a better product design engineer.
Good Lord, you're dense. The PROCESS is what avoids law suits. Show that you have a non-discriminatory process and stick to it and the chances of a successful suit fall into the noise. Allow an individual manager to go rogue and you're guaranteeing one. It's about the PROCESS, which includes screening for basic requirement (degree, experience, keywords, whatever). Much of this is now done by computer. Poorly, but that's how it's done.
You're absolutely wrong. If ALL of them with such identification are eliminated, it is certainly *not* discriminatory. It's when an individual is allowed to circumvent the rules, set up for this, that discrimination becomes possible and the suits roll in (justified or not).
Joerg, you're simply clueless.
Moron, we're not talking about East Bumfuck Africa. Good grief, you're dense when you want to be!
Guilty until proven innocent? Since when is that the law? If a manager behaves ethically and there is no process then there will be no basis for a lawsuit. An HR screening process will in no way protect a company against a rogue manager. All it takes is that the guy has dozen people in the interview process (filtered by HR) and then writes down the race on some, in his notes.
If a company can't trust their own managers it's better to fold'em altogether.
And that's exactly why it often does not work.
if
It is. Because then it can be construed as discrimination against foreigners.
you're
Most of Europe does that. I am surprised you didn't know, maybe you didn't get around in the world much but nevertheless voice an opinion.
Three years. Things went to shit when they hired a new Director of Engineering. My manager left within the first week. I should have too.
Sure,
I don't so much mind processes, like ECOs. In fact I'm probably more of a stickler than most. I don't see this as a major issue. Some, like not allowing engineers to solder or hold a scope probe (usually a union thing) would definitely get under my nails.
Ouch. We had to fill out a req to get an 0603 resistor out of stock. Of course we were normally allowed 25 on a req (100 if they were 10Ks). ;-)
Another hint: Look at the quality/quantity/age of the test equipment, WRT the number of engineers and programmers who will be using it. How hard do they yell when you bring up the "capital equipment" budget?
Not even. When engineers agree about what should be done but the non-technical management goes another way... ...and then yell when the project turns to mud.
Got along fine with all the workers. Sometimes there was a "lively" discussion on the best way to do something, but once that was ironed out, no problems (I couldn't believe inverting a port bit was more complicated or expensive than spinning a board - oh, well ;-).
I agree, though. That's important.
More importantly, if you asked someone to do this 5-min job and walked away, would it be done. Without fanfare?
I'll add another even more important to your list: Does your manager see his job to run interference so you can do your work more efficiently, or does he see his job to make sure you're doing yours? If the former, he's a keeper. If the latter, there's no hope. Leave.
A place I worked, a snr engineer was trying to sack one of the snr technicians.
The tech was called into the office & was to be formally cautioned (written warning) in regard to some substandard soldering. I turned out the soldering had be done by an engineer......
You bet. That's the way it is when a corporation is taken to court by an individual. One crying racism or sexism will get the payoff, if there isn't an open and shut case otherwise.
Since corporations are seen as big and bad, with deep pockets and poor little employee is being mistreated. It's a fact of life. This isn't the only area this is true. It's a problem across the entire tort spectrum.
You're a dreamer. There doesn't have to be a basis. All there has to be is an excuse. One manager doing one thing and another doing another shows a disregard for discrimination laws.
Do read.
Don't be so stupid.
Good grief you're dense this week! Is it hot out there?
The degree doesn't matter; productivity does. I think, in general, that having an EE degree makes one a better engineer, because of the mathematical rigor and electronic theory that a university degree demands. And the physics, thermodynamics, and (sometimes) electromagnetics courses.
--
John Larkin, President Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom timing and laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
Now how exactly does resume filtering by HR prevent that from happening? When you get a dozen people into the interview and _see_ their ethnic background?
I know tort law is majorly screwed up in our country. But that is not a reason to always roll over and play dead. If HR chucks a resume because there was a photo or whatever on there and this was the best whizbang specialist for the job in the whole pool, then the company just shot itself in the foot. And I am not a guy to let that happen.
No, not a dreamer. When it comes to frivolous action on the part of lawyers I am a fighter. As a few have found out, the hard way.
It won't protect agianst a rogue manager. Nothing can.
This has happened.
[...]
discarded if
Simple: Company has a job ad out, say for oil exploration where jobs are international and candidates are international. If HR would weed out all resumes with photos on there then they would essentially toss nearly all resumes from countries where photos on resumes are common practice. Now how is that not discrimination in your world?
you're
I have enough international knowledge to know this. It is expected of me.
[cough] Some schools even back in, um, the late '80s no longer required EEs to take statics nor dynamics nor strength of materials nor thermodynamics...* [cough]
(But we did have EM... it was actually a "weeder" course, being rather challenging with all that new-at-the-time vector calculus.)
I ended up taking statics and strength of materials as electives on my own. I also signed up for dynamics but dropped it after a few weeks. I regret not taking thermo, since that probably would have been the most useful of the four. (Although SoM was pretty handy...)
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