On Hiring Equitably
Acquiring a deeper understanding
Being the 37th edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
Diversity
One day at a leadership course back in my CBC days an instructor challenged me and my fellow students on the subject of equity hiring. Our instructor suggested that some of us might not be doing enough to hire diversity candidates. As a hiring manager, I had in fact been responsible for hiring several so-called diversity candidates, but as much as I patted myself on the back at the time the truth is I didn’t really properly understand the issue.
In response to the challenge, I spoke up. I don’t remember my exact words but it was something along the lines of, “Look, the work we do is complicated and challenging and it’s absolutely imperative that we hire the best possible candidates for the job. Whether they’re white, brown, pink or purple doesn’t matter."
I thought it was glaringly obvious that you couldn't hire people unqualified to do the job just to fill quotas. If you did, how would the work get done? And if the work didn’t get done properly, the CBC would come crashing down around our ears.
Others in the room appeared to agree with me. People who, like me, probably hadn’t thought about the issue deeply enough. For whatever reason whoever was teaching the course failed to properly enlighten us. Probably not their fault; I expect I just wasn’t sufficiently open minded at the time.
I’m thinking about this today because someone just told me a story I think many of us have heard before. The one about somebody getting hired for a job that they weren’t qualified for over someone who was better qualified. They got hired because they checked a box. I’m sure this happens lots and its unfortunate. It happens because people try to do the right thing without understanding how to do it properly. And because they mess it up they make the whole concept of equity hiring look suspect.
But when you talk about equity hiring and someone trots out this story I think it’s the classic “straw man” argument in action: “Refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion.”
Because when someone proposes equity hiring, they don’t mean, hey, you should hire unqualified people! That would be stupid and unproductive.
What they’re really talking about is making sure that everyone (every type of “qualifed” human being) has a legitimate shot at the job in question.
Fortunately, my thoughts on the matter have evolved considerably since that leadership course (in which I did learn plenty of other useful stuff, and it at least got me thinking about equity hiring). Here’s what I came to understand.
At the CBC when you hired someone (in my time, at least; it could be different now) you worked with the folks in recruiting to come up with a list of candidates to interview (or Board, as it’s called). You put forth all the requirements for the job and the recruiting folks “posted” the job publicly. A bunch of people applied for the job and after the appropriate amount of time you went through the applications and identified who you wanted to Board. Most of the applications were irrelevant; people who just applied as a long shot but who weren’t really qualified. The recruiters usually did some pre-interviews to wean out people that you thought might have had potential but who, when you dug a little deeper, weren’t actually good candidates; maybe they weren’t willing to do shift work or work nights and so on. And so you wound up with a short list and then spent several days interviewing folks from that list. And ideally wound up with the right person for the job.
The thing is, my short list was a subset of the candidates who had applied. But who had applied? The first few times I went through this process I didn’t give that question a moment’s thought. I accepted on faith that the candidates who had applied were all that existed out there. Surely the recruiters were posting the job in all the requisite places. So if my shortlist happened to come up short on diversity candidates, so be it. And I would hire from that list.
What I came to understand was that it was entirely possibly, probably even likely, that many qualified diversity candidates were not making it to my shortlist. They weren’t making it for several reasons: they weren’t hearing about the job because I hadn’t dug deep enough, hadn’t worked hard enough to find them. Or I was excluding potential candidates because of my own unconscious biases (rejecting candidates because of their names, or the schools they came from, and so on, without realizing that I was doing so). Or worse, the institutions before me (the universities and colleges) hadn’t worked hard enough to enroll certain students or help them succeed because of their own systemic issues, or (even worse than all that) other societal factors that had prevented potential candidates from even being able to go to school in the first place to get the education required to make them candidates.
What was my responsibility as a hiring manager? It was not to stack my Boards solely with diversity candidates. Nor was it to hire a diversity candidate to check a box, a candidate not qualified for the job.
No. The CBC needs to look like and be run by people actually reflecting the makeup of this great country (if not the entire planet). Therefore, my job was to make sure that, to the best of my ability, my Boards were made up of the best possible candidates from all walks of life, properly and fairly representing the people of Canada, and that they all had an equal shot at the job.
That was my job as a hiring manager.
Once that was accomplished, may the best candidate win.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet
Sometimes you just have to dip back into the classics.
Years ago I saw John Huston’s film version of The Maltese Falcon, which I thoroughly enjoyed (the first film Huston ever directed) but I’d never read the book. I saw a cheap copy at Indigo recently so I picked it up.
It is masterfully written (though dated in terms of certain stereotypes and attitudes to the extent that the edition I purchased contained a disclaimer from the publisher to that effect). It’s written in what has been called Third Person Cinematic point of view (POV), or Third Person Camera, or Over-the-Shoulder POV. This means that we rarely (almost never) have access to any of the characters’ thoughts or feelings, rather like watching a TV show or movie (one without narration).
I can’t recall ever having read another book from this point-of-view. It’s not one readers encounter often. We’re used to having access to the interior mental life of the characters we read about. Some people might be put off by the lack of access to the characters’ thoughts, but it didn’t bother me at all. Instead, it had the effect of drawing me deeper into the story.
For those not familiar with the book or the movie, The Maltese Falcon tells the story of a hard-boiled private detective, Sam Spade, getting drawn into a plot by thieves to steal an historical gem-encrusted artifact in the shape of a bird called The Maltese Falcon, said to be worth millions. There’s murder, a femme fatale, fisticuffs, intrigue, and Sam Spade makes for a compelling hero. He is arguably more compelling because we don’t know what he’s thinking. We can only guess at his thoughts via Hammett’s description of his actions, his expressions, his movements, and the reactions of those around him. Being forced to guess like this (rather than being told) draws us further into the story. We can’t help but become engaged, trying to figure out what’s going on.
We find ourselves mixed up in a complex mystery alongside Spade as he tries to discern everyone’s motives and understand just what the hell is going on. Spade is often a few steps ahead of the reader but, because we don’t have access to his thoughts, we never know this until he speaks and reveals what he’s figured out a few pages earlier. This is another advantage of the cinematic POV: it allows the author to hold off revealing critical information until the most dramatic time to reveal it (with access to Spade’s thoughts it would have been impossible, or at the very least clumsy, to conceal certain plot points).
Because I’d seen the movie version (albeit years ago) and am so familiar with Humphrey Bogart (I love Casablanca and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) I couldn’t help but picture Bogart uttering all the classic lines as I encountered them, such as “There’s got to be a fall guy!” and “What do you want me to do? Learn to stutter?”
Be warned that the depiction of Joel Cairo (played by Peter Lorre in the film version) is not a flattering portrayal of a gay man, and other characters use some dated, objectionable language referring to him.
That caveat aside, I found The Maltese Falcon a short, gripping read likely to please fans of mysteries and just plain well-written fiction.
Barking Mad
Time to plug my daughter Erin’s online comic strip again! Hey, you’ll go mad for Barking Mad! You can check it out here.
Podcast
Re-Creative: a podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it.
This week Mark and I welcomed the wonderfully original writer Tom Bradley, whom 3:AM Magazine describes as “… one of the most criminally underrated authors on the planet.”
Tom told us what it was like to be a six foot, eight-inch tall red-haired American living in China and Japan and teaching at a number of English-language universities in both countries.
This peripatetic lifestyle allowed Tom to develop his own writing style and tackle subject matter that was not necessarily mainstream. “I think I’ve made about $35 in royalties in fifty years of writing,” he joked.
We talked to Tom about being an exile, teaching abroad, writing, and where writers find their inspiration: in Tom's case, Canadian artist Nick Patterson. It’s a deep and entertaining conversation.
Future episodes of Re-Creative will feature Cathy Bond, Hugh Spencer, Lisa Brandt, Tony Schwartz, and Robert Runte, with plenty more guests on the way.
All previous episodes are available online, comprising the first 2 seasons, over 40 conversations with creative people from all walks of life about the art stoking their imaginative fires.
Remembering CBC Radio’s Ray Folcik and Carlos Van Leeuwen
(Reprinted from my Facebook page)
Everybody knows the voices behind the microphones but rarely do we celebrate the hard working, knowledgeable and talented people behind the scenes that have made CBC Radio broadcasts possible over the years. This week we lost two of those folks, Carlos Van Leeuwen and Ray Folcik, both gone way too early.
I was fortunate to have been able to work closely now and then with both these guys. In fact, I remember both of them saving my bacon on at least two occasions, Carlos on a CJBC remote (a Salon du livres at the Toronto Convention Centre), helping me figure out how to work a crazy McCurdy Turret System, and Ray one day doing a pick up of a band in Studio R on Jarvis Street back when I was just starting, when I only barely knew what I was doing.
I used to call Carlos "the Jackal" when I'd see him (cuz I'd read about a character by that name in a Ludlum novel) and he would always smile tolerantly and never once punched me in the face the way he probably ought to have. Carlos was always calm, quick to laugh, and one of those guys that everybody (and I mean everybody) liked. I wish I'd seen more of him in the last few years.
Ray was one of those iconic techs a little older than me that I looked up to, wishing I could be as cool as him. I'm proud to be able to report that I beat him in a hockey pool once (the only one I ever entered) but that was only because Trish Thornton was my partner, and Trish actually knows something about hockey. Ray was also one of those guys that everybody liked.
If you listen to CBC Radio you will have heard the work of these guys without realizing it. Everyone who worked at CBC Radio in Toronto (and perhaps beyond) during a certain era knew and loved both Carlos and Ray and are shocked and saddened that they're gone, like too many other CBC colleagues we've lost in recent months and years. It's sad and weird.
Anyway, this is my way of marking the passing of these guys who I liked and admired. May such posts be few and far between in the years to come.
(I don't have photos of either of them, and I don't feel comfortable taking photos from other FB pages. Maybe they're in this staff photo. If not, they're certainly there in spirit.)
Coming Soon from Donovan Street Press Inc.
The Gates of Polished Horn by Mark A. Rayner.
Huey and the Wasteland by Matt Watts
A Peculiar Symmetry by Tanah Haney
Appearances
Coming up:
Donovan Street Press Inc. will be at a Pitch the Publisher Event Area 506 Container Market Saint John, NB. Saturday Sept 21st 2024
I’ll be doing another signing with Partridge Island Publishing in the Area 506 Container Market in Saint John, NB Friday Sept 27th
Saturday October 19th I’ll be at the Athena’s Touch Hallowe’en Craft Fair at the Lion’s Club in Riverview, quite possibly in costume. We’ll see!
Yours Truly on Spotify
Some instrumental music I’ve recorded over the years in now available on music platforms such as Apple, Spotify and Amazon. Full disclosure: for every stream of mine you listen to on one of these platforms, I receive 0.000000000000000000001 cent (or something like that).
You can find it by searching for the album Underdog by Joe Mahoney. Enjoy! (If it’s your cup of tea, that is.)
Thanks for reading!
Follow Joe Mahoney and Donovan Street Press Inc. on: Goodreads, Bluesky, Threads, Mastadon, Facebook, and Instagram
This has been the thirty-seventh edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
RIP to them both. I certainly remember Folcik from his days as the recording engineer on the radio version of the Air Farce since his name came up at the end of every episode (The CBC is good about making sure the off-mike people are credited properly).