Hiring practices

I read an article in today's 20 minutes, the free daily for commuters, about the discriminatory hiring practices of French companies. The article presented the findings of a recent study for l'Observatoire des discriminations, to determine the likelihood of certain groups to be discriminated against when applying for jobs in France.

The study was based on 6 641 submitted resumes and requests for interviews in the areas of construction, manufacturing and food service. The study compared the responses received for the resumes of five categories of individuals determined most likely to be discriminated against, with those of an "ideal" candiate who is male, 28-30 years old and with an identifiably French name. The discriminated categories were: a male 48 or 50 years old; a 32 year-old woman with three children; a person of Maghrebian origins; a person with a recognised handicap; and a person of unsightly appearance.

The results in brief :
The worst off were the 48-50 years old, especially when applying for executive positions.
People of non-French heritage (I think it can be assumed that it is non-French of the "coloured" variety) have it only slightly better.
A person with an officially recognised handicap received about half the callbacks of the "ideal".
A woman with three kids received 63 per cent callbacks to the "ideals'" 100.
And, according to the study, a person with an unsightly appearance (a man with messy hair) is apparently second best to the eyes of French employers.

An article on a related note was found on the same page that reported on how the diversity among employees of a company, Norsys, increased after it adopted an anonymous CV rule. "Anonymous" in this case means that CVs are not to include photo (not mandatory per se, but unspoken as expected), the name, age, sex, nor adress of the candidates.

Apparently, at the government level, the idea was raised to create a law for the equality of opportunities, stipulating that any company with more than fifty employees be required to have anonymous resumes. However, the decree still has not been published and could possibly be buried. So far, the government has spoken about "experimenting" before adopting a law of this kind.

There is an anonymity rule in place for French students that forbids them to write their names on any part of the exam, except on the upper right hand corner of the first page, which is then folded and glued and revealed only after the exam has been graded. I was told that this is to ensure the "equality" of all students. Apparently inequality exists only in state institutions and seems to disappear in the private sector.