Hiring Process

Discrimination During the Hiring Process Multiple studies show that immigrants, for similar education levels and age, experience worse outcomes during the recruitment process than white native-born individuals (OECD, 2013). Difficulties faced by immigrants to integrate society and more specifically the job market can be explained by many reasons. Among others, immigrants often face discrimination when looking to integrate the labour market because they have acquired their work experience and degrees and qualifications, most often than not, in a context different from that of their host country. Moreover, their degrees and experience might have been acquired in a different language than the official language of their new country (OECD, 2013).

Popular belief would be that workplace discrimination would not be as much of an issue as discrimination during the recruitment process since work experience would certify the productivity of immigrant employees. It is true that more studies have reported cases of discrimination during the hiring process (OECD, 2013). However, that could be explained in part by the fact that it easier to assess discrimination during recruitment than after hiring (OECD, 2013). One example of discrimination in the workplace is seen in Canada’s health system. Indeed, despite efforts to increase acceptance of workers from all ethnic backgrounds in the field, non-Hispanic black physicians still report being victim of discrimination in their workplace, regardless of other factors that could incite discrimination such as gender, age, geographical location, or years in practice (Smith et al., 2009). These results match those from other national surveys conducted in the 1990s that demonstrated difficulties faced by employers from different fields to increase workplace diversity, alleviate intergroup conflict, and improve communication (Smith et al., 2009). Studies have identified four core elements for employers to successfully increase diversity and increase its acceptance in the workplace: recruiting more individuals part of visible minorities into businesses, promoting these individuals within the organizations, learning about the opinion and experience of employees in regards to the workplace climate, and highlighting the importance of diversity with all employees of the organizations (Smith et al., 2009). Increasing acceptance of diversity is especially important since discrimination has been reported not only in the healthcare system, but also in the education system and in the housing market (OECD,