Between that and my time in government, I hired hundreds of people, and, despite all the controls that theoretically prevent it, I know from experience that I made the same mistakes in government that I did in private industry.
In government, we routinely hired people with great references or who worked with someone we knew at another department without ever recognizing that we were limiting the candidate pool in a way that severely limited the opportunities for brown or black people to work at the agencies and companies I led.
I realize that I effectively denied people of color the ability to compete on a level playing field for jobs in my companies and the government organizations I led.
The first critical step in creating a society with less economic disparity is to create a society with equal economic opportunity, and every decision you make as an executive has an impact on how equal those opportunities are within your organization.
Are you screening out great (frequently, minority or rural) candidates using resumes, which we have known for decades are one of the most biased and least accurate ways in the world to assess job applicants?
