Originally Posted by
CX500T
It's not just aviation.
When I was the regional chief engineer for an oilfield services company (think somewhere between base chief pilot and RD at Delta) HR would try to inject themselves into EVERY hiring decision.
I'd have a job posting.
HARD REQUIRMENTS
Engineering Degree (Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Petroleum or Mining)
Eligible to take the EIT exam (think of the degree as the ATP, and EIT eligibility being having the 1000 hours to be Captain upgrade eligible)
US or basically NATO citizen (we did a fair amount of DoD work, be it on pipelines crossing facilites or on military facilities)
Drivers license. CDL Eligible (we needed at a minimum class C CDL with HAZMAT because we hauled radionuclides)
Preferred:
PE (Professional Engineer, it's the next step past EIT)
Bunch of technical stuff you won't understand
HR would try to shove candidates who are "outside the box" but "volunteered at the homeless shelter" that had either no degree at all, or not one of the degrees that are eligible to get their PE License eventually, NO DRIVERS LICENSE (either never had, or revoked), and then they'd try to get H1Bs from decidedly unfriendly places because they are cheap.
And that's before we get to quotas.
IF they sent me someone who was "underrepresented" in oilfield engineering (anyone not a male of euro, latin american or asian descent) I would have to write a THREE page justification why I didn't like them.
One day I had a ton of real work to do.
Actual background they sent me for a pipeline engineer (need Mechanical or Chemical BS at a minimum)
24 year old woman
Art history degree from some random state school in CA
No license (admitted it was because she can't pass the test)
I copy/pasted
"CANDIDATE DOES NOT POSESS A SINGLE ONE OF THE HARD REQUIREMENTS FOR THE JOB" enough times to fill 3 pages.
If a Filipino man had ALL the requirements and most of the preferred ones a one line email "Doesn't seem like a good fit" would suffice.
If he had a PE (the holy grail) maybe I'd get questioned.
Definitely not just airlines. This is a whole topic for a separate conversation, but one I think about more than I should especially as the owner of a couple small businesses in a regulated field. It is the job of every desk to make itself more relevant in order to justify its own existence and subsequent growth. The more desks we create, the more cumbersome everything becomes. Dealing with even local govs anymore is a gauntlet of minor bureaucrats that each hold the key to the next door, sometimes in a way that creates a feedback loop. A framework in which only the very well funded, in the form of money or unrealistic amounts of free time, can enter with any hope of success.
HR is one of these kinds of desks. </thread drift>