Prejudice on Job Applicants’ Higher Education Institution: An Alarming Social Cancer
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Martin Luther King, Jr.
How rational are these manpower hiring malpractices when any organization absorbs the applicants by virtue of the colleges or universities’ exclusiveness these candidates have attained their degrees? Were the applicants successfully recruited by virtue of fair ranking based on viable or standardized performance indicators like degree relevance, grades or marks manifested in their calculated GPA, industry-related workshop attendance, related experiences, publications, eligibility, conference presentation, community alliance, graduate studies as forms of continuing education? If not, digesting the points raised concludes an overwhelming truth that job search discriminations in the country don’t only relate to age, ethnicity and gender among others but also to how exclusive or impressive the educational institutions applicants have obtained learning.
It is tantamount to agonizingly being aware that some Human Resource Development Officers (HRDO)’s organizational practices for manpower hiring evade the standards of recruitment themselves not to mention some prevailing influential factors from other officers in the company under their jurisdictions despite applicants’ satisfactory performances in undergoing the procedures that include document preparations, interviews, job examination and skills or trade tests which are their basic steps as instructed by the management, to mention a few. These are prevalent misconducts towards job applicants that silently thrive behind the knowledge of the law.
According to the article published by President Ruben Anlacan, Jr of the Business Coach, Inc. at the Manila Bulletin entitled: School discrimination in job application – is it real? He was able to obtain information from a recruitment officer who declared the company’s process of hiring applicants. “He prepares three receptacles for the applicants. The first is for the graduates of the University of the Philippines (UP), Ateneo de Manila University (AMU), La Salle University (LSU), and University of Santo Thomas (UST). The second is for the graduates of other exclusive schools. While the third container will hold the applicants coming from “the other schools.” Anlacan reports that the human resource officer “scans first the documents coming from the first receptacle, and if nobody qualifies, that is when she would browse on the second container.” According to her, no way would she ever dare touch the applications from the third receptacle.” This information made him recall that this practice exercised by this organization is contrary to how he did manpower recruitment as a hiring staff in 1987.
As a current President of Coach Trainor Inc., trainees were able to express their sentiments regarding discriminatory facts in the hiring scenes. Anlacan continued, “Our on-the-job trainees narrated her experience when she was looking for a job in a well-known business district. She prepared all her requirements and made sure she dressed up on the day she submitted her application. When she got in the office, there were several other applicants with her. A receptionist scanned her documents then told her to just leave them with her. She will be called if her qualifications will match their needs. However, she got dismayed, when she found out that all the other applicants coming from exclusive schools were requested to stay.” Anlacan’s reported accounts from individuals further showed forms of discriminatory factors. ”Some hiring officers ask the following questions during interview: Do you own a car? Do you have outstanding loans? Do you own or rent a residence? How can these questions help in deciphering whether an applicant is qualified or not?” Anlacan’s point of view boils down to a single central thesis that these are evidence of prevalent beliefs of recruitment officers that graduates of exclusive schools perform better than those coming from the other schools. To him, this is plausibly true, but perhaps certainly not for all cases. A graduate from a less prominent school could just hope that this should not be the basis for denial of employment. Human Resource theories and practices in the academe do not exhibit these practices. Matters which Hiring officers should be aware of if only they underwent formal studies as recruitment personnel.
Anlacan went on to show that there is a job selection discrimination in the country which is defined by the fact that most of the high paying jobs are usually taken by graduates of exclusive schools. While the rank and file positions are reserved for their non-exclusive counterparts which mostly occur in the non-government sectors.
Contrary to the hiring practices in other countries, regarding Filipinos. Foreign employers in the earlier times perceived the ability of applicants through their academic performance coupled with related skills: soft or hard skills. They don’t consider the school to determine qualifications. Now, they are being influenced with the kind of hiring practices in the country of our educational origin. If we tolerate these malpractices, graduates from non-exclusive higher education institutions will not successfully land better paying jobs even overseas.
To continue, discrimination is coupled with unprofessionalism and humiliation in government and private organizations. In an organization, a manager criticizes the job of one for errors committed. He blames the educational institutions where the employee has garnered a degree even with the presence of other personnel or even before visiting clients adding that employees’ human rights are often violated by most authorities in an office every now and then which remained to be ignored and excused due to their influential authority in the system. Employees’ fear of losing a job mutes one, the right to complain against the administrators despite the existence of laws governing the protection of human rights in workplaces. It is crucial to mention that courage to bring out these concerns among the employees are barred due to job competitions where everyone is aware that there are lots of competent graduates who can replace anybody who attempts to protest. Complaining will not give justice to the victims. The situation could be twisted where the victims become the culprits and the accused could be the victims. These have been taking place long time ago and could re-occur due to an organizations’ grounded system where fair play is not the name of the game for it is replaced by workplace authorities’ wickedly- knitted connivance.
Not all instances of discriminations are recorded. There could be more discriminatingly humiliating – incidents in public and private organizations associated with the articulated incidents which speak for absolute prejudice.
All these forms of incidents elucidate a discriminating persona. It is an endemic form of social cancer to be dejected that calls for lawful resolutions expected to emerge from the local government offices to be urgently mandated up to the national government for swift implementations.
Others in the country use the colleges or universities they have graduated for superiority complex in workplaces. This attitude implies that majority of professionals haven’t achieved the degree of professionalism. It happens to people from undergraduate, graduate, or post graduate levels. They may come in varied hiring companies who do not understand that the (Commission on Higher Education) CHED covers all colleges and universities where similar protocol of these schools have underwent to qualify for status regulations approved to academically operate.
Real Learning doesn’t depend on the school itself but the individual who acquires and undergoes the pedagogical process. Being a graduate from any prestigious colleges and universities is not a status quo but the accumulated knowledge are. All educational institutions are places of legitimate learning having their course offerings approved by the (CHED) which boils down to only one track- educational direction through the technical- academic knowledge obtained. Philippine higher education graduates are centralized in terms of obtaining illegibility that will allow every graduate to function. The Philippine Regulatory Commission ( PRC) is not a government agency that divides the graduates in terms of degree licensing to practice professions but it caters to all graduates of the republic where these exclusive schools are covered just as the country’s Civil Service Commission (CSC) provides civil service professional examinations to all Filipino college graduates under two levels depending on the educational qualification they have. As one prominent statement from Getreal Philippines.com says “Until Filipinos learn to celebrate their diversity, and while they continue to divide themselves over it, they will continue to struggle as a nation.” /marvinwacnaglidawan.com
