US company faces racism accusations over ‘caucasians preferred’ job ad
A US company is facing racism accusations over stating ‘caucasians preferred’ in a job ad listed on Linkedin
Cynet Systems has apologised for the incident and the listing was removed.
The advert was spotted by Helena McCabe, a coder from Florida, who posted a screenshot of the Linkedin job description to her Twitter account.
Uh, hey @cynetjobs – what's with this?
Your job listing for a mid-senior level business development position's top qualification is "Preferably Caucasian"
How could you POSSIBLY think that's okay? pic.twitter.com/DPWzpgXqqE
— Helena (@misshelenasue) April 27, 2019
In the description of the role the advert asked for someone who, as well as having 8-10 years of experience, was “preferably Caucasian who has a good technical background including knowledge of RPA”.
McCabe’s tweet quickly went viral with over eight thousand retweets, and other Twitter users commenting on the discriminatory nature of the advert.
The company – a tech recruitment firm – has since released a statement through their Twitter account, apologising and saying that the “individuals involved” in the incident have had their employment terminated.
In the statement Cynet Systems boss Ashwani Mayur said “we would like to say that we truly regret the fact that individuals formerly employed by Cynet Systems went outside of company policy and included an inappropriate requirement in a job listing.”
He goes on to say that “it is a long-standing policy for our company to refuse any request to list jobs only seeking candidates of any specific ethnicity, gender, or other inappropriate restrictions, and we will turn clients down if they demand requirements of this type be included”.
— Cynet Systems (@cynetsystems) April 29, 2019
Other Twitter users though have pointed out a separate job posting, for a sales account manager based in Virginia, which includes in the job description a note to say “Female Candidate only”.
Have you addressed this posting asking for a female-only candidate? pic.twitter.com/FHqU8G6N41
— Alanna Burke (@aburke626) April 29, 2019
That advert, on recruitment site Monster, appears to have since been modified or deleted.