Are you hiring fairly? If not, it may cost you

Before presenting an offer to a salesperson, think - is your company being fair in their decision making?  If not, it may cost you.  In August of 2025, the owners of a certain automobile dealership had to pay $275,000 (+ other relief) to settle a U.S. EEOC lawsuit related to their hiring process.

So, what happened?

At a high level, the company leaders had a bias – they preferred men for sales positions and women for office jobs.  Now you may think that is not a big deal – but this resulted in a hefty lawsuit.  When hiring, whether it’s a salesperson or not, we should be basing decisions on merit.  During the EECO’s investigation, they found more than a dozen women and men who the company refused to hire because of their sex. 

Companies should be qualifying the candidates based on the requirements of the job.  As a simple example, let’s say you have a sales job that you are recruiting for.  Based on the level of experience & talent required for the role, you have determined the ideal candidate should have 10+ years of sales experience.  If a woman and a man apply, and one has 11 years’ and the other has 12 years’ experience then they both should be considered for the role (all other factors being equal).  Additionally, if there was a look back on all of your hires / selected candidates, then the data should not show 100% male, or female, for a particular role.

We must also note that just because you hired a woman (for a predominately male role), it doesn’t negate the rest of the evaluation process.  Some companies try to appease diversity requirements and end up hiring a person who is unfit for the role.  Bad hiring will ultimately affect your bottom line; there are costs associated to recruiting and lost opportunity.  Therefore, it’s always better to hire right at first.  Nail down the requirements for the role and use that as your starting point.  Afterward, establish key practices to help avoid biases.

Scruffy Leadership does a good job summarizing how to mitigate biases in their video here.  Based on their video, implement these practices to avoid unintentional biases: 

• Remove names and photos from resumes
• Standardize questions
• Build diverse hiring panels
• Use skill-based assessments or scorecards
• Periodically review diversity of applicant pool and selection

For more information on the case referenced above, the lawsuit can be found here. 

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