Are all HR questionnaires this bonkers these days?

[NoCloudsAllowed]

These were my options for gender and sexual orientation on a job application the other day. Is this typical?! It's been a while since I was job hunting.

Certainly not something I've ever seen.

I assume this is a US application? I would love to see the justification behind asking job applicants their sexual orientation in the UK or EU.

How could they make that fit with GDPR principles around only collecting and retaining data that’s relevant to the service being provided?

Nope, UK. It's standard to ask about sexual orientation, it's kept confidential and only seen by HR so as not to impact recruitment (in theory at least)

I'm used to being asked these questions, just not to having about 15 gender identity options to choose from!

Loads of places ask sexual orientation in the UK... it does under 'equality monitoring'. Universities ask this of all staff and all students at every registration. You can choose 'prefer not to say', but you're still forced to select something. I think it's an inappropriate question about a private non-work related matter, but they are allowed to and do ask it.

They do it so that they can check diversity of workforce, maybe flag up if someone recruits 500 people and not a single one is anything other than straight and white - there might be a problem.

Honestly, I would answer 'none of your business'.

I’d be very surprised if anyone in HR is actually monitoring that data though. IMO it’s a mix of virtue signalling and tick-box compliance, which comes at the expense of applicant privacy.

Even if it was being monitored, the average SMB employer, and many larger national orgs too, aren’t going to be recruiting enough staff annually to generate a statistically meaningful dataset to ‘prove’ bias. Unless they have a horrific churn / turnover rate.

In which case, the problem probably runs a bit deeper than whether Doris in accounts identifies as ‘omnisexual.’

Yeah, I think having that many options is virtue signalling, to make applicants think the firm is tolerant of the full plethora of identities.

But it makes the whole thing meaningless in many ways - if the purpose is to measure inclusion and check for discrimination, those boxes would all be lumped in together anyway. It's not really likely that a recruiter would welcome omnisexuals with open arms but display hostility to pansexuals, etc.

They could just have a 'queer' box for both gender and sexual orientation. Doesn't that cover everything?

This kind of collection of data should be optional and have a "prefer not to say" or "none" option too. And they should be making it clear what they are using the data for as well as whether it's properly anonymous.

"Queer" is not a catch all. I find it disconcerting to see the word used as if it's accepted by all when plenty of people still perceive it as a pejorative.

WTAF

It goes anonymously into data, not with application. It's for them to be able to apply positive action eg. Reword ads, check the company image etc if they see issue. Like "Hpw come we had 90% male applicants for this management position which can be easily done by women?"

But yeah this one is mental and I am not sure I would want to work there

Good grief, that's a lot.

I couldn't read a couple though as it's a bit blurry. What is under Genderqueer - (and doesn't that cover anything to do with gender unless you are GC)? And is one of the options "Butch"?

My DD filled in a job application last year and she after going through all this gender and sex checkboxes, and whether she was English white, Scottish white, Welsh white or traveller white (new Costa menu?) but surprisingly not NI white, she had to tick whether she had free school meals and whether she had attended state school. The job was for a nmw admin at a utility company. It's getting ridiculous.

What strikes me is that intersex is a specific and physical chromosomal thing, not an 'identity'.

So yes, those questions are ridiculous, mainly because they clearly have no idea what they're talking about.

They've included Intersex in the gender category?

And they should include definitions in the sexual orientation category. What the hell is omnisexual? Likes having sex with anyone and everyone?

Here they are in a clearer format

Well, a bit clearer!

Apparently 'Those who identify as pansexual feel attraction to people without noticing their gender, while omnisexual people recognize the gender of potential partners'

This is just the kind of painful overthinking that comes from today's young people not getting pissed enough, imho

I’m a lesbian and to me ‘queer’ is a big red flag signalling homophobic gender ideology.

Can you click more than one option for the first question?

OMFG. Headache inducing, trying to understand this.

I mean't they'd have heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, queer. Or would you prefer a lesbian box?

Just that all those extra options all seem to mean the same thing, which is 'I don't accept labels because I'm too punk for that'.

I don't know. I already submitted job application.

Yeah. I really don't know how you 'don't notice' gender.

Isn't gender a feeling now? I'd notice sex.

Omnisexual - what used to be pansexual (but definitely not bisexual because believing in two genders/sexes is so last century):

"Some have argued that a pansexual person is gender-blind (i.e., they’re attracted to anyone regardless of gender), while an omnisexual person is gender-inclusive, attracted to people of all genders."

Disappointed to find that it wasn't linked to the level of attraction. If Demisexual is being selective about sexual partners, shouldn't Omnisexual mean willing to shag anyone with a pulse? Why do serial shaggers not have an identifying name?