US Recruiter Cynet Under Spotlight for Discriminatory Job Post

The company was quick to respond via social media, stating: “Cynet apologizes for the anger & frustration caused by the offensive job post. It does not reflect our core values of inclusivity & equality. The individuals involved have been terminated. We will take this as a learning experience & will continue to serve our diverse community.”

The discriminatory advert was removed, and Cynet terminated the client employer responsible for the advert.

  Illegality

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Just like here in the UK, discrimination based on race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation is illegal in the US. The Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 enshrines this in law in America. Many social media commentators were especially surprised by the offending post because of the fact that Cynet is owned by two Indian Americans.

One of the CEOs, Ashwani Mayur, made sure to reiterate the initial Twitter apology, saying that the company understood why some people were upset after seeing the listing, as Cynet was upset too. The company currently has a very inclusive workforce, with over 60% identifying as part of minority groups, he went on to explain.

 

  Preventative Measures

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Mayur also stressed that the company already has a policy of not working with clients or employers that want to list role advertisements based on discriminatory factors. He also stated that Cynet begun investigating and reviewing all upcoming job adverts, to ensure nothing similar happens again, and that the company will be exploring ways to catch off-policy adverts before they go live.

LinkedIn is also in the process of investigating the post.

While these measures were welcomed by some, others don’t feel the company has gone far enough, or that the damage has already been done.

Some Twitter users pointed out that this is just a standard response from companies that have posted or shared discriminatory content, whether knowingly or not.

It could be argued, in this case at least, that Cynet were not the real culprits, given they were simply posting existing content for a client. As many commentators have pointed out, however, there should surely have been an in-house proofing process to prevent exactly this kind of thing happening.

Hopefully, recruiters everywhere can take a lesson from this Cynet blunder, and ensure that job adverts are properly checked before being posted – although why this particular element of the description was ever allowed to be written in the first place is another question entirely.