For me as a hopeful future HR professional, one of the most important concepts that I learned all term was about adverse impact. I think it’s so interesting that even a well meaning company that works hard to avoid disparate treatment can still be causing adverse impact. I wasn’t aware of how many aspects of the hiring process can cause adverse impact. An example that I found interesting was the use of “regatta” in a cognitive ability test. I don’t know what this means, but I feel that questions like this aren’t cognitive predictors, but instead predictors of class. Little things like this I want to be fully aware of as I pursue HR, because not only does adverse impact expose a company to legal risks, but a company cannot be certain that they’re hiring the best possible applicant if they are causing adverse impact.

This concept is interesting to me because both of my jobs as a waitress I think the hiring managers caused adverse impact and even maybe danced the line of disparate treatment. If men were hired at my last job they were always busboys first. We had one man become a waiter in the 5 years I worked there and that was only after he was a sushi chef for a few years. If I had known about adverse impact I would have cautioned my boss to be more equitable when hiring because she is exposing herself to risk, and frankly being sexist. It is interesting to ponder how many situations like this we’ve all been in where maybe adverse impact was occurring, and at our expense too.

I am so happy that I was able to learn this concept in depth as well as the various aspects of employee recruitment and selection where this is possible so that I can be sure to always check my biases and to be proactive of them. I firmly believe that a diverse team is a strong one, and I want to ensure that whenever I’m able to that I can reduce adverse impact in any way possible.