Recruiters should get their own houses in order instead of bashing the unemployed
We have uncovered troubling comments from the head of Superior People, revealing his history of sexist and discriminatory hiring practices
Yesterday, Graham Wynn, head of the recruitment firm Superior People, proudly admitted he has snitched on 2,000 people using the government’s “Dobseeker” hotline. Mr Wynn publicly shamed job seekers by feeding their CVs to the media, who published them in a serious breach of their privacy and dignity.
Today, he had the temerity to complain to news.com.au that he is being “trolled” by unemployed people, who are rightly calling him out and expressing their anger at his actions.
It has been brought to our attention by an eagle-eyed supporter that Mr Wynn may not be the paragon of virtue – an innocent recruiter just trying to do the right thing – that he makes himself out to be.
In podcast appearances and LinkedIn posts, Mr Wynn has admitted to discriminatory and sexist hiring practices.
In 2016, Mr Wynn appeared on the Luke Bonas Show in a discussion on sexism in certain industries. In this interview, he admits to discriminating based on gender and age if a client requests it, saying “we can’t advertise for male or female of certain age ranges of jobs, but the bulk of clients will always tell us ‘we want a male’ or ‘we want a female’ or ‘we want this age range’, we can’t advertise that but we know what they’re looking for.” (5:19)
And when Mr Bonas states “so you can advertise for a position all you want, if you want a “looker” as your receptionist you’re going to knock back people until you find the “looker” you’re looking for”, Mr Wynn admits “what we do when we get resumes through for that sort of role, we just check their social media pages, simple as that. And if the female’s got facial studs everywhere we can say no straight away because the client will say no.” (5:39)
Similarly, in a LinkedIn post from 2016, Mr Wynn asks “Is it Discrimination or an employer understanding what his business needs?”
In this article, he outlines requests from employers regarding a smörgåsbord of discrimination around race, age, gender, parenting and family requirements, offensive workplace culture, class, dress codes, tattoos and facial piercings. Echoing comments he made to Luke Bonas, he wheels out the well-thrashed bogeyman, Political Correctness, stating “How many receptionists are men, and how many mechanics are female? We need to be careful we do not blur the lines. We are becoming too politically correct, and scared of offending anyone by what we say or do.”
Needless to say, we are absolutely flabbergasted that Mr Wynn has the audacity to complain to the media about the actions of jobseekers submitting what he considers to be inappropriate job applications and putting their meagre, below the poverty line, income at risk when he so clearly engages in discriminatory hiring practices on behalf of his clients. We are well aware that these practices are rife, yet we have never seen a recruiter explicitly admit it until now.
In addition to our advice to unemployed people to avoid Mr Wynn’s company Superior People Recruitment for their own safety, we are now calling on media outlets who publish Mr Wynn’s views - especially news.com.au, The Daily Mail, 3AW, 2GB and 4UE - to stop platforming someone who so readily admits to discriminatory hiring practices and targeting the most vulnerable Australians.
Media contact: Jez Heywood / media at auwu.org.au
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