It’s been three weeks since you went for that job interview and you just received that extremely discouraging Thanks-but-no-thanks email message:Thank you for your interest in blah blah blah. Unfortunately, you have not been selected for the position as we had a lot of very qualified applicants and so on and so forth.
 
You could have sworn you nailed the interview and that they were impressed with your résumé. But the fact of the matter is, there most likely was a more qualified candidate. So how do you know for sure why you weren’t selected? How do you know if you were discriminated against?
 
"You may not have been the most qualified candidate," says Claude Balthazard, director of HR excellence for the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario. "You may have been rejected for reasons totally unrelated to anything that would have to do with discrimination. That happens."
 
Since it is highly unlikely somebody would tell you they are discriminating against you, Balthazard says discrimination is more of a covert matter, making it difficult to tell whether it has occurred or not. So it is more likely there is an issue with discrimination when there is a run of instances rather than just a single instance.
 
"In the individual case it’s virtually impossible to tell; it’s all in the patterns. For example, individuals are passed over for promotions, and there’s a growing sense that it’s not because of qualifications or achievements," Balthazard says.
 
Karl Espiritu, director of Diversity Careers, agrees that it is hard to tell whether or not you are being discriminated against. "It can also fall under ‘misunderstanding’ or ‘miscommunication'. If the individual feels they are being discriminated against, they should have evidence and speak to someone immediately, either in Human Resources or Labour Relations," says Espiritu.
 
Although Balthazard agrees you should speak to HR if you feel you were treated unfairly, he doesn’t forget to mention the type of evidence needed before HR could be reasonably certain that somebody is in fact discriminating.

If you choose not to raise concerns directly with the company, Daniel Lublin, a Toronto employment lawyer, says you can file a complaint alleging discrimination with the Human Rights Tribunal, a provincially-regulated body that adjudicates complaints. "In either case you should solicit legal advice prior to taking a course of action," Lublin says.
 
According to Lublin, discrimination is recognized as differential treatment that is based on prohibited grounds, which, according to the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), includes: race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy and childbirth), sexual orientation, marital status, family status, mental or physical disability (including previous or present drug or alcohol dependence) and pardoned conviction.
 
"It could also be indirect discrimination," says Lublin, referring to job requirements asking for a receptionist without an accent or with previous Canadian experience, which the CHRC says are not clearly related to the job.
 
Improper questions are probably the easiest way to recognize discrimination during the application process. Depending on the job position, Espiritu says an applicant should not be asked to reveal his or her age, marital status, number of children, gender, height or religion. Applicants should not be asked to send in photos of themselves prior to an interview either, he says.
 
Interfaith and intercultural diversity consultant, Raheel Raza of Raheel Raza Diversity Inc., says questions specifically about marriage and number of children make it easy to spot gender discrimination.
 
"Sometimes the mindset or stereotype is that the person should be a young, white, Caucasian male," says Raza, adding how discrimination during the hiring process can be as simple as not considering an application with an unfamiliar name that is hard to pronounce. She says discrimination comes out in the interviewer’s attitude. "When the potential employee is not given an opportunity to present his/her case because the interviewer is not really hearing what he/she is trying to say, it’s obvious the person’s mind is already made up," says Raza, who speaks to people about how important it is to have a diverse workforce because it brings with it a lot of talents."We need to take dignity and pride in who we are no matter where we come from," Raza says. "We need to stand up for our rights."
 
Ali Tahmoupour, a former trainee at the RCMP training academy in Regina, Sask., did just that. He filed a complaint resulting in a seven-year trial at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, claiming he was discriminated against as a Muslim and Iranian causing him to unsuccessfully complete the training. Ali won the case and was awarded over $500,000 in damages. Just goes to show you the upside of taking a stand.
 

Even if you’re employed and experiencing discrimination in the workplace, the CHRC states that an employee cannot be fired because he/she has filed a human rights complaint.
 

So, whether it’s a large or small corporation, Lublin says no one should be dissuaded from pursing legal action. "If someone feels they have a legitimate complaint, they should make it." jp