98FM HAS BLAMED an “administrative error” for the alleged racist discrimination against a Dublin woman who applied for a job in the company’s marketing department.
Last night, Samia Jalal tweeted two photos of emails she got from the Dublin radio station after she applied for a marketing executive job at the company in May.
In the post, she explained that she first applied for the job with her own name and then again under the name of ‘Samia Neville’.
She explains that both applications contained the same qualifications and that the applications were sent four days apart.
Just over two weeks later, the company responded and Samia Jalal’s application was rejected while ‘Samia Neville’ was invited for an interview.
She declined the offer for the interview under the assumed name.
After posting about her story last night and saying it was an example of racial discrimination being “alive and well”, her tweet began trending in Ireland.
In subsequent tweets she explained that she didn’t reveal at the time what had happened because she didn’t want her employer to know she was job hunting.
Asked today about the incident, 98FM has confirmed that it received both applications and that Samia Jalal’s application was rejected while the one from ‘Samia Neville’ was successful.
The company says that it has investigated the incident and that an “administrative error” was made when her first application was placed in the wrong list.
98FM says that the person handling the applications had noticed that the two applications were identical, bar the name, and that only one should have been replied to.
In a statement, the Communicorp owned station says that it is aware of the allegation of racial discrimination and that it has “taken the allegation very seriously”:
Following this investigation, 98FM is satisfied that in this case there was no intentional racial discrimination in this very unfortunate incident. It appears that, after noticing that Ms Jalal had applied twice with nearly identical CVs, an administrative error was made and one of her CVs was included in the list of CVs which were not successful. Ms Jalal was asked to attend for an interview to which she did not accept.
98FM adds that it has asked Samia Jalal in for a meeting to explain what happened but that she has not yet accepted the invitation.
“98FM is an equal opportunity employer and we pride ourselves on representing Dublin’s many cultures and ethnicities. We have strict policies in place that prevent discrimination of any kind in the workplace,” the company’s statement said.
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