The Cost of Talent Bias: Why Race and Religion Still Influence Hiring in Indonesia
You’d be forgiven for thinking that in 2025, in an economy like Indonesia’s — where GDP graphs point up, cafes serve flat whites with QR codes, and every second person claims to be a "digital strategist" — companies might care about hiring, oh I don’t know, qualified people.
But no. Meritocracy is a Western import we’ve politely glanced at and then tucked away like quinoa. It's interesting, but a bit hard to digest.
Instead, welcome to the HR department, where “inclusive hiring” means including everyone from the same social circle. The job description may scream "dynamic, cross-functional problem solver," but what they’re really looking for is someone named Rani or Budi who doesn’t rock the boat, and definitely won’t question why the boss’s nephew just got promoted.
This is not backwater SMEs we’re talking about — major firms, multinationals even, casually gatekeeping in the name of "cultural fit," aka comfort zone preservation. Roles stay open but at least nobody has to sit next to someone who brings the wrong dish to the potluck.
Indonesia, you beautiful contradiction. Building smart cities with tribal hiring logic. Let’s unpack the absurdity, one biased job posting at a time.
Diversity, Schmiversity: Just Hire the Guy Who Shares Our Belief System
When businesses claim to pride themselves on innovation, transformation, and “leveraging synergies” (whatever that means), you’d think diversity of thought would be an asset. A feature, not a bug. But in Indonesia, the logic goes something like this: “Why introduce new ideas when we can preserve the cozy sameness that’s been gently lowering our standards for years?”
Hiring managers don’t want disruption. They want peace. Not the kind of peace that comes from strong leadership and healthy dialogue — no, no. They want the soft, squishy peace of a team that shares the same holidays. Bonus points if everyone’s uncle knows someone’s auntie.
We’re not just avoiding conflict — we’re avoiding potential discomfort. God forbid Pak Anton from Finance has to Google “what is a rosary?” or accidentally offends someone during the team lunch.
And so, hiring becomes less about finding the best talent and more about preserving spiritual alignment. Skills? Nice. Competence? Optional. But religious familiarity? Essential.
And if you dare question it? “Well, the team might not be ready.” Translation: we’re afraid one guy from a different background will ruin the perfectly bland groupthink we’ve spent years cultivating.
So yes, we’ll leave that strategic role empty for months. Not because there’s no talent — but because that one guy, the smart one, had the wrong belief system.
Truly, excellence can wait. Comfort first.
HR Secretly Moonlights as an Ethnicity Filter, and No One Cares
In a country famed for its warm hospitality and 17,000 islands of “unity in diversity,” it’s almost poetic how the HR department quietly operates as a racial and religious customs officer. Not officially, of course — officially, they’re champions of inclusion. Unofficially, they’re playing Tinder with resumes, swiping left on anyone who doesn't look like they belong.
The brilliance lies in how brazenly subtle it all is. We don’t even try to hide it anymore. Job ads casually toss in phrases like:
“Diutamakan keturunan Tionghoa” – Legal says we can't say “Chinese only,” but wink wink, nudge nudge.
“Berpenampilan menarik, tidak berhijab” – Because marketing is about visual identity, right?
“Menguasai Bahasa Mandarin” – Which may or may not ever be used in the job, but let’s pretend this bakery needs bilingual finance staff.
And the process doesn’t stop with text. Resumes are meticulously scanned for names like Yohanes, Indrawati, or Teguh Muhammad bin Something, and photos are used as a convenient shortcut to determine who might "fit the vibe." If you’ve got the wrong kind of name, face, or headwear — well, thanks for applying, but we’ve decided to go with someone more aligned.
This is all happening in major corporations. You know, the ones that just posted #DEI #TogetherWeGrow on Instagram and handed out tote bags at their "Inclusive Leadership" workshop.
But don’t worry — there was a panel discussion, and muffins were served. So technically, progress has been made.
It’s not discrimination, they’ll say. It’s “streamlining cultural synergy.” And if that synergy just happens to look exactly like the hiring manager’s extended family? Pure coincidence.
Who Needs Talent When You Have Tribal Loyalty?
If Indonesia were bursting at the seams with world-class, job-ready professionals, maybe this whole “hire only people from our religion/ethnic group/Friday lunch clique” thing would be a tolerable quirk. But here’s the punchline, and it’s a doozy: we don’t have that luxury.
The economy is sprinting. The talent pipeline is… briskly strolling. Yet companies are out here playing ethno-religious Sudoku with hiring decisions, prioritizing tribal harmony over, say, basic competence.
Critical role in product development? "Hmm, he’s good... but he’s not the right religion." Lead for regional finance? "She’s excellent... but not from around here." CTO for a scaling startup? "Impressive… but his last name isn't right"
It’s like turning away a cardiologist during a heart attack because he doesn’t eat ketoprak.
Meanwhile, jobs sit unfilled for months. Or worse, they are filled — by underqualified folks who tick the "suitability" box simply because they believe the same things or bring the right tupperware to lunch. The result? Expectations are adjusted downward. KPIs softened. Job titles inflated to compensate for the talent drought.
We don’t build high-performance teams — we assemble loyal family reunions.
And what’s wild is how chill everyone is about it. No panic. No urgency. It’s almost meditative — a sort of corporate Zen where growth is optional but uniformity is sacred.
You’d think this might spark some kind of reckoning. But nope. Welcome to Indonesia's corporate world., where we keep our talent small, our ideas safe, and our ambitions trimmed to fit the pot.
If excellence is the goal, maybe it’s time to start hiring people for what they can do, not just how well they blend in.
The Great Unspoken Cold War of Hiring Preferences
This isn’t your typical office drama — no, this is a full-blown Cold War, but with more passive-aggression and fewer missiles. It’s a quiet arms race of hiring bias, where every group thinks the other one started it, and now everyone’s just retaliating. Forever. Strategically.
Muslim-majority companies pass on Chinese-Indonesian candidates with a polite smile and a vague excuse about “team synergy.” Chinese-Indonesian businesses, in turn, talk about “trust” and “comfort” in a way that sounds like code for “people whose surnames we can pronounce without trying.” It's not official policy, of course — it's unofficial tribal chess.
It’s the kind of hiring strategy where no one will say the quiet part out loud… unless they’re convinced you’re also part of the club. Then suddenly it’s, “You know-lah, easier to work with own people.”
What makes it so enduring is the total lack of accountability. No one wants to be the first to break the cycle. Why hire across cultures and risk internal awkwardness, when you can just... not?
We don’t call it discrimination — we call it “precaution.” A just-in-case policy. A vibe check. A spiritual firewall, if you will.
And the outcome?
Job seekers disqualify themselves before even applying.
Companies settle for “culturally safe” mediocrity.
And business limps along like someone trying to win a marathon in flip-flops, weighed down by decades of unspoken HR prejudice.
But don’t worry — there’s a “diversity panel” next month at the Sheraton. The keynote speaker is someone’s cousin. He fits right in.
Let’s face it — if Indonesia’s hiring logic had a slogan, it would be: “Better underqualified and familiar than excellent and unfamiliar.” And sure, that might work if we were building a neighborhood badminton team. But we’re not. We’re building businesses, startups, hospitals, schools — actual institutions that kind of depend on... competent people?
Yes, it’s funny — until you realize entire sectors are quietly drowning in mediocrity because someone in HR couldn’t handle the idea of a Buddhist backend developer or a Papuan project manager.
And look, the solution is neither radical nor woke. It’s painfully simple: Hire the best person. For the actual job. That needs to be done. Wild idea.
It shouldn’t matter if they pray differently, look different, or eat different things at lunch. What matters is whether they can move your business forward — not whether they fit the spiritual vibe of Thursday afternoon meetings.
If your hiring strategy still revolves around surnames and surnames alone, then congratulations: you’re not running a business, you’re curating a museum of inherited bias.
So go ahead, cling to your comfort zone. Just don’t act surprised when someone else — someone braver — runs off with the market share.