A Dallas-based recruiting firm that was seeking employees for Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway shuttered its website this week after screenshots of a job posting surfaced on social media that allegedly asked for “white” candidates.
The listing first made its rounds on Twitter by a user named Kendall Brown, where its since been viewed over 9.6 million times.
The position, which was allegedly posted to LinkedIn by Arthur Grand Technologies, was looking for a contract Business Analyst at a $75 per hour rate based in Dallas, Texas.
The Tweet shows a red circled portion of the listing that reads “Only born US citizens [White] who are local within 60 miles of Dallas, TX [Don’t share with candidates.]”
[don’t share with candidates] pic.twitter.com/lij7iCjnGH
— Kendall Brown (@kendallybrown) April 5, 2023
Thousands of shocked Twitter users responded with dismay, with some questioning whether the post was “satire” or “photoshopped.”
“They need to be reported,” someone said bluntly.
“Whenever I see posts like this I can’t help but wonder how often it happens WITHOUT someone having the courage to leak it,” another said.
Those who thought that the listing was photoshopped were proven wrong, though, after Arthur Grand issued a statement on its LinkedIn page.
“This job posting was neither authorized nor posted by Arthur Grand or its employees,” the company wrote. “A former employee took an existing posting and added discriminatory language, then reposted it through his own account. The moment this was brought to our attention, we worked with the job portal to remove this offensive job posting.”
Arthur Grand Technologies said that it has taken legal action against the individual who changed the posting while noting that it is a minority-owned company and insisted that “employment decisions are based on the individual’s qualifications.”
However, a screenshot posted by Twitter user @buccocapital shows what appears to be the company’s original response to the incident on Linkedin — the company blamed a “new junior recruiter” for the posting and maintained that they “terminated their employment.”
The alleged original posting (Twitter via @buccocapital)
The posting has since been deleted. Arthur Grand has also shut off its comments on its most up-to-date LinkedIn post.
The IT staffing firm’s website was back up and running Thursday afternoon, but the company disabled its “Contact Us” section as well as the ability to contact the company via LinkedIn.
Entrepreneur has reached out to Arthur Grand and Berkshire Hathaway for comment.