←back to thread

791 points 317070 | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
Show context
turc1656 ◴[] No.15010817[source]
"In the name of diversity, when we fill quotas to check boxes, we fuck it up for the genuinely amazing women in tech."

Precisely. This goes directly to the core of the issue and what I had brought up on the thread recently about the Google employee who got fired. Specifically, if companies were truly interested in fairness, the only mandate for the interview process would be to hire the best person, no exceptions. By doing this you treat both sexes fairly and give everyone an equal chance. Otherwise, you end up with "reverse sexism", which the author does not explicitly say, however she does essentially admit to in her description of the hiring loop:

"After some rounds of low to no success, we start to compromise and hire women just because we have to"

The only logical conclusion that can be drawn from that is she hired at least a few women over men which she thought were better candidates simply because "we have to". That's a problem.

Overall, though, I thought her piece was well written and she seems to get at the real issue and even has a possible solution that doesn't involve just hiring women for purposes of optics only - fighting the battle far earlier and getting girls interested young so that they choose to enter these fields at a higher rate than they currently are doing.

replies(13): >>15010996 #>>15011144 #>>15011216 #>>15011226 #>>15011232 #>>15011302 #>>15012064 #>>15012350 #>>15012733 #>>15013052 #>>15014563 #>>15014961 #>>15015689 #
kurthr ◴[] No.15010996[source]
I hear you when you say,"the only mandate for the interview process would be to hire the best person, no exceptions". It just sounds like an HR platitude.

If you know how to do that, I actually think you have a multi-$B idea! Unless you mean "cultural fit", or "went to the same school I did" as the best person, I'm doubtful you have one though. I've done enough interviewing and worked with enough people to know that even the best hiring managers turn away good candidates and get a few duds.

Once you're into real hiring statistics you have to be very careful of confirmation bias and "I just like this guy"ism even after the fact... they look and act like your successful hires. It's hard to even say, unless you're personally looking at their work on a regular basis and know what direction they're being given.

replies(5): >>15011178 #>>15011194 #>>15021171 #>>15029752 #>>15062376 #
microcolonel ◴[] No.15011178[source]
> I hear you when you say,"the only mandate for the interview process would be to hire the best person, no exceptions". It just sounds like an HR platitude. If you know how to do that, I actually think you have a multi-$B idea! Unless you mean "cultural fit", or "went to the same school I did" as the best person, I'm doubtful you have one though. I've done enough interviewing and worked with enough people to know that even the best hiring managers turn away good candidates and get a few duds.

Well, make me a multi-billionaire, I now present to you:

BLIND SOURCING AND HIRING

I should only share the details in private, you say it's a multi-billion dollar idea and I'd hate to tip off the competitors.

In all seriousness, though, I know this is challenging. Especially at Google, there's still an opportunity for trouble after you've been hired but not yet assigned; though I doubt it would be enough of a problem to trash the whole system.

The only reason not to do blind hiring is if it produces results which are indistinguishable from standard hiring.

replies(2): >>15011358 #>>15011881 #
imron ◴[] No.15011881[source]
> The only reason not to do blind hiring is if it produces results which are indistinguishable from standard hiring.

This will possibly result in less women being hired. See: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...

replies(1): >>15012187 #
microcolonel ◴[] No.15012187[source]
Then there's either something wrong with how they introduced the trial, or there are just fewer qualified female candidates. Either way, I really didn't understand why they backed off on the trial.

If you can reasonably assess that your process is fair, I don't think anyone should care how the numbers bear out.

replies(1): >>15012327 #
lerpa ◴[] No.15012327[source]
> If you can reasonably assess that your process is fair, I don't think anyone should care how the numbers bear out.

Because it goes against the results they wanted to arrive at.

replies(1): >>15012916 #
mistermann ◴[] No.15012916[source]
Odd how that Idea never occurred to the person to whom you are replying.

In comment after comment, the possibility that there is no bias is considered literally impossible. The blatant and unrecognized bias in this conversation is absolutely fascinating. (I also notice HN has introduced a throttle, presumably to reduce the volume of incorrect messages.)

replies(1): >>15015425 #
imron ◴[] No.15015425[source]
HN has always had a throttle for comment threads that go more than a few deep. The deeper the thread goes, the longer the delay gets.
replies(1): >>15023043 #
mistermann ◴[] No.15023043[source]
From my observations (without access to the code one can only speculate), not in this case - depth is not the cause (nor is recent downvotes, or excessive volume). I've never before hit a limit of being able to participate in a back and forth debate at far higher volumes and depth than today, but now I would be completely unable to have a conversation. Something major has changed, I'd bet money it's a flag assigned to a user by a moderator.

That said, it's not super hard core militant censorship, there's plenty of other people saying politically incorrect things in today's discussion as well, so my censorship may have been due to "not adding to the discussion in a meaningful way", rather than my particular point of view. Hopefully there's an appeal mechanism for when I decide to straighten up my act, I'm working on it.

But as they say, freedom of speech does not require someone to provide you a stage to speak on, and private companies are free to censor whatever speech they see fit.

replies(1): >>15024866 #
1. imron ◴[] No.15024866[source]
> From my observations (without access to the code one can only speculate), not in this case - depth is not the cause

It might be depth within a certain timeframe then. I've noticed similar delays previously in non-controversial topics when trying to reply to non-controversial comments.

I don't think there's anything sinister going on here, there's just a mechanism in the comments to prevent people from speaking past each other in quick succession.

Edit: For reference, this comment took 9 minutes before a reply link appeared, and it is the 9th child of a top-level comment. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. Try replying to this comment and timing how long it takes before a reply link appears - my guess is 10 minutes.

replies(1): >>15025046 #
2. mistermann ◴[] No.15025046[source]
It was waaaaay longer than that.

An alternative explanation is the universe was punishing me for being a dick, which wouldn't be that unrighteous.