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We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#161

Post by trobertson »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #148
xienze wrote: post #147

I honestly feel like this sort of thing is a waste of time. Let's pretend someone invents the perfect "gender bias-free" system: no names, no faces, voices are flawlessly transcribed on-the-fly so you can't pick up on speech patterns. What if it works perfectly and you still end up hiring more men than women? I think exercises like this may end up giving people answers they don't want to hear. So, stop wasting time w…

I'm no expert, but isn't "let's just hire only women for a while to balance out the numbers" going to violate a whole bunch of employment regulations?

If that's what you do, then yes. If you choose instead to only advertise your positions at women-focused conferences and programs, the legality changes. You haven't prevented men from applying and being accepted, you've instead changed the audience of your advertising, which will change who applies.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#162

Post by exolymph »

xienze wrote: post #147

I honestly feel like this sort of thing is a waste of time. Let's pretend someone invents the perfect "gender bias-free" system: no names, no faces, voices are flawlessly transcribed on-the-fly so you can't pick up on speech patterns. What if it works perfectly and you still end up hiring more men than women? I think exercises like this may end up giving people answers they don't want to hear. So, stop wasting time w…

> What if it works perfectly and you still end up hiring more men than women? I think exercises like this may end up giving people answers they don't want to hear.

In fact, that will happen — still hiring more men than women — for lots of systemic reasons, but at least you'll have eliminated one vector of bias. Seems better to end up imbalanced in a more impartial way.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#163

Post by Sephr »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #148
xienze wrote: post #147

I honestly feel like this sort of thing is a waste of time. Let's pretend someone invents the perfect "gender bias-free" system: no names, no faces, voices are flawlessly transcribed on-the-fly so you can't pick up on speech patterns. What if it works perfectly and you still end up hiring more men than women? I think exercises like this may end up giving people answers they don't want to hear. So, stop wasting time w…

I'm no expert, but isn't "let's just hire only women for a while to balance out the numbers" going to violate a whole bunch of employment regulations?

Affirmative action is not only legal, it's required in academia if a university wants federal funding. I'm not sure if minority genderbased- affirmative action is required, but minority race is definitely a requirement.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#164

Post by Udik »

bduerst wrote: post #120
aphextron wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if men and women have some fundamental differences in psychology that affect their preferred choice of career.

> men and women have some fundamental differences in psychology This was largely debunked from a biological perspective [1]. Any psychological perceptions you may be referring to are largely cultural and subject to the biases that this product is trying to combat. [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468.full

The study you linked doesn't absolutely say what you are trying to make it say (that there aren't fundamental differences in psychology between men and women). It seems to say that male and female brains and cognitive abilities aren't as dimorphic as their genitalia, but instead there is a continuum and overlaps for many distinct cognitive traits. In other words: (almost) all men have normally formed penises, (almost) all women have normally formed vaginas. Mixed situations are rare. Brains are another matter, genders mix and overlap. That doesn't mean that there are NO genders though.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#165

Post by CobrastanJorji »

bionsuba wrote: post #160
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert, but isn't "let's just hire only women for a while to balance out the numbers" going to violate a whole bunch of employment regulations?

Yeah, but who cares? I'm not making a normative statement here, I'm simply stating the fact that no one will come after you if you do this. Companies and colleges say all the time that they're looking for a specific ratio of races and genders and nothing happens to them.

I would very much like to see an example of a major company publishing its desired specific ratios of races and genders.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#166

Post by cortesoft »

xiaoma wrote: post #99
cortesoft wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that just increase the problem that the person you are responding to brought up? If you capture their facial movements, it might be even easier to tell if they are a man or a woman, despite any scrambling you do.

Yes. If the goal is gender blindness, a more effective strategy is to block all video and voice communication. Even chat could be a giveaway. Go off of nothing but code against a test suite.

That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Coding skills that can be measured in this way are a small part of what it means to be a good employee.

I feel like this is kinda like choosing who to draft in the NBA solely on free throw percentage.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#167

Post by cauterized »

zeveb wrote: post #121
balls187 wrote: post #97

> it’s not about systemic bias against women or women being bad at computers or whatever. Rather, it’s about women being bad at dusting themselves off after failing, which, despite everything, is probably a lot easier to fix. This conclusion (imo) should have been bolded. I disagree that getting women to "dust themselves off" is an easier fix than if there were inherent bias against women in interviewing. My theory i…

> My theory is that this is tied to (In the US) men being more tolerant of taking risks, which leads to being more tolerant of failure, which leads to being able to more easily "dust oneself off." There are some pretty obvious evolutionary psychology reasons for men to take more risks. Whether evolutionary psychology is just a bunch of just-so stories or not, that's another discussion.

There are plenty of enculturation reasons too. Doesn't need to have an evolutionary or biological basis.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#168

Post by onion2k »

xienze wrote: post #147

I honestly feel like this sort of thing is a waste of time. Let's pretend someone invents the perfect "gender bias-free" system: no names, no faces, voices are flawlessly transcribed on-the-fly so you can't pick up on speech patterns. What if it works perfectly and you still end up hiring more men than women? I think exercises like this may end up giving people answers they don't want to hear. So, stop wasting time w…

For some companies who believe an equal workplace should be 50% of each gender then you're right, but that doesn't make the system pointless. The idea of a "gender bias-free" hiring process isn't necessarily to make workplaces more equal or to promote diversity. The point is simply to remove a bias - to eliminate something that pushes you to hire someone who isn't the best candidate. Having a bias drives you to make an irrational decision. If a hiring manager has a strong bias in favour of believing "men are better coders" then you could miss out on some great hires. Removing that bias can only make your process better.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#169

Post by mpweiher »

Jemmeh wrote: post #157
mpweiher wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "less confident" This is not a gendered issue. Men who act less confident are at least as disadvantaged. > "confidence / frowned upon" Also not primarily a gendered issue. Men who are not perceived as having the status to be confident get pounced on as hard or harder. This appears to have a lot to do with physical size. Tall men are "leaders", small men have a "napoleon complex". etc. Considering women are statisti…

Women in general have less confidence than men. (Study: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-pspp0000078.pd... ) That is a gender-specific gap in confidence. That doesn't mean that there are no men with less-than-average confidence out there. Nor does it mean that there are no men who have a hard time because of said lack of confidence.

> Women in general have less confidence than men.

Women are also generally slower than men (I was once faster than the fastest woman on earth, and I am not a particularly fast man). Not winning 100m races against men is not a sign of gender discrimination, it is a sign that men are faster.

So if men are better at being confident, and being confident is important, then that's just that. Women can try to learn to be more confident, but discrimination it ain't.

Re: We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

#170

Post by omginternets »

bduerst wrote: post #120
aphextron wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if men and women have some fundamental differences in psychology that affect their preferred choice of career.

> men and women have some fundamental differences in psychology This was largely debunked from a biological perspective [1]. Any psychological perceptions you may be referring to are largely cultural and subject to the biases that this product is trying to combat. [1] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468.full

That paper has little, if anything, to do with aphextron's point. It's a study of brain anatomy.

Here's some directly-relevant literature, which points to a systematic preference for occupations in men vs women: [0]

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38061313_Men_and_Th...

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