You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview • Hacker News Board

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#21

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 9:08 PM UTC

burkaman wrote: post #7

treehau5 wrote: post #4

I agree that tech interviews are terrible, and you cannot do any sort of self-reflection on them (especially if they are these q/a and or puzzle types where they don't give you answers or feedback of what you are looking for, despite being reasonably confident you answered correctly -- even after having requested the feedback -- I had this experience at GitLab) > We believe that technical interviewing is a broken pro…

I think the next couple sentences explain it well: > It takes a lot of interviews to get used to the process and the format and to understand that the stuff you do in technical interviews isn’t actually the stuff you do at work every day. And it takes people in your social circle all going through the same experience, screwing up interviews here and there, and getting back on the horse to realize that poor performanc…

[deleted]

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#22

Post by mrkurt » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

forgottenpass wrote: post #8

AvenueIngres wrote: post #6

Honestly, the more I read about all those "diversity initiatives", "outreach campaigns" and "pushes to increase H1B" caps - the more I wonder about the intent and motivation of the people pulling the strings and funding the groups fighting so hard to further those causes. My comment is only tangentially related to hiring practices. Maybe age has turned me into a cynic, you can never know for sure, but this seriously…

Maybe age has turned me into a cynic Nah man. Even a half-honest business person will tell you the business incentive for making and funding diversity goals is about expanding the hiring pool. The fact it overlaps with a popular social goal is just an added bonus for marketing and internal feel-good. Maybe the businesses are true believers in diversity, or maybe they're cold, calculating, and just hiring the true bel…

The individuals probably are acting on a moral belief, but an organization can't do things out of the goodness of its heart.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#23

Post by inputcoffee » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 9:11 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #9

I've been in software tech for nearly 30 years. Never had a "technical" interview, puzzle solving, or anything like that. I would not take a job that screened candidates that way. If references and credentials and track record aren't enough, I would look elsewhere.

1. You are fortunate to have that option.

2. Do you think you might have sold yourself short? In other words, if you had practiced one of these do you think you might have ended up in a place which you enjoyed more?

The premise of question 2 is that the interview process does not represent the job or company. In many cases, I think this premise is valid.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#24

Post by serge2k » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 9:11 PM UTC

AvenueIngres wrote: post #6

Honestly, the more I read about all those "diversity initiatives", "outreach campaigns" and "pushes to increase H1B" caps - the more I wonder about the intent and motivation of the people pulling the strings and funding the groups fighting so hard to further those causes. My comment is only tangentially related to hiring practices. Maybe age has turned me into a cynic, you can never know for sure, but this seriously…

> At the risk of sounding like a white supremacist (I am Vietnamese) that very much sounds like a code word for "too many white people" or "too many asians".

Too many underrepresented groups would be a nicer way of putting it.

> Should it follow the US racial distribution?

Would that not be fairest?

> Since race is only skin deep

It's about institutionalized racism, so race is what we should be looking at.

Besides, your idea wouldn't be that interesting considering how underrepresented women are regardless of race.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#25

Post by btilly » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 9:12 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #9

I've been in software tech for nearly 30 years. Never had a "technical" interview, puzzle solving, or anything like that. I would not take a job that screened candidates that way. If references and credentials and track record aren't enough, I would look elsewhere.

I've been in software tech for nearly 20. Only once did I take a job which didn't require coding in the interview process. I quickly regretted it.

It is amazingly easy for BS artists to look good on references, credentials, and their presented track record. And yet fail fizzbuzz.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#26

Post by mrkurt » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 9:12 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #9

I've been in software tech for nearly 30 years. Never had a "technical" interview, puzzle solving, or anything like that. I would not take a job that screened candidates that way. If references and credentials and track record aren't enough, I would look elsewhere.

Work that requires creative output needs auditions.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#27

Post by GuiA » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 9:13 PM UTC

forgottenpass wrote: post #8

AvenueIngres wrote: post #6

Honestly, the more I read about all those "diversity initiatives", "outreach campaigns" and "pushes to increase H1B" caps - the more I wonder about the intent and motivation of the people pulling the strings and funding the groups fighting so hard to further those causes. My comment is only tangentially related to hiring practices. Maybe age has turned me into a cynic, you can never know for sure, but this seriously…

Maybe age has turned me into a cynic Nah man. Even a half-honest business person will tell you the business incentive for making and funding diversity goals is about expanding the hiring pool. The fact it overlaps with a popular social goal is just an added bonus for marketing and internal feel-good. Maybe the businesses are true believers in diversity, or maybe they're cold, calculating, and just hiring the true bel…

> The fact it overlaps with a popular social goal is just an added bonus for marketing and internal feel-good.

This gets to the core of the issue: in a late stage capitalistic society, meaningful social change ONLY happens when it is aligned with business incentives.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#28

Post by theseatoms » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 9:14 PM UTC

GuiA wrote: post #27

forgottenpass wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe age has turned me into a cynic Nah man. Even a half-honest business person will tell you the business incentive for making and funding diversity goals is about expanding the hiring pool. The fact it overlaps with a popular social goal is just an added bonus for marketing and internal feel-good. Maybe the businesses are true believers in diversity, or maybe they're cold, calculating, and just hiring the true bel…

> The fact it overlaps with a popular social goal is just an added bonus for marketing and internal feel-good. This gets to the core of the issue: in a late stage capitalistic society, meaningful social change ONLY happens when it is aligned with business incentives.

Late stage?

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#29

Post by white-flame » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 9:15 PM UTC

treve wrote: post #16

ams6110 wrote: post #9

I've been in software tech for nearly 30 years. Never had a "technical" interview, puzzle solving, or anything like that. I would not take a job that screened candidates that way. If references and credentials and track record aren't enough, I would look elsewhere.

Good for you that the market is so good, you can be insulted and walk away from an interview and still find a different job that doesn't do an extremely standard thing: basic technical screening. Your credentials might speak for themselves. After all, you've been working for 30 years. 80% of the people I've hired have between 0 and 5 years work experience and without a technical screening I might as well just give th…

I think most experienced people would agree that a technical interview could be appropriate for someone with 0-5 years of work experience.

For somebody with 10+ years of experience, who you can find that talks the talk during a real interview, CS101-level quizzes are insulting and inappropriate.

Re: You can’t fix diversity in tech without fixing the technical interview

#30

Post by trhway » Wed, Nov 02, 2016, 9:16 PM UTC

divbit wrote: post #13

Animats wrote: post #5

The big result there is this: "Poor performances in technical interviewing happen to most people, even people who are generally very strong. However, when we looked at our data, we discovered that after a poor performance, women are 7 times more likely to stop practicing than men." On the hiring side, "For the specific case of an online job posting, on average, 1,000 individuals will see a job post, 200 will begin th…

That is a pretty huge statistic, - what also pops out to me is: "stop practicing ". This seems to imply that these technical interviews are skills that you don't really gain on the job. I know that personally would 9 times out of 10 spend time on a cool / beneficial project rather than making time to practice trivia problems.

>This seems to imply that these technical interviews are skills that you don't really gain on the job.

the technical interviews skills are gained, at least in my experience, as result of the technical interviews - which normally implies, and did happen in my case, high rate of interview failures initially. Taking failures hard would naturally lead to Catch-22 here.