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I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

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Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#181

Post by microcolonel »

kurthr wrote: post #168
turc1656 wrote: post #146

" 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.…

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…

> 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.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#182

Post by nodesocket »

If this were written by a male, do we really think the reception would be so positive?

> To solve diversity, we must start at the source of the problem — encouraging women to pursue engineering in college!

That is absolutely right. The solution is not to give people who aren't qualified or deserving jobs just so companies can fill a quota or prevent media backlash. Hire the best candidates for positions.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#183

Post by eterm »

iainmerrick wrote: post #108

This seems to be another version of: "the pipeline of potential talent from colleges has very few women, so if we go out of our way to hire extra women, we'll reduce our overall hiring quality. The college pipeline needs to be fixed first." Even if you concede that, here's something I don't see discussed often: hiring more women and minorities in big tech companies now could help to fix the college pipeline in future…

It can, and it can also harm it.

If you reduce your quality bar to fill a quota for a group, then that group can end up having a lower quality than the majority group, which then works to reinforce bad stereotypes in some of the majority against that minority.

That can then harm those in the minority group who were in fact above the bar and for whom the bar did not need to be lowered.

I'm not against quota systems but they need to be aggressively monitored so you don't get unintended effects.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#184

Post by turc1656 »

kurthr wrote: post #168
turc1656 wrote: post #146

" 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.…

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…

All fair criticisms. I'm not a hiring manager and my experience with hiring processes is limited.

What I had in mind is the mandate of hiring the best person for the job and any/all other policies are designed with that directive in mind. This is analogous to how the court system is supposed to be designed to be the discoverer of truth and the entire legal process as it relates to court proceedings is to further that search for truth.

What would my suggestion in reality look like? Similar to a company I once worked for. They had an interview process where all candidates were interviewed by at least 5 individuals. This was required to be done separately in one-on-one 30 minute sessions. Each interviewer scores the candidate in a combination of numerical and written feedback which is presented to HR. HR is also required to be one of the interview sessions. HR is also the pre-screener of all resumes unless an internal employee has a recommendation. After that, it boils down to a consensus system where HR reviews the feedback from everyone and determines who has the highest overall rating. This obviously required specific traits and requirements to be detailed in advance prior to the interview that were specific to the position. Some obviously overlapped like "communication skills" and others were very specific to the individual role and required work history and experience.

They also used a very similar process for their performance evaluations (you first two line managers had significant weight in the performance review, but you had to also get feedback from no less than 5 other colleagues. And your manager had to approve who could provide feedback on you so you couldn't just choose your best friend at work who would write a glowing review. That process was super-annoying and time consuming, but I think it did a pretty solid job. I never felt like I was ever treated unfairly or got shafted in any way. And the reason HR played a key role in the process was to make sure the rules were being followed and if there was any discrimination or unconscious biases, it would show over time and HR could take action if they saw fit like restricting a possibly biased individual from interviewing anyone who fit into a certain category (women, racial minority, disabled, etc.).

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#185

Post by nodamage »

turc1656 wrote: post #146

" 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.…

> 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.

That is exactly what Google's diversity programs (the ones that James Damore advocates eliminating) are intended to do. They are internship programs designed to get girls into computer science at the high school and college levels.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#186

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #125
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Plus, it's still relevant to remind people that equal opportunity and equal outcome are not the same I see this trope trotted out again and again. Where exactly are we drawing the line between opportunity and outcome? When a 22 year old (woman or otherwise) gets hired at google that's no more an outcome than an opportunity. It's not like they're going to be sitting on their deathbed thinking of the way their life tu…

The phrase typically refers to what happens before the hiring stage. Think kids that don't have role models of their gender/ethnicity. Think kids that are placed in gendered roles without respect for their own interests ("oh you're a buy, let me get you the trucks and computer programing skills. I'll get your sister the art books instead"). It extends to school programs, funding, etc. and is certainly a complex issue…

>The phrase comes up because the common conversation about diversity is focused on 50-50 splits in hires

I'm not sure that's true.

>and that is dangerous if we do not accept that there isn't a 50-50 split in qualified supply in the first place.

Except it's not dangerous at all? What I specifically don't like about this article and your focus on outcome vs. opportunity is that it draws this bright line where none exists. The writer in this article basically lays out that everyone in the pipeline right up until her has a role in reducing gender bias. For example when she says: "I beg you to expend your energy motivating and mentoring young women at the crucial stages of making decisions about a tech education" she makes it clear that she doesn't think she's at a crucial stage. But she is. She admits to having failed to produce a diverse workforce at her startup but rather than really admit it as just that, a failure, she basically says that it's not her fault because all these other people aren't making it easy for her. It's never easy, we're never at "outcome", we're always at "opportunity", hire some damn women.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#187

Post by Nomentatus »

turc1656 wrote: post #146

" 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.…

The central point is proven unconsciously bias, which makes "hiring the best person" only possible with blind hiring, and blind marking in University which isn't likely to happen any time soon - to see unconscious bias ignored or passed over is discouraging since it is the problem.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#188

Post by morgtheborg »

xenihn wrote: post #51
magic_beans wrote: post #31

> Despite that, we paid premium salaries to bring a few women who did well in our interviews. But, they lacked the energy to put us into overdrive. Worse, they were starting to drain the energy from the rest of the team. Eventually, we had to do the right thing for the company and let them go. This is one of the most disturbing thing's I've ever read in an article proclaiming to promote change in the tech gender gap.…

>What exactly does it mean to "lack energy" and to "drain energy" from other people? Yeah, it's annoying that she's forcing readers to interpret that. I would guess that she means that they weren't able to perform their job responsibilities adequately, and others had to pick up the slack.

I assume it means they didn't want to work the hours and/or play games at work with their co-workers.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#189

Post by microcolonel »

turc1656 wrote: post #146

" 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.…

> 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.

I encourage you to try, but grand social engineering projects have been devoted to this exact specification in Sweden (and probably elsewhere), and the ratios don't seem to budge. I hope we won't all get so upset if it turns out nothing reasonable can be done.

Re: I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity

#190

Post by stlHusker »

whipoodle wrote: post #15

It has been kind of strange to watch the diversity programs and the conversations around it, because it all seems partially designed to sorta try to fix the problems, but also not be confrontational or force any hard questions to be asked/answered. It seems more important to do something, and to be seen doing something, than to get real about what will work, and what won't, and why.

People have been using this tactic for ages, whether it be for political, professional or personal gains.

The software engineer who is rewarded for putting out the fires, when in reality they are a serial arsonist...

Modern progressivism (https://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberal...) ...

So on and so forth...

No one wants to put in the real, hard work and society continues to reward the facade.

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