Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts • Hacker News Board

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#201

Post by munnisthebest » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

throwaway for obvious reasons.

I work at Square, and there was an interesting presentation in front of the company about diversity efforts. Someone asked our head of diversity (who has since left) what "diverse" means, to which she responded pretty casually "non Asian and non White".

As an Asian male I guess I feel privileged to be lumped in with the White males? I came here with my parents at age 10 with not much, and lived in an attic above a car rental company for a year because it was the cheapest rent we could find. Both parents worked labor jobs for years (i.e. inside a dry cleaner, and inside a factory assembling CD cases). Thanks to their efforts, I got in a good CS program (my parents couldn't pay for shit, were still poor), and then got a job at Square. It's just kind of weird to hear your entire people get lumped in with the "privileged white males" in front of the whole company like that.

It's always really weird that "Asians" get treated as one homogeneous group in the name of diversity. It's weird because if you are say Hmong, or Cambodian, or from Laos, or Thailand, or Vietnam, or various parts of Southeast Asia, or Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka, statistically you are far more disadvantaged than your "traditional" Asians, like Indians or Chinese or Koreans or whatever. Yet these individuals often become disadvantaged in the name of diversity.

Also for anyone working at Square, can we please stop referring to a candidate as "diverse"? I really hate that term, to describe one candidate as diverse, when it just means non White/Asian/Male.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#202

Post by yomly » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

Something I have been mulling over lately is, how "progressiveness" encodes bias in and of itself.

Let's reason out a (very naive and overly simplistic) thought experiment:

You are BigCo and want to promote diversity. Part of your cultural strategy is nurture a culture that is "progressive". Therefore you implement a litmus test behavioural question that implicitly tests the candidate's attitudes to sexism as part of your hiring procedure.

Enter candidate A and candidate B, both are male.

Candidate A went to IvySchool and studied CS, candidate B grew up in LEDCountry but was #1 national algorithms prize-winner.

Suppose A and B were identical in performance in every part of the interview, save for the "progressive" litmus test. A gave a stellar answer, meanwhile B gave some answer which could be described as being a bit "traditional".

Under these conditions, A would probably get the job for being a "culture-fit".

What interests me though is that being able to speak the same "language" of progressives is correlates with access to education, and access to education is largely coupled to wealth. So here we have a system which is yet again entrenching a power group of sorts, and extrapolating, I see echoes of the institutions which churn out readymade bankers and lawyers.

Now this is all grossly oversimple, and I don't really have any solutions I can propose, but I find the notion of bias in culture fit, even the paradoxically "I am pro diversity" culture to be a curious idea.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#203

Post by quotemstr » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #118

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you in general, but I'm curious how many would be "enough"?

Since the US has 10s of thousands of open developer positions which are going unfilled, then purely from a pragmatic "what would help the economy" perspective, a good lower bound on "enough" is "we are able to fill those open positions".

There is no such thing as a labor shortage --- only a mismatch with respect to salary expectations.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#204

Post by regularfry » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 3:36 PM UTC

rvshchwl wrote: post #57

2aa07e2 wrote: post #2

> In April of 2017, Google’s Technology Stafﬁng Management team was instructed by Alogna to immediately cancel all Level 3 (0-5 years experience) software engineering interviews with every single applicant who was not either female, Black, or Hispanic and to purge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees from the hiring pipeline. Plaintiff refused to comply with this request. Good for him. Google is now exc…

Google is the first big company that I actually rejected after receiving an offer from them. I had a really bad experience, and just felt like the company was looking for things I am much more qualified from. I was interviewed by engineers who were all just recent college grads, no managers, tech leads, or anyone I felt were probably more qualified to interview me. The environment felt toxic. Most people I talked to…

Having read about (but not been through) the Google process, the idea is that you get interviewed by people who would be working for and with you, not (just?) people above you. Is that possible here?

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#205

Post by Slansitartop » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 3:36 PM UTC

gedy wrote: post #173

colmvp wrote: post #126

I have to say, as an Asian male I found this comment by dirtyid in the article to be succinct and all too true: > "Pour one out for Asian males. Get screwed by affirmative action in education, media representation and now employment but can't get screwed on dating apps." Asian men constantly get grouped as a single entity when it comes to tech and aren't considered an added element of diverseness within the industry…

Agreed, and it's a failing of humanity that we lump people together based on their appearances. That ironically includes the people who try and "fix" discrimination.

I would say that only applies to the people who try to fix discrimination by using group-identity-based adjustments. I'd think that attempts to fix discrimination that focus on forming shared identity (replacing the old categories) would not be susceptible to the same problems.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#206

Post by fhood » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

LordKano wrote: post #135

2aa07e2 wrote: post #2

> In April of 2017, Google’s Technology Stafﬁng Management team was instructed by Alogna to immediately cancel all Level 3 (0-5 years experience) software engineering interviews with every single applicant who was not either female, Black, or Hispanic and to purge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees from the hiring pipeline. Plaintiff refused to comply with this request. Good for him. Google is now exc…

As a black IT professional, I tend to leave the demographic information blank on applications because I want to avoid the racial implications of my application. I don't know if I'll be dismissed because I'm black and I don't want to be an affirmative action hire either. I made it to the 3rd round of interviews with Google back in 2012. Maybe if I had told them I was black, I would have gotten the job.

If including your race gives you a leg up, then I think you should do it. I saw a whole lot of casual racism when I was in college, and if that was indicative of the experience of others then you don't owe the rest of us shit.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#207

Post by nugi » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #108

nugi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is 'allowing for variance' up to and including racism and sexisism in hiring? Because it seems like you are giving them a pass, because there are many hiring managers.

If someone who worked for Walmart became a murderer, would you condemn all of Walmart as murderers? Promoting a culture of murder? If that's too far removed from the actual job for you, how about if someone at Walmart acted in a sexist way in an interview. Would you condemn all of Walmart? Would you automatically assume there is a culture of sexism? Or would you at least entertain the possibility that Walmart employs…

This is a known issue for google management, and in this case 2 managers had the same failing. It clearly seems systemic, and you seem like astroturfing for yur opinion of google.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#208

Post by nbroyal » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 3:38 PM UTC

LordKano wrote: post #135

2aa07e2 wrote: post #2

> In April of 2017, Google’s Technology Stafﬁng Management team was instructed by Alogna to immediately cancel all Level 3 (0-5 years experience) software engineering interviews with every single applicant who was not either female, Black, or Hispanic and to purge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees from the hiring pipeline. Plaintiff refused to comply with this request. Good for him. Google is now exc…

As a black IT professional, I tend to leave the demographic information blank on applications because I want to avoid the racial implications of my application. I don't know if I'll be dismissed because I'm black and I don't want to be an affirmative action hire either. I made it to the 3rd round of interviews with Google back in 2012. Maybe if I had told them I was black, I would have gotten the job.

Sigh, don't perpetuate this. Being an underrepresented candidate may (or may not) help you with getting your foot in the door for an interview, but no one is getting hired if they're unqualified.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#209

Post by throwaway005 » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #108

nugi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is 'allowing for variance' up to and including racism and sexisism in hiring? Because it seems like you are giving them a pass, because there are many hiring managers.

If someone who worked for Walmart became a murderer, would you condemn all of Walmart as murderers? Promoting a culture of murder? If that's too far removed from the actual job for you, how about if someone at Walmart acted in a sexist way in an interview. Would you condemn all of Walmart? Would you automatically assume there is a culture of sexism? Or would you at least entertain the possibility that Walmart employs…

If someone who worked for FooCorp raped someone else who worked at FooCorp, then FooCorp fired the person who was raped and kept the rapist, then I'd stay very very clear of FooCorp.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#210

Post by Slansitartop » Fri, Mar 02, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

nojvek wrote: post #186

thorwawayforg wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you tell me more about this? I have interviewed at google 2 times now. The first interview I bombed -- and I knew it. It was my first interview in near 10 years. The second interview I thought I aced. There was not a single answer I could not answer expect one about obscure hardware that nobody uses any more -- which I think was a test on how I handle not knowing something -- I ended up learning something neat. T…

On the other side Google’s getting shamed for not being diverse enough. I’m sure many recruiters and hiring managers’ bonuses are tried to how many diverse candidates are hired.

In other words, this mess could be due to a lack of true leadership. They're reacting to one criticism then the next, without really having a coherent, defensible idea of their own.