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

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

#271
post #186

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.

Companies will always be shamed for not being diverse enough. Tis the call of outrage culture.

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

#272
When I started working in the late 90's I had worked for this old guy who now looking back was way smarter than I caught on. He always said crotchety shit like:

I'd ask hey lets put a job ad in the newspaper and he'd respond, " When you go fishing for trout it's best to cast your line by a stream and not out in the ocean."

I'd have a stack of resumes to contact and he once picked up half of them and threw in the trash. He said "You don't want to work with unlucky people"

I wonder if Enterprise HR's cultures have gotten so PC that they're losing sight on the companies needs. It'd be better to go to largely black universities, or smaller colleges. Code quizzes and job fairs on college campuses attract people who can afford to go. The kids I've helped largely have families that need them outside of college, and jobs. Maybe an internship/mentorship-hire program would be better fit than a top-down candidate approach.

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

#273
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind me asking... Why do you continue working there?

Pay attention to what people do more than what people say. People vote with their feet. A senior engineer at Google can easily get a high paying job anywhere else.

[deleted]

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

#274
post #85

I work at Google. It is the most unpleasant place to work, largely because work evaluation is almost 80% politics (might be 100%). I am a senior engineer. You get stuck here because the pay you better than elsewhere, but I think it is a very bad and very sad place to work. My stomach curdles every morning before going to work and I wonder if it is worth it. Many of my peers talk in the same vein. Please consider not…

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…

I don't think this anecdote is a good way to judge bias. Companies don't always want to hire the most senior and experienced person that interviews, and that's not always a bad thing.

Google already suffers from a lack of junior people (see the post from a few days ago from a Xoogler complaining that the work he was doing was not deemed promo worthy), so it's not necessarily a surprise that the hiring bar for junior engineers would be lower - they're junior engineers.

And this law suit alleges that Google discriminated against non-diverse candidates at the most junior level anyway.

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

#275

There has to be a way to use tech to anonymize vetting and hiring until the hired candidate shows up for work the next day. Phone interviews could be handled in such a way that gender can’t be determined say by using voice scramblers. Whiteboarding can be done in separate rooms with a digital whiteboard that evaluators see and where the candidate can ask questions but not be seen. Etc etc. or, or, people could stop b…

Unless you are fresh from an undergraduate degree, the thing people care about is what you have shown you can actually do in the industry. And showing what you can do will in most cases instantly identify who you are. As soon as I say what projects I've worked on or what my skills are anyone recruiting me will know exactly who I am. How do you get around that?

“Built micro services that served millions of api calls per second in golang” how is that self identifiable?

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

#276
post #85

I work at Google. It is the most unpleasant place to work, largely because work evaluation is almost 80% politics (might be 100%). I am a senior engineer. You get stuck here because the pay you better than elsewhere, but I think it is a very bad and very sad place to work. My stomach curdles every morning before going to work and I wonder if it is worth it. Many of my peers talk in the same vein. Please consider not…

I have avoided LargeCos for precisely this reason. Worked in one a long time ago and witnessed the same thing - this is hardly unique to Google.

Once companies significantly outgrow the Dunbar-number range[1], political processes are the only way to manage things, and it infects everything.

For me, my quality of life is worth the tradeoff[2], and I turn down headhunters from them AmaGoPleBook seemingly constantly. If you want to pursue your actual work, as opposed to refining your skill at signaling games, move to a smaller shop.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

[2] Another reason to keep debt low and personal commitments fluid - turning down a six figure raise because it would make life hell gets harder with both.

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

#277
post #155
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a much simpler explanation exists: their workplace sucks (ex-Googler, have yet to read anything genuinely surprising in the past few weeks)

True, but it's also a very biased view with events that take place in most of large companies (you can find these reports for Amazon, Apple, etc. etc.) And yet others seem to get a free pass while Google is targeted by wrath of HN. Why?

It's because people think there is discrimination in tech against Caucasians.

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

#278

One thing I never understand is how people claim to support both equality and pro-minority/anti-majority actions at the same time. It's like saying you support democracy and kim jong un.

Equality of Opportunity versus Equality of Outcome, with a small helping of cognitive dissonance. People who favor expediency tend to favor Equality of Outcome. Its the same line of thinking as "zero tolerance" policies in schools; there's some outcome or metric we want to optimize for, and we want the quickest solution to that outcome without considering more expensive or harder solutions.

Generally a push for expediency comes from external pressure, not internal standards, culture, or morals. When I see stories like this, my first thought is that Google doesn't actually care about diversity. What they care about is a negative social stigma around a lack of diversity.

Alternatively, or maybe additionally, it shows a distinct lack of character development and exposure to the complexity of the real world on the part of those in decision making positions. This is a very difficult one to convince people they're victim to; its essentially telling someone that they're too inexperienced to hold their position, but not by any quantifiable metric, yet they've had no problem meeting the metrics they've been assigned. They're doing their job by every metric they have, but the problem arises in the validity of the metrics themselves and the sustainability of the methods they use.

Its the same reason why Engineering teams have architects; you need low-level "expedient" people to implement the tactics of a solution, but you also need strategy at the top to set non-expedient policy and ensure that both the metrics the expedient people work toward are the right ones, and that the methods they use to reach them are sustainable.

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

#280
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…

The USA is a capitalistic society. We only pretend to look at diversity as something that should be egalitarian. Asian Americans don't have a large enough base to provide capital for any of these areas for people to see them as beneficial.
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