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Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

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Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#11
Most of us here support and appreciate diversity. The lack of diversity in tech companies represents a lost opportunity. It's not just black people, but women as well. The mono-cultures can encourage some troubling attitudes and restricts creative multi-cultural ideas.

Forcing companies to maintain racial/gender quotas is not the solution. I'm not sure what the solution is. The causes for the situation are multifaceted, a reflection of our country.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#12
I hired about 10 junior dev/qa/pm positions over 3 years as a manager in a SaaS tech company of 50-100.

We posted on every job site and received 1,000+ resumes which I reviewed, in a city with ~30% african american population.

Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans, and none met most basic requirements for the position (either a relevant degree, or at least 1 year of related experience, or at least 1 relevant side project).

It's hard to think that I was part of the problem, or could possibly be part of any solution, as the hiring manager.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#14
post #3
post #2

I have noticed a similar trend at engineering campuses. So universities aren't recruiting black students?

Why would people of color take engineering courses if there aren't any jobs for them afterwards?

Agree with nomy99. I work on a college campus. There was 1 African American in our CS graduate school. He was hired by Google before he even graduated. Out of several hundred undergrads, the number of "other" students is statistically zero. The college is actively recruiting any and all qualified students regardless of race. People like google and the mom & pop store down the street are legally to not discriminate based on race. How do we get African Americans to enter STEM fields? I honestly don't think your average African American student who wants to learn computer science is thinking "I am never going to get hired". Am I wrong?

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#15
post #3
post #2

I have noticed a similar trend at engineering campuses. So universities aren't recruiting black students?

Why would people of color take engineering courses if there aren't any jobs for them afterwards?

Tech companies are being actively leaned on to lower their standards to hire more black workers. Saying there aren’t jobs for them is nonsense.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#16

I hired about 10 junior dev/qa/pm positions over 3 years as a manager in a SaaS tech company of 50-100. We posted on every job site and received 1,000+ resumes which I reviewed, in a city with ~30% african american population. Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans, and none met most basic requirements for the position (either a relevant degree, or at least 1 year of related experience, or…

That is better than what I have seen. Where it was possible to tell I have never seen a black applicant to a programming job. That is as a founder and in previous roles where I helped review resumes and do interviews. We also saw something like (estimating) 50 men to every 1 woman last time we advertised a job.

If there is a problem it is "upstream." I'd be happy to interview black candidates if they existed.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#18

I hired about 10 junior dev/qa/pm positions over 3 years as a manager in a SaaS tech company of 50-100. We posted on every job site and received 1,000+ resumes which I reviewed, in a city with ~30% african american population. Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans, and none met most basic requirements for the position (either a relevant degree, or at least 1 year of related experience, or…

You could have offered apprenticeships to the black population.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#19

Im gonna be the antagonist here and say, black people still aren't getting the degrees required for such work. Now, ONLY if these tech companies would drop their requirements for university and college, they might see more applicants. Tech companies should sponsor universities or even create their own. I can see some of the major companies saying "hey, we have this university, which you can attend for FREE only if yo…

My manager once told me that when a position is open, majority of applicants are either Chinese or Indians.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#20
post #4

I'm not originally from America, so I seem to be missing something in articles like this. Why does no one talk about the "pipeline problem," that is, encouraging many more people from "minority" groups (black, women, and so on) to pursue coding from young age? (Edit: or encouraging these groups to enter the field at any age, such as through the community college system/Coursera/etc.) It seems like examining the end o…

Because addressing the pipeline problem means admitting that racism is still alive and embedded in the foundations of our education and work force system.

You can't expect there to be more workers if there's no applicants. There are no applicants because there is a severe lack of Black people (among other groups) represented in Engineering/STEM degree programs. That stems from a lack of good public school education.

But like you said, it generates more clicks-per-article to blame the Big Bad Tech Companies for not being diverse enough, when really we as a national don't honestly want to see marginalized groups succeed. Americans operate by and large on a zero-sum assumption. Many believe that if one group of people succeeds, it somehow will undermine their own success.

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