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To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

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Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#231

Post by pluma »

x220 wrote: post #181
Smithalicious wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? It's discrimination by things that correlate with age, sure, but many things do.

What if instead of discriminating by race, you don't hire people who live in mostly-black neighborhoods?

Codes of law aren't software. It's not a loophole, it's just an overly naive interpretation of what the law says based on your layperson understanding and applying programmer logic to non-software.

If you explicitly don't accept applicants only from select neightborhoods that all just "happen to" be almost all-black, you're still discriminating by race and it's still obvious and obviously illegal. You'll just waste more of everyone's time in court.

Just look at sovereign citizens and their inane shenanigans like "I'm not driving, I'm traveling by car and therefore don't need a driver's license and can ignore speed limits".

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#232

Post by gbear605 »

goatinaboat wrote: post #187
x220 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Every “aspie” probably actively harms the mental health of a dozen ordinary people, but that’s invisible Replace "aspie" with "black man" and your entire response is blatantly prejudiced. In my experience this is a boogieman people fear will crawl out from under their bed at night. All but one of the autistic ("aspie" is outdated) people I know understand their shortcomings and adapt as best as they can. There will…

Replace "aspie" with "black man" and your entire response is blatantly prejudiced. Not remotely comparable unless you are implying that black people “expect others to change behavior to adapt to themselves, but refuse to change their own behavior” which by the way is pretty racist.

They’re comparable because neither autistic people nor black people “expect others to change behavior to adapt to themselves, but refuse to change their own behavior.”

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#233

Post by gbear605 »

mnw21cam wrote: post #182
stared wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aspies have some advantages and disadvantages. Not hiring an Aspie because, say, we need a person who is comfortable with a lot of noise and distractions, is a skill-based decision. I understand no willingness to adapt (though, if it were about other aspects of a person, there will be a lot of rants; and possibly lawsuits). However, when there is a Resume, interview or recommendation letter stage that implicitly uses…

> Not hiring an Aspie because, say, we need a person who is comfortable with a lot of noise and distractions, is a skill-based decision. No, it isn't. It is a workplace environment problem, and if a workplace is not willing to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate the needs of a worker, or allows such unwillingness to affect the hiring decisions, then they are breaking the law.

There are some circumstances where it might make sense, like a construction site. No tech company should be one.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#234

Post by soulofmischief »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #64
stared wrote: post #7

As an Aspie/ADD, I have never passed any formal interview, even for an intern position (sic!). (You can compare and contrast it with my GitHub/Resume/blog to make a judgment.) Fortunately, many times (even for mid-size companies or research institutes) the hiring was less formal. For small startups, where it is informal, I didn't feel at a disadvantage. For big, I don't believe I can pass through the first filter. It…

Weird may be a simple emotional feeling people get because they sense you will mistreat them. (likely based on previous experience) What I have found dealing with people that are Aspie/ADD (father and brother) is they expect others to change behavior to adapt to themselves, but refuse to change their own behavior to adapt to others. (even when directly told their behavior is not acceptable) This means that many socia…

What I have found dealing with people that are Aspie/ADD (father and brother)

How transparent you are in the fact that you are applying a completely anecdotal and personal experience to the largest possible generalization of ADD/Asperger's.

That is very unscientific, and to people like me who deal with ADHD and a few other mental illnesses, downright offensive and prejudiced.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#235

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

dominicr wrote: post #138
Leherenn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand this dismissing about "culture fit". You describe it yourself as a frat house, which, I assume from the rest of your post, is not what you want. Work is not always only about output and skills, especially in a small company run by 20-something whose only social life is their colleagues. It says nothing about your skills, just that both sides would probably be miserable in case you were hired…

I think the point is that companies shouldn't be frat houses full of brogrammers. If you want to hang out with your friends and wrestle to decide coding patterns, then that's all well and good. But the second that it becomes a company that employs people it should be more mature, equal and accepting. Work is indeed not always only about output and skills, it's also about respecting each other and collaborating with d…

>>I think the point is that companies shouldn't be frat houses full of brogrammers.

Why not? If it's a private business, it can be whatever the owners want it to, unless illegal. I wouldn't have a tiniest inclination to work in such a company, but that's beside the point.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#236

Post by NoGravitas »

nightcracker wrote: post #194
romwell wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, and the way the parent didn't seem to fit into the 'culture' was by being older . "Frathouse culture" is an euphemism for "group of mostly white young male people who exclude people who aren't like them" - because this is what fraternities literally are . (Recall: by definition, fraternities are young, male, exclusive - and statistically, white).

It's not (only) statistically white, it is racism inherent in the language we use. A black fraternity is called a gang instead.

Black fraternities (well, historically black) do exist, both at HBCUs and at other colleges and universities. And one thing that's particularly notable is that historically black fraternities tend to be more public-service oriented than historically white fraternities, which are more purely social clubs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_frate...

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#237

Post by h0l0cube »

gliboc wrote: post #120
h0l0cube wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and not actually providing any kind of evidence You might want to live up to your own standards. Looking at your posts so far, you point to no evidence that hiring 'based on intuition' (for whatever that means) ends in positive outcomes for either group cohesion, or even that fuzzy end-goal: productivity.

You're going full circle here. He's not the one advocating for "modern evidence-based research and training", so it's not in his standards. And I'm not blaming him. Not everything is measurable, or at least measurable in ways that would enable researchers to extract meaningful answers or techniques. You said it yourself, productivity is a fuzzy end-goal. If you do not believe it is possible to empirically derive a wa…

I was validly pointing out the hypocrisy of core-questions.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#238

Post by notyourday »

romwell wrote: post #114
Leherenn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand this dismissing about "culture fit". You describe it yourself as a frat house, which, I assume from the rest of your post, is not what you want. Work is not always only about output and skills, especially in a small company run by 20-something whose only social life is their colleagues. It says nothing about your skills, just that both sides would probably be miserable in case you were hired…

>I don't really understand this dismissing about "culture fit" You should understand that what you wrote sounds like discrimination by age (and sex, "frat" means male), which is illegal - and for good reasons. EDIT: specifically, the only way a 35-year-old is not a "culture fit" in "a small company run by 20-something whose only social life is their colleagues" is if that company is discriminating by age. I don't hav…

> specifically, the only way a 35-year-old is not a "culture fit" in "a small company run by 20-something whose only social life is their colleagues" is if that company is discriminating by age.

So you, as a 35 year old, want to work in a company that has a 14 hour days, including at least one weekend work culture which is what created a nearly forced socialization with one's coworkers who are in their early twenties?

If so, I'm pretty sure you would be accepted in the open arms if you

a) take their kind of salary ( i.e. take a pay cut )

b) work the 14 hour days (i.e. take another pay cut )

c) tolerate their social quirks -- those that do not socialize with others outside their tiny world for 14 hours a day 6-7 days a week are going to be rejected by the randos they meet in random places, repeating the cycle.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#239

Post by watwut »

renegadesensei wrote: post #213

It's a fine line companies walk. They want to build a cohesive company identity with aligned values and goals, but they also want diversity, which makes all of that harder. So you have these "culture fit" interviews which are really just conformity checks. "Are you going to get on people's nerves?" is really what they want to see, and the right answer varies by environment. They're asking, "Are you one of us?" No sur…

Cohesive company identity with aligned values and goals is not endangered by people with Asperger or whatever on position of coder or admin. The way more bigger threat to that goal is selection of people for management and leadership level. Who gets rewarded and why.

You can talk about cohesiveness and shared values till your face is blue, but if people lie, manipulate, intentionally misinform, are antagonistic in order to throw competition down, it wont happen no matter how autists were refused.

Like, we come back to social skills of developers topic every other month. But actual cohesiveness culture depends way more on middle management which tend to attract and select people who cause way more drama and ineffectivity then people with asperger.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#240

Post by sam0x17 »

marksweston wrote: post #207
PeterStuer wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is "frat house full of brogrammers" just a meme then? I have always wondered since I first heard the term, as it seems so remote from the reality I experience. And yet, it gets punted around so much you wouldn't think that it would be hard to find a brogrammer shop. On the contrary, going by the 'reputation' you'd think they would be so numerous as to almost be hard to avoid.

Name a thing and you summon it into existence. 'Brogrammer' started as a witticism and has become a social phenomenon that people discuss as though it was based on rigorous observation and not just a joke.

In college I knew a number of "brogrammers" (frat boys, who did fratty things, and banged their head against coding as best they could). None of them are programming today.
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