Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 437 posts

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

#351

Post by senderista »

pluma wrote: post #226
C1sc0cat wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It originally started as a Joke as far as I remember, it's now being used as short hand for certain aspects of SV life that are negative or are perceived as negative. I would bet that 90% of developers are not the classic "jock" member of a frat (which is specific to America Univerities) - we are the ones that got bullied by those types at high school. Lets be honest CS students are going to get invited to join the s…

It's meant as a cultural shorthand for the kind of companies like early PayPal. They wouldn't hire classic "jock" people of course but they were very much about what nerds thought was cool. The "bro" label is more about performative hypermasculinity than athletics. What seems to surprise most about nerd culture is that for many nerds the problem with bullying wasn't that bullying was bad but that they were on the rec…

whiteboard swirlies

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

#352

Post by jimbokun »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #335
repomies691 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the point is that companies shouldn't be frat houses full of brogrammers. Usually the founders/owners decide what a company is. Often it seems to me that there are plenty of other motivations to run a company. The founders hire people who they like to hang out with, maybe same hobbies etc. However I personally have never came across a company that could be described as a "frat house" or even which would hav…

>However I personally have never came across a company that could be described as a "frat house" or even which would have that kind of hiring policy. Here's a recent example, if you need one: https://kotaku.com/inside-the-culture-of-sexism-at-riot-game...

Culture fit in a nutshell:

> “There are all these generic terms used to find things wrong with women that aren’t specific,” she said. “When I hear ‘She’s emotional,’ I’d say, ‘Okay, why do you think she was being emotional?’ ‘Well she seemed to get intense and was pushing back on this thing.’ The other candidate did that and you liked that because you thought he had ‘grit.’ Why is that different? Is it because this person is a different gender?”

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

#353

Post by matheusmoreira »

nscalf wrote: post #322
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…

Just so I'm getting this straight, in a setting where your entire goal is to make a company want to work with you every day, it's discrimination to turn you down because you did not make them want to work with you? Listen, companies have their own cultures, and if you're not a fit to that culture, bringing you on runs the risk of ruining the culture they have been building and making their employees quit. I turn down…

> companies have their own cultures, and if you're not a fit to that culture, bringing you on runs the risk of ruining the culture they have been building and making their employees quit.

You can justify any kind of discrimination that way. I can come up with a number of reasons that would make women, people of color, foreigners or literally any other group a "poor culture fit".

> Sure, we probably miss some good people, but we have a specific culture in place that we all enjoy, and I don't want to feel uncomfortable or have to walk on egg shells around my team.

So you'd reject a candidate because of comfort and enjoyment? Even though the candidate could make you tons of money? That's very discouraging.

> You may just be rude in an interview, and that will 100% result in me turning you down. It doesn't matter much to me if you're an "Aspie/ADD"

There's a difference between having Asperger's and being an asshole. A person with Asperger's communicates differently than a person without Asperger's. You chose to interpret that difference as rudeness. Instead of understanding the cause of the differences and adapting to it, you simply eliminated the candidate for the sake of your own comfort.

This doesn't matter to you but it should. Especially if you want to claim you don't discriminate based on factors the candidate can't change.

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

#354

Post by wysifnwyg »

jasode wrote: post #344
wysifnwyg wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good hiring managers will recognize that everyone doesn't have to like everyone. Work isn't a social club, it's a business in the market of delivering products. If candidates aren't measured on a metric of their capability to deliver and instead is measured on their metric as a drinking buddy, your company needs better managers.

>Good hiring managers will recognize that everyone doesn't have to like everyone. [...] as a drinking buddy, In every thread where people go through great pains trying to clearly articulate why creating a cordial, amiable, and friendly work environment is important, people don't read that with charity. Instead, it's always twisted into "drinking buddy" . Let me try some different examples as models. Penn & Teller mag…

Given their history, I would say they aren't friendly and/or cordial. I'd say they're professional.

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

#355

Post by wysifnwyg »

hwbehrens wrote: post #339
wysifnwyg wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good hiring managers will recognize that everyone doesn't have to like everyone. Work isn't a social club, it's a business in the market of delivering products. If candidates aren't measured on a metric of their capability to deliver and instead is measured on their metric as a drinking buddy, your company needs better managers.

I think this is an over-simplistic view. Of course work isn't a social club, but it (usually) is a team environment, which means working closely with others to achieve a goal. And if a candidate can't avoid offending one person for one hour (with a strong incentive to do so!), it's a sign that they probably aren't going to be able to work as effectively in that team environment as someone who exhibits at least a base…

If a team is a good team without the assistance of a team manager, the manager is superfluous. A good manager can make a good team out of a diverse group of individuals.

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

#356

Post by wysifnwyg »

nscalf wrote: post #337
wysifnwyg wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good hiring managers will recognize that everyone doesn't have to like everyone. Work isn't a social club, it's a business in the market of delivering products. If candidates aren't measured on a metric of their capability to deliver and instead is measured on their metric as a drinking buddy, your company needs better managers.

Work actually is a social club. You don't need to love everyone, but you shouldn't feel uncomfortable. If you're unhappy at work, your work will suffer. If you're excited about what you're doing and you have your team's back, then you will deliver more value. Excellent engineers can be a good find, but teams build excellent things. There is a reason everyone doesn't work in isolation.

Unless you own the company, you don't pick all your managers, coworkers, and clients. It's an exceptionally valuable team skill to be able to work with someone you wouldn't invite out for a beer. Learning to work with different viewpoints and behaviors builds character and makes one more competitive. Effective managers know this.

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

#357

Post by TheOperator »

nscalf wrote: post #322
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…

Just so I'm getting this straight, in a setting where your entire goal is to make a company want to work with you every day, it's discrimination to turn you down because you did not make them want to work with you? Listen, companies have their own cultures, and if you're not a fit to that culture, bringing you on runs the risk of ruining the culture they have been building and making their employees quit. I turn down…

Well from my perspective if I don't get a job I can just fail to have the money to manage my disability and die. As soon as I read your post about how if you hired a disabled employee, you feel like you might have to walk on egg-shells, well I instantly sympathized with such a gravely serious concern.

I notice how much of your post washes the managers hands clean of making these decisions. Not getting hired is the fault of disabled people who are behaving rudely by being incapable of certain things like eye contact. It's the fault of other employees who will quit. You know... that's almost the same rationale used to keep gay people out of the military. It's the COMPANY who wasn't convinced the employee was worth working with.

Have you ever had your job threatened because you didn't want to leave early, arrive late, take extra breaks, socialize instead of working, and wanted to work hard because you believed in the companies vision? Or because you didn't want to steal time? Because you wanted to learn your job? Oh man, it really made the other employees not like me. I was pulled aside and told what a bad culture-fit I was being. I was told my co-workers were going to tell my bosses I should be let go because they didn't like me. In the end I bent to the pressure and went half-way, messed up, and got singled out for punishment. At which point the culture I didn't fit changed for the better because everybody felt so damned guilty.

In my entire time in the workforce I have never seen "culture-fit" being anything other than vague opaque bullshit used to discriminate against the disadvantaged and hard-working.

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

#358

Post by wysifnwyg »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #340
wysifnwyg wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good hiring managers will recognize that everyone doesn't have to like everyone. Work isn't a social club, it's a business in the market of delivering products. If candidates aren't measured on a metric of their capability to deliver and instead is measured on their metric as a drinking buddy, your company needs better managers.

I'm not sure if you're intentionally misrepresenting his argument but he is saying he doesn't want to walk on eggshells around coworkers, not that he wants to like them enough to grab a beer with them.

They state they are a hiring manager. If they can't manage difficult but productive employees, they may need some aid learning how to manage effectively.

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

#359

Post by CapricornNoble »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #305
CapricornNoble wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>>Citations needed Women in the infantry -- The Effect on the Moral Domain.[1] Covers a lot of ground, with pro/con data points across multiple nations and several decades. [2] Is about the Navy's struggle with the costs and effectiveness impacts of pregnancies. Can gender-integrated work forces produce (whatever the metric is for "productivity" in a particular domain). Yes. Will management/leadership responsibiliti…

Do you have citations outside of the military context? I don't mean to be nitpicky, but what makes the military efficient and what makes civilian life efficient tend to be at extreme odds quite often.

I don't, sorry. I'd be interested in such results as well, mostly because I'm curious about what sort of metrics the studies would be using for productivity.

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

#360

Post by mnsc »

x220 wrote: post #184
icotyl wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can certainly relate to coming off as weird or socially awkward or unintentionally rude, and it has affected my job interview performance. People diagnosed with ADD/Asperger's don't really have a monopoly on that.

Autistic people are not awkward in the way that you are awkward, unless you're an undiagnosed autistic.

This was what I meant although my comment was socially awkward! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Post reply on HN