Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

371–380 of 437 posts

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

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There are laws against employment discrimination, and I suggest to you most people aiming for "people who they like to hang out with with" will result in an outcome, intentional or not, of illegal discrimination.

If you look at the set of all the people in the world you like to hang out with, and somehow, incidentally, nobody from a discrimination-protected group is in that set... I have some bad news for you about your personal biases.

Who fucking cares

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

#372

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…

"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, so it makes sense to find someone who would fit in the mold, even if less experienced/skillful." Right, so better not hire any married people, older people, people of t…

Sure

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

#373
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that there are all kinds of people that act this way. But in my experience, aspies seem to have less ability to self reflect or alter behavior. Or more fundamentally admit they have anything to reflect on or alter. The very starting point of conflict resolution therefore is muted.

Yes, I agree. But when the situation is at abuse acceptance level, then we are beyond that. I brought entitlement because absent that, it is possible to directly say to aspie that this or that crosses the line. We are not talking about making him not awkward, just not abusive. At that point not just aspie failed to listen, but also neurotypical people around failed to protect whoever is victim of that abuse and set p…

An ancient torture method was small water dripping on the forehead.

Persistent small events over time can be abuse.

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

#374
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Given their history, I would say they aren't friendly and/or cordial. There are various interviews with them throughout the years and they are quite genuinely friendly with each other. However, they have different personalities and they are not drinking buddies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv_Xkz9zepI&t=21m0s They said their enduring relationship is based on professional respect instead of socializing. Regardles…

Are disabilities not a protected class?

>Are disabilities not a protected class?

Ok, I see your confusion. Yes, disabilities are a protected class. However, being in a protected class does not provide the job candidate a free license to be rude and force other employees to suffer their rudeness.

And likewise, black race is protected class -- but the law doesn't require employers to hire "a black rude person".

Same for women or older-aged job candidates. Being a rude and disrespectful 65-year old female job candidate means the company can still reject on the grounds of being rude. This separation of reasons is allowed and is exactly how the discrimination laws are spelled out:

- may not Discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, marital status, or political affiliation.[1]

Note that Equal Opportunity Employment does not protect on the basis of rudeness. There are plenty of black applicants to hire who are not rude, and likewise, plenty of ADHD/ADD/Asperger applicants who are not rude that can be hired.

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/site-information/no-fear-act/protections...

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

#375

Would love to hear about their compensation and benefit packages and how they compare to industry- and NY-averages. (Is the competitive edge of neurodiversity being properly carried through to living wages, benefits for people who aren’t full time, promotion processes that support differences etc)

Reminds me of this article [1] about Goodwill stores hiring people with disabilities like blindness and paying them way less than minimum wage (22 cents, 38 cents and 41 cents an hour). I found the article very though-provoking. Yes, they are hiring many people who probably would not find work elsewhere. Yes, they are also paying them pennies.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/07/30/does-good...

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

#376
post #86
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the 'soft' questions are attempts to weed out 'problems'. Get this through your head: when interviewing, experienced managers are not "selecting the best" but rather "avoiding the worst". And these questions... they're crapshots in the dark — “how the hell am I supposed to know if this person is OK/normal or a piece of work?” It's even more blurry from the interviewer's side. So they just try to get a 'feel' for…

Aha... so you know. Hopefully my long piece will be useful to someone else, then. "Red flag", that's the expression I was looking for indeed.

Don't worry, that text will very likely impact many people, and nearly none of them will be aware enough of it to tell you what they thought.

The worst thing is that, in a cold rational way the optimum strategy for both the company and the employee is hiring with little evidence, and firing relatively quickly. But it's only good if everybody does it, and nobody is actually able to do it.

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

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's very easy to manage them: don't hire them. Bringing on someone who is a disruption to an already productive team because they seem like they may be a good individual contributor, based off the extremely limited exposure you have had to this individual, is a bad idea.

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

#378
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Listen, companies have their own cultures..." Peter Thiel once used "culture fit" to exclude people who liked playing basketball: "PayPal once rejected a candidate who aced all the engineering tests because for fun, the guy said that he liked to play hoops. That single sentence lost him the job. No PayPal people would ever have used the world “hoops.” Probably no one even knew how to play “hoops.” Basketball would b…

This seems like an extreme example, to be clear, I don't think you should determine culture fit based off the word you use to describe basketball. So do you think there should be no thought on if someone will get along well with your team? Or is that counted as discrimination? Should we all just hire the first person who can answer a coding challenge that we run into? That seems like the other extreme end.

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

#379
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you're whole life has single point of failure wontfix, working as intended. The startup wants you dependent on them for everything and to spend nearly all your waking hours inside their office so they can coerce your loyalty.

I don't know if it's to coerce loyalty. I would presume that the main motivation is that they know that you are what generates profit. So if they can exploit you as a profit-generating resource, and get away with it, they will do so. This isn't novel. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was common for entire families, children included, to work 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, and barely earn enough to survive. Th…

Yeah, that's one of the big problems with capitalism. The laws of microeconomics state that in a free market, the market will produce as many widgets as possible, using up all possible resources to do so. This isn't good for human happiness or for the environment. Who really wants to live in a world where we are buying and producing as much as possible?

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

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.”

It’s still not comparable because blackness is not a behavior at all.

There are accents and colloquialisms spoken mostly by black people. Does that not count?
Post reply on HN