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We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#471

Post by nl »

mffnbs wrote: post #393
nl wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's always a problem of people wanting to believe something is possible (and mandatory to pursue) banging their heads against what is true and actually possible. I'm not sure if you realize this, but change always seems impossible until it happens. 10 years ago it seemed completely impossible that Facebook would have 1B users, let alone the ~3B it has now. The same 10 years ago it seemed impossible to that gay peopl…

It’s ridiculous you were down voted for this. These people don’t want to change their behavior or admit there’s bias. They would rather remain ignorant and pretend that it’s a problem caused by someone else rather than reflect on what might not be working.

I don't like to complain about it, but since you raised it...

I was shocked by how quickly this was downvoted. It went to -4 in minutes! I didn't even think anything I said there was particularly controversial. I think it's pretty well established that social change is hard.

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#472

Post by gedaxiang »

sukilot wrote: post #371
joshmarlow wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm asking to better understand - can you think of ways to make an interview process more comfortable? What about 'blind' remote interviews (ie, no video, but audio)?

Voice interviews are biased against non-native speakers of the company's language.

That could be true, but communication has to be a point of evaluation for most jobs.

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#473

Post by droopyEyelids »

whb07 wrote: post #3
sbilstein wrote: post #2

I think it's pretty bold to post something like this. As a person of color, I absolutely observe bias in hiring processes and recruiting...however as someone who majored in CS it's undeniable that we have far less women and minorities going through these programs. After I graduated, my university managed to get the number closer to 60/40 of men vs. women but when I graduated there was just one woman in our graduating…

So I'm ready for the downvotes, but its worth it. I don't think it is generally good to look for divisions and more ways to separate from the whole. I don't know if that is because you're out somewhere in super woke SF or similar but you've already used terms like "LatinX" and "person of color" like someone who is already woke but maybe stop for a sec? Why don't you see yourself as a person who likes CS/tech and like…

Latinx is a term that USA whites prefer to use when referring to hispanic people or people from a country south of the USA.

It eliminates the misogyny that english-language-only whites read into romance languages.

Surveys show that only 2% of the people referred to as "Latinx" prefer that term. So the whole phenomenon is crazy to think about.

https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/progressive-latino-pollst...

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#474

Post by someguydave »

klipt wrote: post #411
trophycase wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's basically always possible to claim that society has some hidden variable, but I'll bite. As a woman, if you want children/family you need to secure at least a certain baseline of living quality and stability before the age of 35 and realistically much earlier. This alone dramatically changes the timeline and priorities of women.

The cost of freezing eggs is pretty small compared to tech salaries though, so if women's instincts are telling them not to go into tech because they need to hurry up and have kids, those instincts are out of date wrt what modern medicine can do.

having babies when you are an elderly woman (which is the age of 35 according to obstetricians) becomes more difficult with each passing year.

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#475

Post by hkmurakami »

Mirioron wrote: post #453
hkmurakami wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's the "math majors' math track" and the non math majors' math track at most institutions. Even within the majors track, there's separation between experience levels and intended tracks within the discipline. Ex: MAT215-217: Recommended for math majors, some prior experience in constructing formal proofs is useful but not required. MAT216-218: Accelerated math major sequence, for students with substantial backgr…

But the difference in your case is that we don't expect, nor care, whether math majors and non-math majors end up at the same destination. It's okay and expected that math majors will end up learning more and becoming better at math. But when we're talking about people studying the same major, then this is not okay. You will either end up slowing down the fast track students or you will give them an advantage over th…

I disagree with your premise, since our current situation is that different students in the same major _already_ end up in different levels of aptitude by the end of their studies. Some far exceed that of the typical student.

Preserve the ability for those with this level of prior experience or aptitude to thrive, while providing support for those who do not have this head start but could either (a) Catch up, given the right initial environment and ramp up, or (b) never catch up to the most well equipped students, but will still be proper graduates of the program.

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#476

Post by gedaxiang »

skybrian wrote: post #147
sbilstein wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, making an interview less biased is not about color of skin. It's about comfort and acknowledging how these anxieties creep up. At big companies I've worked at, we coached interviewers to do at least 5 minutes of small talk and resume review, to smile, to always leave time for questions at the end, to show some amount of enthusiasm for the work the interviewee is doing. It's not about an interview fo…

When I was at Google, interviewing was considered everybody's job, but without any particular benefit from doing them. They'd just try to guilt you into doing them. (I think they'd try to guilt some people harder than others, though.) I think this is a mistake. Interviewing is a teaching/sales role and many people need coaching to come across as friendly. They aren't going to get that coaching if they see it primaril…

So much this. I don’t mind running interviews, but I don’t think I’m particularly good at running them, especially in the “making the candidate feel comfortable” angle. With engineering having such an outsized proportion of introverts and, for the lack of a better term, oddballs, we could take a better look at who _should_ be interviewing.

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#477

Post by ravenstine »

xenocyon wrote: post #407
supernova87a wrote: post #187

With such politically charged issues, it's always a problem of people wanting to believe something is possible (and mandatory to pursue) banging their heads against what is true and actually possible. If the percentage of female computer science graduates (as a strong proxy for the available candidate population) is 18% (Google for the facts and stats), how is every company to hit an idealistic goal of 50% representa…

I do agree that there is indeed a pipeline problem; however there is still much scope for improvement at workplaces. Notably, gender balance is not only skewed at the point of hiring; in fact, the skew gets worse and worse as one goes up through the ranks.

Do you think the numbers would change appreciably if the entire hiring process was boiled down to a multiple-choice exam, with no humans besides the applicant involved, which chose who gets hired based on the first applicant to pass it?

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#478

Post by [deleted] »

sachi_inchi wrote: post #14
whb07 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm ready for the downvotes, but its worth it. I don't think it is generally good to look for divisions and more ways to separate from the whole. I don't know if that is because you're out somewhere in super woke SF or similar but you've already used terms like "LatinX" and "person of color" like someone who is already woke but maybe stop for a sec? Why don't you see yourself as a person who likes CS/tech and like…

Basic Principles of Respectful Discussion: 1) Assume good faith until you have reason to assume otherwise. Try your best to NOT make assumptions about people's experiences or situations. 2) If someone, particularly a marginalized person, brings up an experience they have had but you have not had, your first impulse should be to hear them out, NOT to invalidate them. 3) Likewise, just because you personally may not ha…

[deleted]

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#479

Post by [deleted] »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #473
whb07 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm ready for the downvotes, but its worth it. I don't think it is generally good to look for divisions and more ways to separate from the whole. I don't know if that is because you're out somewhere in super woke SF or similar but you've already used terms like "LatinX" and "person of color" like someone who is already woke but maybe stop for a sec? Why don't you see yourself as a person who likes CS/tech and like…

Latinx is a term that USA whites prefer to use when referring to hispanic people or people from a country south of the USA. It eliminates the misogyny that english-language-only whites read into romance languages. Surveys show that only 2% of the people referred to as "Latinx" prefer that term. So the whole phenomenon is crazy to think about. https://medium.com/@ThinkNowTweets/progressive-latino-pollst...

[deleted]

Re: We ran the numbers, and there really is a pipeline problem in engineering hiring

#480

Post by someguydave »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #126
ajross wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not quite right either, because if these were truly easy jobs someone would have figured that out and won by hiring cheap developers with non-traditional backgrounds. In fact engineering jobs are hard, and there is a big spread in candidate quality. The issue is that heretofore the best proxy for candidate quality is educational background, hence the pipeline problem. And you definitely fix that by going aroun…

> if these were truly easy jobs someone would have figured that out and won by hiring cheap developers with non-traditional backgrounds Note that the same argument works as evidence against recruiting bias and pay disparity. Discriminating against people or paying them less due to factors unrelated to job performance is leaving money on the table. Such discrimination persisting would imply that the market is very ine…

The fact that many of the web companies want to crowd everyone in a few hundred square kilometers of the Bay area demonstrates that they don't know what they are doing and are leaving money on the table. That doesn't disprove the fact that women are somewhat more uninterested in pursuing those jobs than men are.
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