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Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

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31–40 of 198 posts

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#31

I always try to give the recruiter no indication of race or gender. Frankly, if we all did that it would remove the bias. The challenge is, I suspect they ask for race & gender is intentionally requested to add bias . I’ve worked with recruiters and part of the job is indeed targeting “under represented” groups to improve the figures.

Me too, I sound white too. I've noticed reactions when a Hispanic looking guy shows up.

I have 6 kids, their mother is white. I've heard stories from each of them that range from kids asking, "why is your dad brown and you're pink?" to "My parents were surprised when that brown guy showed up to pick you up."

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#32

Surprising study results regarding women being more likely to receive a callback than men. From personal experience and the teams I've been on, women have always been in the minority, along the lines of 8-10 men for every two women. However, I am not in Silicon Valley. We need more studies in this area. I'd also like to see studies that include other possible sources of discrimination (gender identity, age) that are…

There's a contradiction in your second sentence, I'm not sure what your meaning is. >women have always been in the majority, along the lines of 8-10 men for every two women.

From context I think they meant that "men have always been in the majority".

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#36
Personal experience.

Got hired into a company that did everything possible to avoid hiring straight white men.

Everything was completely dominated by not offending anyone over anything. Unless you were the aforementioned group.

Turns out there simply isn’t a lot of the right race/gender/sex. I’m sure that’ll be different as time progresses, but for now there is clearly some catching up to do.

So it was all jr developers. A couple of which truly cared about technology, and I see good things in their future.

The rest were the most arrogant sexist bigots imaginable.

Most days were filled with hatred. Full rant fest about how evil “my kind” were. But it wasn’t personal as I was clearly one of the good ones...

So yeah, n=1 personal experience. But crude that echo chamber was scary.

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#37
The only problem with blind selection, is that, sooner or later, the race/gender/sexual orientation/religion/fitness/attractiveness/age (I'm an old fart, so I can tell you a thing or two about ageism in tech) becomes apparent.

I have heard story after story from peers (around my age), about passing numerous rounds of phone and test interviews, only to see the interviewer's face fall, as soon as they walk in the door. It's happened to me, but, thankfully, before being flown out (if it's a contract application, then we're on the hook for the cost), and revealing the age.

It happens with highly qualified older white guys, so I'm sure that it will happen with other distinguishing characteristics.

The simple fact of the matter is, is that people have certain traits they are looking for, and the final call is always a "gut feeling."

I've learned to just avoid all the agita by making it clear that I'm "of a certain age," right up front. I don't get many offers, but at least I don't have those blasted recruiters, gushing about my résumé, only to shred my contact card, as soon as they find out I'm old (I guess the industry is crawling with 32-year-olds with 30 years' experience).

I don't think it's a good idea to have AIs do the selection (as has been suggested numerous times -usually by folks in the AI business). Humans need to work with humans. If an AI puts someone into a situation where they are treated like garbage by their managers and/or co-workers, then they will be miserable (and unproductive); especially if they have done something like uproot their lives to move somewhere (I have also heard many stories from people that have uprooted their lives to go to "the perfect" job, only to come back, a few months later, broken and cynical).

If the people involved don't want to work with someone like me, then I don't want to work with them. That's easy for me to say, though. It can really stink, when you're hungry and need the work.

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#38

Key point of the abstract: Women: +9 to +10% chance of callback relative to men Black, Hispanic, and Asian: -8 to -13% chance of callback relative to White people. Anyway, kudos (I guess?) to the researchers for choosing the absolutely most fashionable subject they could possibly study in this day and age.

That's surprising - every software team I've worked on for the past 20 years at least has been predominantly Asian.

These callback rates are relative to the number of applicants, so if the pool of applicants is predominantly Asian, the hires could still be predominately Asian, just slightly less so.

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#39
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://apnews.com/article/9105661462

>AP’s style is now to capitalize Black in a racial, ethnic or cultural sense, conveying an essential and shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as Black Ironically, pretending all blacks come from the same ethnic or cultural background is a very ignorant (and racist) thing to do.

The AP is proving that journalism is dead.

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#40

I always try to give the recruiter no indication of race or gender. Frankly, if we all did that it would remove the bias. The challenge is, I suspect they ask for race & gender is intentionally requested to add bias . I’ve worked with recruiters and part of the job is indeed targeting “under represented” groups to improve the figures.

I can confirm that at least two FAANG companies explicitly give diversity points to recruiters. That is, hiring a "diverse" candidate is worth ~1.5x as much to them as a non-diverse candidate for the same role.

They are cagey about the exact details of who is included at a given time. But I do know it varies by rule.

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