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Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

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Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#111

Post by dude187 »

virtue3 wrote: post #99
a30b40 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just what OP is experiencing with extra steps. Here's why: 1. Find merit based, good, but (unfortunately) majority candidate. 2. Position is held open, the meritorious engineer is waiting for an offer. 3. A few minority position trickle in that are nearly as good but not quite. 4. DEI argues you should choose the minority and uses an excuse like "they're trainable" to justify racist hiring practices. In both…

It's not racism it's prejudice. "According to the sociological perspective, members of privileged groups can experience prejudice, but their experience will be different than the experience of someone who experiences systemic racism." One could argue that being in the majority you would have an easier time getting a lateral promotion than someone as a minority.

Racism is a much more apt word for it than prejudice

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#112

Post by waterhouse »

Spivak wrote: post #91
zdragnar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree that this is a win-win. My friend recently went through another round of interviews trying to find a job. He got tons of follow up interviews, only to be told that the company decided to hire internally, or some other excuse that strongly implied they already had another candidate in mind. My friend, it ought not surprise you to discover, fits into several "minority" categories. The worst industry…

This isn't necessarily a DEI thing and more that the company has some dumb policy that you have to have job descriptions posted publicly for $x number of weeks and interview at least $y candidates. And then you make internal promotions go through the same process because reasons. Source: have worked for companies that have this policy, academia especially is famous for this level of institutional incompetence.

I've heard of a mechanism with similar results where certain positions (government contractors?) are required to be "offered" to domestic candidates, although the company would rather hire a foreigner because they're generally cheaper. So they technically post an ad somewhere (ideally in a place no one will read) and they'll technically interview domestic candidates who apply, even though they plan to say no.

Regardless of the reason, it wastes people's time and is somewhat dishonest.

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#113

Post by jjoonathan »

virtue3 wrote: post #99
a30b40 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just what OP is experiencing with extra steps. Here's why: 1. Find merit based, good, but (unfortunately) majority candidate. 2. Position is held open, the meritorious engineer is waiting for an offer. 3. A few minority position trickle in that are nearly as good but not quite. 4. DEI argues you should choose the minority and uses an excuse like "they're trainable" to justify racist hiring practices. In both…

It's not racism it's prejudice. "According to the sociological perspective, members of privileged groups can experience prejudice, but their experience will be different than the experience of someone who experiences systemic racism." One could argue that being in the majority you would have an easier time getting a lateral promotion than someone as a minority.

    rac·ism
    /ˈrāˌsizəm/
    noun
    prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people 
    on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, 
    typically one that is a minority or marginalized.

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#115

Post by zozbot234 »

virtue3 wrote: post #99
a30b40 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just what OP is experiencing with extra steps. Here's why: 1. Find merit based, good, but (unfortunately) majority candidate. 2. Position is held open, the meritorious engineer is waiting for an offer. 3. A few minority position trickle in that are nearly as good but not quite. 4. DEI argues you should choose the minority and uses an excuse like "they're trainable" to justify racist hiring practices. In both…

It's not racism it's prejudice. "According to the sociological perspective, members of privileged groups can experience prejudice, but their experience will be different than the experience of someone who experiences systemic racism." One could argue that being in the majority you would have an easier time getting a lateral promotion than someone as a minority.

Racism is literally defined as prejudice + discrimination + unequal power relationship. It's quite undeniable that a majority-race person who gets rejected solely because of DIE practices in a bureaucratic hiring process is experiencing all three - in particular, she is in an unequal power relationship with the people who are deciding whether or not to hire her.

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#116

Post by janto »

int0x2e wrote: post #83
pesenti wrote: post #26

Legality aside, this is a terrible and naive way to think of DEI. Candidates recruited this way will have a stigma attached to them (“they were recruited because they were X”). A better way is to enforce DSA - Diverse Slate Approach - which ensure that you don’t recruit anybody without having considered multiple genders and/or ethnicity before making the offer. The goal of DSA is to recruit the best candidate for the…

The issue with DSA is that some hiring managers will inevitably try to game the system. A friend once shared a strategy he saw at BigCorp - a hiring manager would fill the pipeline with 10 quality applicants, but if none of them matched the diversity requirement, that manager would add 2-3 diversity candidates that were horrible fits. They still started the interview loop, but failed miserably compared to a normal ca…

Supply will never be fully resolved from a minority pool; there are less of them - the definition of a minority.

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#117

Post by woodpanel »

I'd advise all US devs to just flee the country, if it weren't for VCs and US-led unicorn-acquisitions who'll eventually spread this DEI nonsense to the rest of the world (some US-financed European unicorns already start introducing Black History months in February, talking about cultural imperialism eh?). But it'll at least buy you some time.

And who knows, maybe when your country of choice is up – there'll be a self-hating non-white country adopting this crap and you'll be able to get the minority treatment.

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#119

Post by austincheney »

Yes, that is illegal according to the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I have had many software job interviews that were illegal. Most of that were interviewers asking about my familial status because parents are perceived as more dependent upon the employment with less mobility and spouses are perceived as more stable and less likely to commit inter-personnel policy violations. I just disclose the requested information.

If you actually are a senior manager you should already know this is illegal.

Re: Ask HN: Am I being instructed to do something illegal? (DEI hiring practices)

#120

Post by rparet »

(I am not a lawyer) It’s ok in the US to have a goal to hire more women or URMs, and to do sourcing, etc. to bring in more candidates like this. I think the potential concerns here are the use of “must” in the spreadsheet, and what activities you’ll be expected to perform, OP. I’d recommend advocating for changing “must” to some other goal-based language. If you’re doing the sourcing, I’d also think about setting goals here (x% of candidates moved from stage 1 to stage 2 are women/urms, for example). What’s not ok: * not interviewing or hiring someone because they are not a woman * giving someone a different interview for any reason (barring accommodations for disabilities, etc) * saying “we are only hiring women for this role” (for example) * saying “we are not hiring any men for this role” (for example) * having a quota that must be met. (i.e. a target, not a goal).

There are ways that this can play out that might seem discriminatory but are not. For example, if your goal is to have X% of final stage candidates be women and you haven’t gotten there yet, not hiring a non-woman final stage candidate that is otherwise hirable is not discriminatory. See the “Rooney rule” and other examples.

What I think you should do: * assume positive intent. No one person is responsible for this systemic shitshow / imbalance, and people are doing the best they can to fix it. Understanding how to do that in the context of the law is sometimes difficult. * advocate for the use of appropriate goals that support the initiative. * politely object when someone asks you to do one of the “should not dos” above. Ask them to restate in the context of goals. * don’t get caught up in culture warrior nonsense that circulates around this issue. You’re an engineer, recruitment is a system. Treat it like a systems problem. * support your women colleagues and women in tech in general. Systemic bias is real. People who believe women shouldn’t be in tech exist. Do what you can to help overcome these obstacles.

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