Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations • Hacker News Board

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#371

Post by i_like_waiting » Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #283

i_like_waiting wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From perspective of fairly young hiring manager (25y old) it really depended on candidate. If you changed industries and you want to come in, more than fair. If you have 10+YoE and I know we don't play that much, why would you want to work with us? I am bit wary if those people are teachable. Please don't take it offensively, I just want to understand better philosophy of people who do only lateral moves for 8+ years…

If I were a senior manager and I heard that coming from you, you'd hit the unemployment turnstile faster than you could blink. You're being paid to determine whether they can do the job well and are a good team fit. If you don't understand that, then you aren't capable of conducting a quality interview, and you shouldn't be in that position at all.

>You're being paid to determine whether they can do the job well and are a good team fit.

Yes and their job history and how they changed the companies is very vital part of that.

So many people are talking a lot about "quality interview" but lets be brutally honest, for more junior positions 10% of people get to have interview, rest of them is rejected based on CV (story that job history tells) screening or technical test.

So instead of criticising me, can you advise me motivation of somebody who does 5 lateral moves in 10 years?

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#372

Post by PuppyTailWags » Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

sdsaga12 wrote: post #306

JCM9 wrote: post #184

There are very concerning patterns developing at the moment in the DEI space. DEI efforts, and often those leading them, are increasingly the most biased and close minded parts of the organization. Spreading selected stereotypes and often solving concerns about “discrimination” by being very biased and inequitable. For example at my last company a report showed that slightly fewer of a certain minority were promoted.…

Hear hear. If your conception of diversity doesn't include viewpoint diversity, you are operating within a prejudicial, small-minded, small-hearted, and regressive framework. If you belive the most salient details about a person can be read from their appearance, you are a bigot. This cuts every which way, but many want to pretend it's not true for their own biases. This includes seeing someone with blue hair and a p…

Genuinely asking: Is there a limit as to viewpoint diversity that should be tolerated in perceptions of diversity? eg. Should viewpoint diversity be extended to welcoming "women shouldn't have the right to vote" or "black people are not human beings"? If so, how does one value an opinion and also the opinion that some opinions are worth less than others?

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#373

Post by kenjackson » Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

JCM9 wrote: post #184

There are very concerning patterns developing at the moment in the DEI space. DEI efforts, and often those leading them, are increasingly the most biased and close minded parts of the organization. Spreading selected stereotypes and often solving concerns about “discrimination” by being very biased and inequitable. For example at my last company a report showed that slightly fewer of a certain minority were promoted.…

I think DEI efforts can greatly vary. I know that we've worked really hard to ensure that we don't disadvantage anyone -- but it's harder than it sounds. DEI is often dealing in zero sum spaces.

For example, most of the staff is white males. We try hard to hire the best person for the role, but we've instituted a policy where we mandate interviewing underrepresented groups. Not that we will hire them, but that we will interview them. But because of this the interview process can get lengthy and white male candidates maybe tire of waiting and go elsewhere. So in some sense its not fair to the white male. OTOH, most of our personal hiring networks are all white males -- so if we rely on speed to find the next good candidate it will almost always be a white male.

I personally think the middle ground we found is good. But still not perfect.

Interestingly the best way IMO to fix DEI is to align underrepresenting minority interests with poor white interests (obviously this doesn't work so well for things like sexual identity issues). The fact that poor whites and poor blacks aren't aligned on issues that impact them both creates a tough situation for DEI.

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#374

Post by vmception » Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #323

antiverse wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- people in interview panels openly saying "but he's a white man" / "do we want to hire more white men" etc. Not surprised to hear people saying this, but am surprised that nobody brings that up as a plainly racist/sexist thing when it is said. Bystander effect?

Any time I've pushed back on that racism, the person has redefined racism so that what they are doing isn't racism any more. Typically that involves the phrase "systemic racism" instead, as if the need to qualify the type of racism doesn't invalidate their point. Unsurprisingly, racists aren't willing to actually discuss racism and instead do whatever they have to in order to justify it. The more things change, the m…

Protip: “race based discrimination” is what the federal government prosecutes for 40 years, and it cuts the knees off of the segregationists that are playing a semantics game with the word “racism”.

So just use race based discrimination, thats the unproductive thing after all, the representatives have been far ahead on this one.

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#375

Post by johnnyanmac » Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #350

johnnyanmac wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're in the time range to edit your comment, there is time to actually delete your comment instead of making a passive agressive edit. I feel that simply invites more in-fighting, with less context.

I didn't have a delete button, only an edit button. Also I wasn't trying to be passive aggressive, I think it's worth leaving a trail of instances of when "agree with the masses or shut up" happen on HN.

I see. I think what I didn't know was that you can't delete a comment once someone replies to you. Like, I can't delete the comment you just replied to, but there are older comments I can delete.

>I think it's worth leaving a trail of instances of when "conform with the masses or shut up" happen on HN.

without context, that trail doesn't lend much weight. That's what makes the sentiment feel passive aggressive. "deleting evidence" so to speak, gives the implication that the comment in question wouldn't be a universally agreeable one to begin with, even outside of the hivemind.

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#376

Post by mech422 » Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

oppositelock wrote: post #130

nabaraz wrote: post #67

During my career, I've seen enough discrimination in the name of DEI as well. But what bothers me more is the ageism. The number of times an old person has been rejected from a job is too damn high. The reasons have always been "he may not work well with young people", "seniority complex", "he is over qualified" etc. Most of the times, they were more than qualified. I fear when I am into 40s or 50s, I will face the s…

I'm almost 50. I've been working in tech since 1996, and at this point, despite being a strong and seasoned engineer, I'm getting comments like, "it's different now", or "back in your day", etc, and the very young engineers fresh from school are the ones throwing this around. Those with a few years of experience under their belt don't. It's really disheartening, but it's also my job to train these bozos and turn them…

wow man - thats sucks... As an older engineer, I hope you hang in! There ARE good companies out there!

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#377

Post by colinmhayes » Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #348

colinmhayes wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't really keep in touch with many coworkers due to time. It's not hard to connect with people on Linkedin, even if you haven't seen them in years.

But is some random person you worked with 20 years ago reaches out, what are you going to do? I would send the a link to the careers page, and that's about it. Unless person was a total rock star, you probably can't speak much to their abilities after so much time.

I mean personally I'd refer them if they didn't suck. Yes, 20 years is a long time but I find that people generally don't change, and successful people are likely to continue being successful.

Going deeper though, obviously networking isn't going to hit every time. That's why you need a whole network and not just one or two people. If the first person you reach out to doesn't want to refer you, it's not a big deal. Just move on to the next one.

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#378

Post by throwaway789s1 » Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

JCM9 wrote: post #184

There are very concerning patterns developing at the moment in the DEI space. DEI efforts, and often those leading them, are increasingly the most biased and close minded parts of the organization. Spreading selected stereotypes and often solving concerns about “discrimination” by being very biased and inequitable. For example at my last company a report showed that slightly fewer of a certain minority were promoted.…

I work at a FANG that is ramping up DEI efforts. Their recent campaign was about being diversity conscious and having less "white culture" (whatever that means).

The thing is, this same company is hiring mostly for India, my coworkers and manager are from India, when they aren't they'll be from China, and occasionally from Europe. We have like 4-5 white guys in an org of +50. employees in the US.

At this point (aside from hiring women), hiring white/black people is how we'd rebalance the diversity of our team yet for obvious reasons you can't say that out loud...

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#379

Post by okwubodu » Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 6:36 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #309

okwubodu wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> exercising their own agency and choosing different fields. If we accept this as true, fields dominated by women should receive the same grace.

You're conflating two issues: discrimination and self-selection. Discrimination is never ok. If a woman applies to a job as a developer, she should absolutely not be discriminated against because of her gender. Self-selection is always ok. If women in aggregate are more interested in biology than computer science, that is fine. This paper is evidence of discrimination, not self-selection.

I understand that. But if we have no problem hand waving discrimination away as self-selection when the exact same conclusion is drawn for other groups, I don’t see how this is suddenly different.

Half the top comments on this very thread decry DEI efforts while calling this wrong without the slightest hint of irony.

Re: Hiring discrimination: a problem for men in female-dominated occupations

#380

Post by jnwatson » Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 6:36 PM UTC

smugma wrote: post #300

nabaraz wrote: post #67

During my career, I've seen enough discrimination in the name of DEI as well. But what bothers me more is the ageism. The number of times an old person has been rejected from a job is too damn high. The reasons have always been "he may not work well with young people", "seniority complex", "he is over qualified" etc. Most of the times, they were more than qualified. I fear when I am into 40s or 50s, I will face the s…

I'm in my 40's have been with the same company (FAANG) for over a decade. I'd say a majority of the management (including engineering) is in their mid-30's to 50's. It looks like the entirety of the senior management in engineering in my org is in their 40's. There are fewer individual contributors in their 40's, but I know several (some moved from manager back to IC, others stayed IC). Maybe this is a bigger issue a…

I have similar experience at a FAANG. We have a good mix of 20 somethings through 50 somethings.

Part of it is that FAANGs have explicit IC ladders, so you can advance without being forced to manage.