Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

journals.plos.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 666 posts

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

#491

Post by mkl95 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #413
mkl95 wrote: post #264

In my area, 40+ developers basically fall into two groups: - Burnt out developers who still like their job. These people often have a background in some STEM field, may hold a PhD etc. They can be difficult to work with due to the odd outburst, but their approach to problem solving is pretty constructive. - Burnt out developers who hate their job. This is the most difficult group of people to work with I've encounter…

why do you assume burnout by default?

I'm not assuming, I'm just saying a vast majority of 40+ devs in my area fall into those groups. It's a different story at tech hubs where there's actual career growth.

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

#492

Post by SiempreViernes »

commandlinefan wrote: post #416
kenjackson wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wil…

> most of the staff is white males I'm a computer programmer. Since about the late 90's, virtually all of my coworkers have been Indians. Yet I keep hearing from the DEI group that white males are overrepresented (and that this is bad). I never hear from the DEI group that Indians (or asians) are overrepresented (and whether this is also good or bad).

From that we can conclude that you work at a very unusual workplace, but not much else unless your workplace also includes a noticeable fraction of all software engineers.

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

#493

Post by rdl »

lazyeye wrote: post #472
rdl wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the age discrimination I've ever seen has been anti-Boomerism, not specific fixed ages. i.e. it was "people over 30-40" 20 years ago, and now is basically mainly against people in their 60s+. I've never (as far as I can tell) experienced age discrimination, and I'm >40 now. There may be passive age discrimination (incompatible schedules for people with families, etc.), but most of the companies I've interacte…

It doesnt matter what label you put on it, its still age discrimination.

Yes but it means the OP is less likely to experience it.

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

#494

Post by AlchemistCamp »

duxup wrote: post #79
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…

After age 40 I did a coding bootcamp to change careers. Another guy in the camp was doing the same. We compared notes on interviews. One day he gets a call back from a recruiter and he put the recruiter on speaker phone. She told them they liked him but chose someone else because (drum roll) culture fit. He asked what she meant by that and she outright said: "The other person is younger. You're old." We were shocked…

I entered the industry in my early 30s and remember getting a really helpful piece of advice from a meetup talk. Enthusiasm for learning and the technology is a counter for most of the ageism in interviews. It will stop people from assuming you're set in your ways, a curmudgeon, out of date, or anything on those lines.

The "culture fit" excuse is a tough one, though. That framing can be used to unknowingly discriminate in all kinds of ways.

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

#495

Post by AlchemistCamp »

t_mann wrote: post #208
duxup wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After age 40 I did a coding bootcamp to change careers. Another guy in the camp was doing the same. We compared notes on interviews. One day he gets a call back from a recruiter and he put the recruiter on speaker phone. She told them they liked him but chose someone else because (drum roll) culture fit. He asked what she meant by that and she outright said: "The other person is younger. You're old." We were shocked…

Would be interesting to compare this across areas. My impression is that eg Finance (another popular destination for mid-career switches) is far more open in that regard. Experience, even if it's in a different field (as long as it's a technical role or one that will give you a rich set of contacts) seems to generally confer seniority. Would be interesting if someone could weigh in.

What are some common paths for people who make that jump?

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

#496

Post by pvarangot »

t_mann wrote: post #208
duxup wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After age 40 I did a coding bootcamp to change careers. Another guy in the camp was doing the same. We compared notes on interviews. One day he gets a call back from a recruiter and he put the recruiter on speaker phone. She told them they liked him but chose someone else because (drum roll) culture fit. He asked what she meant by that and she outright said: "The other person is younger. You're old." We were shocked…

Would be interesting to compare this across areas. My impression is that eg Finance (another popular destination for mid-career switches) is far more open in that regard. Experience, even if it's in a different field (as long as it's a technical role or one that will give you a rich set of contacts) seems to generally confer seniority. Would be interesting if someone could weigh in.

Old companies also hire old people more easily. Microsoft, Apple, aerospace and defense contractors.

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

#497

Post by baryphonic »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #293
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.…

> DEI efforts, and often those leading them, are increasingly the most biased and close minded parts of the organization. That's a feature, not a bug. As Ibram X Kendi says, "the only remedy to past discrimination, is present discrimination".

> That's a feature, not a bug. As Ibram X Kendi says, "the only remedy to past discrimination, is present discrimination".

Not only is this logically fallacious (has Kendi really considered every possible remedy?), but it is belied by historical fact. Chinese people were heavily discriminated against in America at one time. Today, Chinese people and their descendants are among the most successful ethnic groups in America, but have never received any sort of affirmative action program. In fact, Chinese people are still discriminated against (by e.g. Ivy League admissions offices) for being "too successful."

My experiences with DEI acolytes who follow the likes of Kendi, Crenshaw, Coates & DiAngelo is that they respond to these inconvenient facts with mystical assertions about successful non-white groups being "white adjacent" or beneficiaries of "white supremacy."

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

#498

Post by ellen364 »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #293
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.…

> DEI efforts, and often those leading them, are increasingly the most biased and close minded parts of the organization. That's a feature, not a bug. As Ibram X Kendi says, "the only remedy to past discrimination, is present discrimination".

That Kendi quote is incredibly polarising, but makes sense when you think about his view of the world. The Kendi quote that helped me understand where he’s coming from was “When I see racial disparities, I see racism.”

Some comments on this post mention the irony of diversity initiatives that discriminate. Kendi’s argument, I think, is that there’s no good reason for occupations to be skewed towards one race or gender or age or whatever, so additional / opposite discrimination simply undoes the initial bias.

I think that’s a challenging POV for a couple of reasons.

First, for those of us in well paid or high status jobs, like software development, it’s a POV that suggests “maybe you don’t deserve it quite as much as you imagine”. That’s a tough thing to consider, doesn’t feel great and probably isn’t going to be popular.

Second, it’s really hard (impossible?) to know the extent to which culture has affected distribution into occupations. But some people seem confident that our status quo is natural and fair and some people seem confident that it’s unnatural and unfair. When people with those different POVs talk to each other, they’re starting with a big gap in how they understand the world.

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

#499

Post by bradlys »

FFRefresh wrote: post #250
eldaisfish wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

comparing to the population at large isn't the most valid thing to do. Many fields are dominated by women - nursing to name just one. Even within nursing, there are a lot of latino and phillipino nurses. by your logic, the largest ethnic group of nurses in a country like the US or UK should be white women. There are many more factors at play here.

To be clear, that's not my logic, it is of my previous employer. I don't think trying to index hiring decisions to the broad population distribution is a good thing. But if you HAD to index to a population distribution, I think it should be tied to the pipeline of competent candidates. However, my previous employer was already fairly representative of the pipeline in the summer of 2020. The protests that summer sent…

> But if you HAD to index to a population distribution, I think it should be tied to the pipeline of competent candidates. However, my previous employer was already fairly representative of the pipeline in the summer of 2020.

Most companies are representative of their pipeline but then if you set that as the benchmark - well those DEI people would get fired and never be able to have a job or be able to start a culture war over a mostly non-existent issue.

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

#500

Post by SiempreViernes »

daenz wrote: post #431
actuator wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly this battle is lost. I understand affirmative action and the need to do it if there has been some systematic bias preventing outcomes but this has become such a touchy topic that how it is done is not debatable lest you be seen sexist. I have sat in hiring debriefs where the criterias used for selection have been very subjective but no one will want to acknowledge that they are trying to do positive bias to do…

After conducting an interview, before I had a chance to write my review (which was customary, while it was fresh), I was sat down by someone more senior than me who said, explicitly "we are hiring this person." There was a "wink wink" dynamic to it. This person was pretty inexperienced, but a woman. This never happened with any of the male candidates. We hired her. Unrelated, it turned out to be a horrible fit for he…

Getting a job and then immediately loosing it is obviously a bad fit for everyone, running the whole hiring process in the first place that close to folding seems pretty dishonest.
Post reply on HN