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

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571–580 of 666 posts

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

#571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's kind of ageism-adjacent, but I wonder if some of it is a bias that expects that past 40 you shouldn't really be needing to apply to jobs by resume drops any more. I really wish people would stop this. I don't really keep in touch with many coworkers due to time. My friends tend to come from outside of work and they're not software devs. It definitely is age-ism adjacent; having to "network" to get a job is muc…

> I don't really keep in touch with many coworkers due to time. My friends tend to come from outside of work and they're not software devs. 'friend' is a much higher bar than 'somebody in your network'. plenty of folks i worked with over the years, who i haven't heard from in decades, but i'd move them to the head of the line if they called up asking about work. i remember who got shit done and who didn't, and don't…

I think they were implying that their friends do not overlap with work, while your comment seems to allude to friends you've made from work.

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

#572
post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that DEI groups can seem very homogeneous, without diverse viewpoints, and they can weild large amounts of power. Posters above you have illustrated how issues of DEI are not investigated, if they happen to not fit into the agenda of the DEI group, e.g. examples of Ageism, or things that discriminate against rather than for white men. Such effects exist, as the OP article illustrates. To say that the DEI…

> is to elevat[e] the white voice too Elevate?? We are not assigning authority to the white voice, we are assigning hegemony. It is a material fact that whiteness and maleness are the centers of Western philosophy, and everything else is measured based on deviance from that perceived center. There are by now centuries of literature on the matter. > if they happen to not fit into the agenda of the DEI group What you c…

Whiteness and maleness are not and cannot be material facts and it is a category error to insist otherwise, nevermind elevating them as the axiomatic center of your worldview.

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

#573

Throwaway. I'm happy to have more women in tech and hope it occurs or continues. However, virtually everyone recruiting in tech has observed some toxic diversity initiatives, I would venture. Some examples I have seen personally or one degree removed from me. - pressure on HMs to hire more women despite 95% of applicants being male - people in interview panels openly saying "but he's a white man" / "do we want to hir…

I have mentioned this on Hacker News before: At this one job, we had only two remotely viable candidates for an open position. I was on the hiring committee, as I often was in those days. Candidate A: Had worked in the industry, had all of the qualifications, already chock-full of some interesting ideas I wanted to hear more of from the interview alone. Excited at the prospect. Candidate B: Had never worked in the in…

There are morons in a lot of jobs. It sounds like you had one making the decisions. It's only an anecdote though.

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

#574
post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Just my perspective so take it with a grain of salt. It helps to look for positions outside the normal SV roles so places like aerospace, defense contractors, manufacturing, etc. They post a surprising number of CS positions. I would caution, though, that the only role I've seen that pays SV-type salaries ($250k+) was controls engineer for automotive manufacturing. But to be fair, the jobs were all in areas with a co…

The most common paths for people making mid-career moves to finance are from using software skills in industries like aerospace, defense contractors or manufacturing?

That doesn't sound right. I'm not even sure most people transitioning into finance from another career have any software skills at all (beyond Excel).

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

#575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Let me give you a personal anecdote. I built software for an employer that pulled in over $35M over the 13 years that I worked for them and continues to draw approximately 70% of their revenue. This wasn't an application. It was an entire suite of online products. I interfaced directly with C-level executives to go over the strategy, the scope, the features, and the design of each of these products in the lineup. I m…

Thats very impressive to be honest. So to understand better people like you, if you decided to change jobs, would you search for SWE again, or only filter for positions with "senior", "principal" etc.?

If for any SWE position, what would be the motivation/ in which cases would you consider smaller scope of work?

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

#576

My sense is that most responses here are only to the title of the submission (the actual article title is "Gender discrimination in hiring: An experimental reexamination of the Swedish case"). Skimming through said actual article, it looks like the "against men" hiring discrimination is ~completely driven by this: "...In female-dominated occupations such as cleaner, childcare provider, preschool teacher, accounting c…

It takes a certain sort of mindset to ignore the fact that there are many male dominated roles that are low-status, low-pay and "crappy". Not to mention that men dominate fields where the work is physically dangerous; front-line military, forestry, oil rigs, sea fishing, construction and mining.

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

#577

Throwaway. I'm happy to have more women in tech and hope it occurs or continues. However, virtually everyone recruiting in tech has observed some toxic diversity initiatives, I would venture. Some examples I have seen personally or one degree removed from me. - pressure on HMs to hire more women despite 95% of applicants being male - people in interview panels openly saying "but he's a white man" / "do we want to hir…

As a white man in tech, I often ask myself “do we want to hire more white men?” When I’ve interviewed 5 white guys in a row, for a team comprised of mostly/all white guys, that kind of reflection is important.

I’m not trying to discount your experience in any way and it’s certainly possible that everything you’re describing was actually toxic but I don’t see over-indexing on diversity is as problem in and of itself.

Diverse perspectives are an asset, full stop, and representation matters. Our industry clearly does not know how to address this in a way that makes everyone happy so, in the meantime, if the only reason I’m passed over for a job is because I’m over-represented there, so be it.

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

#578
post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just my perspective so take it with a grain of salt. It helps to look for positions outside the normal SV roles so places like aerospace, defense contractors, manufacturing, etc. They post a surprising number of CS positions. I would caution, though, that the only role I've seen that pays SV-type salaries ($250k+) was controls engineer for automotive manufacturing. But to be fair, the jobs were all in areas with a co…

The most common paths for people making mid-career moves to finance are from using software skills in industries like aerospace, defense contractors or manufacturing? That doesn't sound right. I'm not even sure most people transitioning into finance from another career have any software skills at all (beyond Excel).

Sorry, I lost track of the thread comments. I thought the question was how to move from SE to hard engineering fields like mechanical or civil.

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

#579
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Not the degree you seem to think. Otherwise identical twins would have the same personality. You’ve edited your post while I wrote this response. Your final point is a straw man. I didn’t say anything like that. Good day to you

Identical twins aren't exposed to identical environments; if the programmed response was particularly sensitive to small input variations, genes could completely determine interaction with the environment and identical twins could still be very different.

Which is my point. Environment shapes the individual.

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

#580

My company presented a DEI slide a couple years ago showing black employees on the rise, and white on the decline, with targets of 35% black employees by 2025. We also have intern roles that specifically require you be black, or lgtbq. It’s wild. I looked into what it would take to report the job postings, but from what I can tell you need to be discriminated against personally to make any claims.

35% is almost 3x the share of black people in the US population (assuming you are talking about a US company).

Two thoughts on that:

Yes, that is an overcorrection on representation. Many places that are highlighted are having things like 1-3% black employees in any capacity. Yeah getting that to 13% with qualified people would be neat!

Secondly, when it comes to being above the national average I think the local area should be considered. When having a company in an area with a greater % of minorities already, with credentials and other marketable skills, then its not really proportionally. Obviously only if the goal is to be equitable or brag about being equitable, as this kind of proportion would be at the expense of the white population national average.

The main goal is to recruit from areas that are being overlooked. There are plenty, they exist. Not just pester a minority that a recruiter found.

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