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Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

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Re: Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

#161
post #4

How does this differ from companies and elected officials openly saying right now that females and minorities are preferred for X position, like vice president of USA or CEO of Reddit?

Some people are running a marathon, half way through it is discovered half of them had been given weighted shoes that made them run significantly slower. The organizers and racers agree this is wrong and unfair, and so they make sure everyone has correct shoes for the rest of the race. Yet those half of the racers that had weighted shoes are several miles behind the rest. What would you suggest be done?

Okay, let's play the silly analogies game.

Some people from group A enjoy running and can run fast, therefore join marathons and are good at it.

Some people from group B enjoy playing table tennis and have great reflexes, therefore join table tennis tournaments and are good at it.

Some other people realise that marathons have way more A people than B people, and since marathons are prestigious they force equal ratio of A/B people in marathons, effectively reducing the overall quality of marathons and keeping A people (who would thrive) out of them.

Everyone is unhappy, except the ones who forced the outcome and the ones who got into the prestigious sport without deserving it.

Re: Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversity is only for white people. Look at the diversity on the board of Mitsubishi: https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/about/bmembers/

Japan's population is something like 98% Japanese ethnicity.

And you think racism has nothing to do with that being the case? Meaning why do you think a country as successful as Japan is not filled with a diversity of immigrants from other races?

Re: Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the English thing. I lived in Singapore for 10 years and have heard so many words pronounced wrong. To give an example one of my ex coworkers used to say the word swap as sw-app. Another one said return as ret-urn. I did ask them and they said they are taught phonics and so they just say the words how they are written. English is such a turd language. We have so many rules and then all those rules…

English is the simplest Latin based language. This has nothing to do with pronunciation but not even knowing basic words. Or how to communicate. Only a small percentage of Indians speak English and most statistics on it are heavily inflated. The Indian English Education system is the same one the Japanese and Koreans use. And they don't know English. The reality is it's like if you learned Spanish in middle school to…

Whilst it uses a lot of Latin words (mostly via French), English is actually a Germanic language.

Re: Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

#164
post #53

I was a consultant for an American company that also hired dozens of cheap consultants from development countries. Mostly India but also neighbouring countries and some Eastern European countries. Indians were by far the hardest to work with. They ghosted women systematically which was a nightmare for our project manager. They also lied shamelessly about their qualifications which led to absurd situations. The proble…

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Re: Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the assumption here? Marginalized groups will be hired even if they aren't the better candidate? Doesn't that Peter-Principle them right out of the gate? Are we sure that this leads to better long term outcomes?

I am always amazed by this assumption that firms hire "the better candidate", absent DEI initiatives or such. In reality, people often hire the one they like best - which often tends to naturally be someone who resembles themselves. Not to mention, very very few companies and positions within those companies operate at a level where they will succeed or fail based on whether they have the best possible candidate. For…

Specifically in software, hiring is still not particularly objective, despite a decade+ of trying now. We still aren’t good at making truly objective interviews - it’s really hard, I’ve been involved in hiring at many companies and it’s just not an exact science. Ironically, the most objective hiring practices are the most hated(including by me) - lowest-common-denominator leetcode style formulaic questions with defined answers with little interpretation required by the interviewer

Re: Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

#166
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t fix racism/sexism by being racist/sexist.

Do you have sources for this? Because from what I’ve read affirmative action has been huge in giving that initial boost for creation of more generational wealth. I mean affirmative action for white people is effectively why white people are so ahead in this country (red lining)

That’s not how citations work. Can’t prove a negative. It’s on YOU to provide proof because you’re the one making the assertion that future racial discrimination fixes past injustice (which I wholeheartedly disagree with).

Re: Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of them just can't speak English correctly. Only a small percentage of the individuals who speak English at a proficient level of those who do, they predominately come from very wealthy upper caste families and now you have a new problem. There is something very confusing to me in this paragraph. You put forth as a premise (at least if I am understanding the logic of the paragraph correctly) that fluency in En…

I think he might be implying some issues related to the caste system. It’s been discussed on HN before about how some members of the upper caste may not treat other team members from a lower caste appropriately. Despite no longer being in India, and despite that behavior not being acceptable in the host country.

> It’s been discussed on HN before...

Yes, it has been used on HN as a bludgeon but the reality is a little different!

Yes, the ancient caste system still exists in India. But today it is only relevant when it comes to politics and marriage. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/caste-is-no...

Re: Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

#168
This entire comment section seems to have gone down the drain to Reddit-tier exchanges. People giving their own false commentary on broad topics just for the sake of it without even trying to understand contexts, this is totally not expected on HN.

Re: Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is the simplest Latin based language. This has nothing to do with pronunciation but not even knowing basic words. Or how to communicate. Only a small percentage of Indians speak English and most statistics on it are heavily inflated. The Indian English Education system is the same one the Japanese and Koreans use. And they don't know English. The reality is it's like if you learned Spanish in middle school to…

> English is the simplest Latin based language. Any sources for this? The lack of certain complex features (eg. gendered words) does make it seem true, but English borrows from a lot of sources and is very inconsistent. A comparison I like to make is that Japanese is one of the simplest to pronounce languages. If you learn the kana, you essentially learn all of the phonemes (there's a bit more nuance). I'd like to kn…

Well, I learned it by watching HBO, so it can't be that hard...

Re: Infosys asked HR not to hire 'Indian-origin candidates', 'women with children'

#170
Unfortunately not hiring married women with kids or asking women about their plan to have kids, not hiring older candidates or candidates with sick family members is a common practice in India. Glad that these evil companies are being called out in other parts of the world
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