How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire • Hacker News Board

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#271

Post by cbd1984 » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 2:34 PM UTC

waylandsmithers wrote: post #264

yaddayadda wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many orchestras have found a fairly simple solution to the problem - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22blind+auditions%22+hiring+music... I'd hope to have a similar 'audition' approach that included not only basic programming skills but also –and as a junior level programmer, more importantly – learning skills. For example, commenting or debugging internal framework code (something that all interviewees are experiencing f…

That would be pretty cool-- and although software development is meritocratic, it's not as meritocratic as those orchestras, right?. They simply want the best musicians PERIOD, whereas lots of software companies would probably hesitate to hire someone with a lot of talent but a toxic attitude.

I honestly don't know: Is a toxic attitude somehow not a problem in the orchestra world?

Because you'll never convince me that no musicians have toxic attitudes. Even at the symphony orchestra level.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#272

Post by vidarh » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

UrMomReadsHN wrote: post #243

orbitur wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a very relevant study, since you (and Ames) are just guessing at the motive. Many people are consciously racist, not in a "I want them all lynched" way, but in a "meh, I'd rather not meet with a black guy, probably a waste of time" way. Of course they aren't going to admit that sort of bias. And again, you're just guessing at what happened. There is indeed subconscious bias, and it rears its ugly head when…

It isn't "a study," It is an article summarizing a lot of the data on subconscious bias as it relates to race, specifically white/black in the US. If you read it you'd know that. Huh? I never guessed that anything happened or guessing at any motives of anyone...? The same resume experiment has been tested with male/female names as well.

You wrote "There is a TON of data out there demonstrating we all have subconscious bias."

Is that not guessing at motives (or the lack of a motive, I suppose)?

The point the above commenter made is that the CV example does not demonstrate subconscious bias. The researcher in question said they were "probably unaware", and said that "if you ask someone on the hiring committee", implying that they did not even try to measure whether or not this bias was conscious or not, but that they assume a lot of it was subconscious.

It's quite possible - even likely - they're right about that, but from the description it does not sound like that study is a good basis for demonstrating subconscious basis.

> The same resume experiment has been tested with male/female names as well.

Many people openly admit to biases against females in certain jobs, so that too is a bad example for establishing subconscious bias.

I agree with you that there is a lot of subconscious bias (and the article has much better examples, such as the knife example where there's no motive for people to pick the wrong person), but it's not clear that the CV example demonstrates subconscious bias. It certainly does demonstrate bias though.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#273

Post by doorhammer » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 2:41 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #250

UrMomReadsHN wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus... did you even read the article you are commenting on? It isn't just one example. And it isnt about being racist, its about racism without racists. > One study conducted by a Brigham Young University economics professor showed that white NBA referees call more fouls on black layers, and black referees call more fouls on white players. Another study that was published in the American Journal of Sociology showed…

> did you even read the article you are commenting on? No, I was just commenting on the logic of the quote in the parent comment, which I find faulty. I'm not saying people aren't racist, or subconsciously racist; I'm just saying that you can't reduce any statistical effect down to racist, while other explanations are just as possible. > And what the hell does someone coming from a poor neighborhood have anything to…

> No

I'd really encourage you to read it an other articles on implicit bias; they're really important issues that have disastrous impacts.

> I'm pretty sure that if you run statistics, you would find out that people from poor neighborhoods are more likely to be criminals, violent, less educated, less intelligent.

The problem I have with this is that it's a hunch that sounds reasonable, but there's no data to support the claim. I think we need to be especially careful in situations with implicit bias to vet all of our assumptions, because in aggregate, they have really negative impacts on large subgroups of people.

Here's a link to the source document for the linked article: http://www.povertyactionlab.org/publication/are-emily-and-gr...

That article references other journal articles that review exactly what you're talking about, varying only location. It appears that it helps, but helps whites more. I didn't read that article (I'm at work; only have time for so much research, which probably should be no time at all :P)

> I'm not from the US, but don't many American blacks have white-sounding names? And I assume those blacks are more likely to come from families that are wealthier and better educated.

The article says, "Each resume listed identical qualifications except for one variation... names"

I looked into the underlying source article and they list and control for the education of the applicants, which means there's no need to judge their education by their name, since you already have it.

I think the problem a lot of people have is that it feels a lot like we're saying everyone is racist, which feels a lot like an attack. To spin it a little differently, I'd personally say we're all biased. You could go through any long list of cognitive biases and implicit racial bias would just be one of the myriad everyone is subject to in some magnitude. It's a matter of being aware of it and really questioning your founding assumptions so you can reduce the bias where possible. The problem with racism is that it has real and lasting impacts right now on minorities, and is particularly insidious (if you ask me).

I really think it would be worth your time to read the article and follow some of the linked articles. It's really interesting information that's relevant.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#274

Post by reledi » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 2:54 PM UTC

namelezz wrote: post #212

reledi wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hidden talent; those good at doing a job but bad at getting one I really like this. If you're bad at getting a (good) job then employers safely assume you would also be bad at the job - it's too risky otherwise. But often that isn't the case, because there's a lot of "hidden talent". What can we do to give those people a fair chance? We need effective ways to discover hidden talent. The process you described worked…

Are there ways to help those talents get together and start their own companies? Otherwise, they may go to interviews and keep getting rejected.

That's a possibility worth exploring, especially with services like https://assembly.com popping up. Starting a company is still a huge risk compared to being an employee though, and a good employee might not make a good entrepreneur.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#275

Post by midnightclubbed » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 3:03 PM UTC

namelezz wrote: post #233

midnightclubbed wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes yes and yes. On #2 if a candidate gets to a technical interview they are fairly likely to know if they crashed and burned or not. If they are not right for some other issue (they didn't communicate clearly, were rude, dwelt on negatives about previous employers) then there is not always a professional way to say it other than a straight NO. A decent candidate will learn from difficult questions and things they tr…

"providing all the help they should need to nail their next opportunity". Too bad most interviewers do not care that much to go that far due to legal risks, especially here in US.

The interviewer generally doesn't need to explicitly tell the interviewee what went wrong (and yes there are possible legal implications if you do). As an interviewee if you are unable to answer technical questions (and unable to work through to the answer without being told the solution) then it should be obvious what you need to work on. If the interviewer asks a question that you stumble on or give a vague answer to then that should also be flagging something to work on.

Of course you can seem to nail the interview and get no-where but in that case you're being rejected for something out of your control (another better candidate, internal politics) in which case you have a good chance at your next interview. Or you are delusional about your own skills and experience, not sure what to do there though!

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#276

Post by msteinberg » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 3:09 PM UTC

RobertKerans wrote: post #98

kazinator wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there is the perspective from having heard "no": 1. Never believe anyone's rationale regarding their "no". They acted on instinct, and made up a clever story to afterward to convince themselves it was a rational decision. Or worse: it was some prejudice that they are consciously covering up. Or perhaps some internal reasons that they don't want to discuss with outsiders like sudden news that affects all hiring a…

I don't do the actual hiring, but sit in in one of the two interviews, and as a team we carefully discuss each candidate. We've got a good team, the work environment & people are great, hiring process is solid enough. And we all agree that, almost without exception, we can tell within about thirty seconds of meeting them whether someone is likely to be hired. I assume this is overwhelmingly common? Bar sending a poli…

Robert,

It's interesting that you're allowing hiring decisions to be influenced by what you think is best for yourself. What's best for the company can and should be a secondary concern. I've also found it useful to do the following:

1 Telling HR that candidates are flaky. It's easy to convince HR that every single one will leave in a year or less, especially these hipster kids that are interested in the latest startup.

2 Telling HR that candidates will take forever to add value, even if we have a smaller component that needs working on. This is still easy to convince them, given the ramp up to some of the prototypes that we do.

3 If the candidate actually makes it to the interview stage, I just finish my questioning and tell HR that the candidate has an attitude problem. This works even if they get every question right, or if they go into detail. The latter works especially because they think they're showing value, but they actually make themselves easy to label instead as arrogant up-jumpers with a "behavioral problem"- and I can easily convince my HR of that.

4 Telling HR that candidates don't know a specific tech well enough. Even if that tech has a ramp-up of a week or less. Because again, HR will take my word for it.

You're also right about those thirty seconds. It is the best and only approximation that one can make. Forget the interview, forget allowing them to show value, and if they do, they have an attitude problem.

Good luck with your recruitment efforts and next quarter.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#277

Post by RobertKerans » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 3:11 PM UTC

Fede_V wrote: post #253

RobertKerans wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've read it, and tbh, we do interview for a set of role-specific traits for each position; we aren't a million miles off what Kahnemann suggests - however there are environmental factors that do skew things (IT world in geographic area is small which heavily affects prior knowledge of experienced candidates; not primarily an IT company; not in a fashionable sector). I must say I'm not advocating snap judgement…

"I must say I'm not advocating snap judgement at all. I just think it is very common (as Kahnemann states). What he states as an ideal doesn't necessarily make an awful lot of difference in many situations; the snap judgement can very often be the same as the careful one (though external factors that partly force/aid preselection bias things greatly in this respect)." Do you have any evidence at all to back this up?…

I'm extremely sure that we do get false positives/negatives. Nevertheless I believe the external factors swing toward it not mattering an enormous amount. I'm more than willing to be proved wrong. As I said, we do very carefully assess relevant skills; it just doesn't seem to make a lot of difference to the end decision. This can obviously be attributed completely to bias, to retroactively reassessing, but I don't think that's correct. The crux is a. can I get on with this person, b. can I sit beside this person for 8 hours a day, c. do they want to learn/can they teach us. The technical side is less important than these things, and is easier to filter in many respects.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#278

Post by msteinberg » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 3:14 PM UTC

Osiris wrote: post #207

RobertKerans wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't do the actual hiring, but sit in in one of the two interviews, and as a team we carefully discuss each candidate. We've got a good team, the work environment & people are great, hiring process is solid enough. And we all agree that, almost without exception, we can tell within about thirty seconds of meeting them whether someone is likely to be hired. I assume this is overwhelmingly common? Bar sending a poli…

I've found that you can tell within 30 seconds if we're not going to hire someone. It's much easier to filter out the people that won't fit than those that will.

Yes, because those thirty seconds are who the person is as an individual. It is the best and only approximation that one can make. Forget the interview, forget allowing them to show value, and if they do, they have an attitude problem.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#279

Post by edraferi » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 3:15 PM UTC

yaddayadda wrote: post #260

yarou wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot upvote your comment ( and the parent ) enough. If the labor market in tech was a perfectly competitive market where all parties had perfect information, hiring would be a lot more straightforward. However, as you state, cognitive biases and lack of rationality on both the supply and demand side muddy the waters.

Many orchestras have found a fairly simple solution to the problem - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22blind+auditions%22+hiring+music... I'd hope to have a similar 'audition' approach that included not only basic programming skills but also –and as a junior level programmer, more importantly – learning skills. For example, commenting or debugging internal framework code (something that all interviewees are experiencing f…

Blind auditions make sense if the candidate will be working independently, but they (deliberately) don't assess cultural compatibility.

Do you prefer the most skilled person, or a very skilled person who gets along well with your team, understands your industry, and cares about your mission?

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#280

Post by BogdanCalin » Fri, Jan 09, 2015, 3:17 PM UTC

HackerNewsWayne wrote: post #167

BrookeTAllen wrote: post #124

Hi, this is Brooke, the original hiring manager. I'm new to HN so please excuse me if I violate protocol. I agree, life is about treating people well. However, although I find hiring is probably the single most satisfying thing I did on my job, it was very hard emotionally because in the case of nearly everyone I don’t’ hire it is because they say “NO” to me, and boy, rejection hurts. But at least I have a job and my…

Did I read it right when you said you were hiring in Jan 2014, but retired in Feb 2014? May I know if the capital markets have become so broken too that you decided not to participate anymore? I think this will be helpful to all aspiring algo traders.

The hiring was made in 2004 not 2014.