Live data from Hacker News

Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

arstechnica.com

141–150 of 464 posts

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#141
I am a female engineer. All of this is so frustrating because whether what Google is doing is right or wrong (and I do have opinions on that to come) about how they are going about this, regardless, this kind of media buzz belittles the general view of value add of female engineers like me.

I work really hard, and I don't want to be given extra breaks, or have the bar lowered. I would rather fail an interview (and I have) than be given a boost in the process.

That being said, one thign that annoys me about the media scrutinizing tech companies like this, is that the MEDIA themselves is one of the most masogogynistic cultures out there, with the most widespread global impact on the perception of male and female roles in society, yet they have the audacity to scrutinize industries who have done far more for society, pumped far more into education programs for just females, both males and females, science fairs etc and provided more opportunities to open the playing field than anyone else.

I went to an engineering school as an Electrical Engineer with a minor in Computer Science and my department was 5% female is f that, despite my school bragging 30% of our school was female. Yeh right, 90% of those girls were management majors, the rest of us were sparsely strewn across the engineering majors.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#142
post #39

> In April of 2017, Google’s Technology Staffing Management team was instructed by Alogna to immediately cancel all Level 3 (0-5 years experience) software engineering interviews with every single applicant who was not either female, Black, or Hispanic and to purge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees from the hiring pipeline. If this were remotely true, we wouldn't see any white men hired in a junior le…

> the manager of YouTube's Tech Staffing Management Team, Allison Alogna So not all of Google, just junior engineers who came in via this manager. Also > Google had a policy that recruiters were not to hire Level 3 ad Level 4 Software Engineers. However, YouTube recruiters were given permission to hire Level 3 and Level 4 Software Engineers, if they were diversity hires. and I've been told the general way to get hire…

There is a good chance if this was true it was just the result of a rogue manager. You can imagine some managers might have incentives to increase diversity, and there is also a policy of non-discrimination in hiring. However, one of the easy ways to increase diversity to achieve your objectives might be to engage in a discriminatory hiring policy. So it might be very tempting for some managers to go rogue if they are not able to hit their objectives using non-discriminatory methods.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#143
post #105

What about if you are white working-class man? Is a middle-class black woman less privileged than a white working-class man? What about short versus tall people? What about beautiful versus ugly people? The halo effect is well-known. The whole thing is just absurd and dehumanising.

> Is a middle-class black woman less privileged than a white working-class man? Yes, on average, significantly. I'd be interested in your definition of "privilege" though.

I'm interested in your definition of privilege. How exactly do the millions of variables that make up a person's life get outweighed by their skin color? Especially when we're comparing two people with similar job paths and economic equality? And how will answering this question not imply making drastic assumptions about an individual based on their race?

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#144
post #80
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accusing people of not reading the memo doesn’t contribute anything to the conversation. If you share Damore’s views, just say so rather than trying to distract.

You do no get to decide what contributes and what does not beyond your +-1. you do not have the moral high ground when you are repeating lies. It is clear to me that anyone that has read the memo, and is not laying will not describe it the way DanHulton did. Seems to me that what ever conversation you want to have it should not be based on falsehoods.

If you believe that, why are you lying about the motives of people you disagree with? There are many people who’ve read the memo (yes, the version with citations) and concluded that Damore’s argument included biological determinism.

You can say that’s wrong and the memo was just sloppy, perhaps by citing subsequent clarifications about that not being his intention.

You can say that’s right and attempt to find stronger scientific support than he did.

What you’re doing instead is saying that people are either lying about having read it or deliberately misrepresenting its contents. That’s what I said had no value since it’s transparently wrong (it’s hard to come up with point by point criticism for something you haven’t read) and prevents engaging with any of the actual ideas.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#145

> In April of 2017, Google’s Technology Staffing Management team was instructed by Alogna to immediately cancel all Level 3 (0-5 years experience) software engineering interviews with every single applicant who was not either female, Black, or Hispanic and to purge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees from the hiring pipeline. If this were remotely true, we wouldn't see any white men hired in a junior le…

As a white man hired at L3 last year, I can confirm this.

In the YouTube organization?

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#146
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you seriously think that Google is going to stop hiring white men? What is claimed sounds like a completely crass method. Whether you like Google or not they typically do things in a fairly data driven method even with their hiring. It is also blatant discrimination that as others claim would be fairly easy to prove in court. This would be stupid. For Google to be both crass and stupid seems unlikely.

They will stop hiring level 3 engineer who are Asian and white according to this allegation. The discrimination against asians matters to me even if you're perfectly happy with it in your social justice utopia that discriminates against me.

[deleted]

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#147
post #124
post #85

I work at Google. It is the most unpleasant place to work, largely because work evaluation is almost 80% politics (might be 100%). I am a senior engineer. You get stuck here because the pay you better than elsewhere, but I think it is a very bad and very sad place to work. My stomach curdles every morning before going to work and I wonder if it is worth it. Many of my peers talk in the same vein. Please consider not…

Consider deleting this post. You can be easily doxxed from your HN post history; it's not worth it.

No way. He will suffer no consequences for speaking out. Everybody can speak their mind freely and reason and objectivity will prevail. We've always been at war with Eastasia.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#148
post #85

I work at Google. It is the most unpleasant place to work, largely because work evaluation is almost 80% politics (might be 100%). I am a senior engineer. You get stuck here because the pay you better than elsewhere, but I think it is a very bad and very sad place to work. My stomach curdles every morning before going to work and I wonder if it is worth it. Many of my peers talk in the same vein. Please consider not…

Performance systems are always political and if you are unlucky driven by Dogbert in hr who's bonus is based on cutting the pay quanta.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#149

Companies should clearly articulate how diversity programs work. It seems like people don't understand that diversity outreach programs don't create an advantage for minorities, instead they level the playing field as once closed pipelines get opened/discovered. I fear that all this recent news about diversity and Google will create an environment where perfectly qualified non Asian minorities won't feel welcomed or…

Isn't this allegation an exact counterpoint to what you are saying? Throwing out the resumes of everyone who isn't hispanic, black, or female seems to be creating an advantage.

This specific allegation seems like "reverse discrimination" sure. But as of right now it's just a one sided allegation presented in a lawsuit. I'll be interested in seeing what the evidence bears out.

I have intimate knowledge of the workings of diversity programs at some of the FAANG and big 4 consultancy companies and none of them involve purging white male applicants. Do postmortems occur when the diversity goals aren't met? Well sure, it IS a targeted diversity program after all. Sourcing initiatives have no bearing on whether a candidate meets a manager's hiring bar or not.

Re: Ex-Google recruiter: I was fired because I resisted “illegal” diversity efforts

#150
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too rejected a job at Google after feeling like they just wanted to pigeon-hole me, so to speak. But, as a former Microsoft employee as well, it's not all sunshine there either. While experiences tend to vary, there I was crammed in a small, loud room with too many other people who I'd argue were more complacent than content. Similarly, I've had colleagues at Facebook describe it more as "exhausting" than high ener…

Yeah, it depends on the project usually. It's like what you are hearing from people at XYZ (a higher rated company on Glassdoor than FB/GOOG I don't want to mention by name) who left to Google and 50% of them returning back after ~1 year telling everyone how much it sucked there :D I really think you should stay in such a company for 1-3 years, build your cash cushion (i.e. stage 1 booster) and then lift-off (make yo…

> people at XYZ who left to Google and 50% of them returning back after ~1 year

If only it were possible to access the data Linkedin has on employee flows. You could get an idea on which companies are actually enjoyable places to work at versus ones that people are fleeing.

Post reply on HN