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To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

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Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#21
post #4

We need more genetic diversity in STEM. When will we be introducing DNA testing and doing mutation testing on all candidates to ensure perfectly equal distribution of all genetic combinations among employees?

Eliminating a source of bias that might prevent optimal workers from being hired is efficient, the initiatives listed in your sarcastic strawman are not.

>optimal workers

Do you actually talk / think in those terms?

At the end of the day, all I care about is: are you smart, can you think critically, will you get along with others. Same goes for everyone who's hired me. And a lot of it is just chance/luck.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#22
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they've fully diversified their workforce by selecting for people who do not currently have jobs. Nobody with a job can -- or at least, will -- take a week off of work to do a test interview.

That was a bit snarky but I wonder if you do have somewhat of a point. I'd expect a lot more diversity among unemployed and underemployed people than among your typical engineering demographic.

That's the problem they're trying to address here.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#23
post #15

Any hiring process will by definition favour certain kinds of candidates at the expense of others. Having a week long paid trial is a great way for the company to be less conservative about who they try out, but will also mean they’ll miss out on candidates who are already employed and unwilling to take time off or quit their job to participate in it. In the end though, if they can tap into an undervalued candidate p…

That seems unclear to me too. Can the 1 week trial period begin after you gave your employer your 2 weeks.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#25
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I had that exact one once early on. I did actually get an "if you could go back in time a couple years, what advice would you give yourself?" a little while ago, which 1) threw me, because I wasn't expecting much of that formula crap from this place, and 2) I hadn't prepped for, so I just punted, being able to think of very little other than things unrelated to work but also lame, cliché, or "don't interview…

> you've basically got to make something up Do you? I just say "sorry, that hasn't happened to me" if I need a 'not applicable' answer. I don't think it's affected my hit rate. I generally just act completely openly and honestly in interviews. Could be a regional thing.

I think you can get away with a little of that, but you've gotta read the room a bit and have answers for some of it, and without prepping some fiction-loosely-based-in-reality ahead of time, I definitely do not. If everything's great but I no-answer three of those formula "soft" questions that probably looks bad. One, I'm maybe OK. I'm honest about other stuff but you pull out one of those "questions to ask in an interview" questions, you're probably getting a tall tale.

[EDIT] actually I'm fine on "tell me about when you fucked up". I've got a good real answer for that one.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#26
post #7

As an Aspie/ADD, I have never passed any formal interview, even for an intern position (sic!). (You can compare and contrast it with my GitHub/Resume/blog to make a judgment.) Fortunately, many times (even for mid-size companies or research institutes) the hiring was less formal. For small startups, where it is informal, I didn't feel at a disadvantage. For big, I don't believe I can pass through the first filter. It…

At my startup we did a round of "come in for an interview, pass FizzBuzz on a whiteboard, if you passed FizzBuzz you can come back for a 4 hour trial where you solve a small task representative of normal work in our normal work environment". We only hired students for 10-20 hours per week, so fairly low risk for both sides.

My main takeaway from that was that the actual talking was close to useless for judging candidates. One of the best people we hired looked horrible in the interview, while some others were great at talking about themselves but were at best mediocre otherwise.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#27

> Five years in, 75% of Ultranauts’ staff are on the autistic spectrum – and one reason for this is its innovative approach to hiring. Given that autism has a significant male to female ratio (quick Googling suggested 4:1 for Male:Female for autism), this seems to indicate that their percentage of women developers is low.

4:1 is the US average for software engineers.[1]

[1] https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#28
post #7

As an Aspie/ADD, I have never passed any formal interview, even for an intern position (sic!). (You can compare and contrast it with my GitHub/Resume/blog to make a judgment.) Fortunately, many times (even for mid-size companies or research institutes) the hiring was less formal. For small startups, where it is informal, I didn't feel at a disadvantage. For big, I don't believe I can pass through the first filter. It…

> I've heard it so many times about people interviewing others, as "(s)he is smart, passed all test, but weird, I don't like to work with her/him". At this point, it is systemic discrimination.

No, that's a misnomer. Systematic discrimination implies the system itself codifies this behaviour - but instead, what is codified is _team fit_, which is often based heavily on intuition. Humans are capable of being good judges of interpersonal compatibility, and the best interviewers employ an appropriate amount of intuition in the process because only a limited interaction is possible and every bit of information available deserves to have some chance of being factored into the assessment.

Let's face it: for neurotypical people, a lot of autists are very hard to get along with. Their behaviour is not always predictable in the way that we need behaviour to be in a workplace; and when more pronounced, their specific needs are not something that we want to have to address in our coworkers.

It's good that small companies are often able to accomodate folks like yourself, but expecting big companies that more often than not are looking for cookiecutter, commodity employees that will fit the HR process lifecycle. If you need more input and aren't demonstrably going to produce more output than the average worker, from their perspective you're not the best choice to hire, period.

Of course, I'm sure you'll find plenty of people who vehemently disagree with me, claim that it is in fact systemic discrimination to want something like "team cohesion", and will make you a protected class soon enough.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#29
Am in this demo, and my interview experiences have been bewildering.

Whenever someone has actually tried to assess my skills and get me do something, so almost never, it is always fine. In an interview, I have almost no idea what is happening and it is never fine.

Yes, this isn't going to suit everyone but the point is that suits some people who were totally shut out before.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#30
post #15

Any hiring process will by definition favour certain kinds of candidates at the expense of others. Having a week long paid trial is a great way for the company to be less conservative about who they try out, but will also mean they’ll miss out on candidates who are already employed and unwilling to take time off or quit their job to participate in it. In the end though, if they can tap into an undervalued candidate p…

In this case, the week long paid trial is work from home, and I did not notice anything that said that the work had to be done during normal businesses hours. It should be possible for most people to fit that in around their current employment.
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