Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 464 posts

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

#211

Post by nailer »

jmull wrote: post #58
2aa07e2 wrote: post #2

> 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. Plaintiff refused to comply with this request. Good for him. Google is now exc…

I'd just caution you not to buy in too much to the narrative presented by one side of a law suit. You'll pretty much never see a more one-sided presentation of a situation. It may bear out or it may not.

Unless the screenshots are faked, Google has racist/illegal hiring practices. There's no narrative here: just Alogna's own words being published publically.

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

#212

Post by hodgesrm »

JPKab wrote: post #41
2aa07e2 wrote: post #2

> 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. Plaintiff refused to comply with this request. Good for him. Google is now exc…

I'm surprised that people still view Google as a cool place to work. It seems to me that ship sailed years ago. They are a giant corporation reliant on one monopoly product to fund everything else. Employees usually are stuck with some tiny part of a component in a system. The office perks are nice, but are you really going to do interesting work there anymore?

Google has produced some amazing software and continues to do so. I work with Kubernetes and Angular 2, both of which originated there. The quality of design, implementation, and documentation is a model for accomplishment in computer science. As an engineer it's hard not to envy the folks that got to work on those projects.

So...I think it really depends where you work. That's true of all big companies as far as I can tell.

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

#213

Post by Clanan »

colmvp wrote: post #126

I have to say, as an Asian male I found this comment by dirtyid in the article to be succinct and all too true: > "Pour one out for Asian males. Get screwed by affirmative action in education, media representation and now employment but can't get screwed on dating apps." Asian men constantly get grouped as a single entity when it comes to tech and aren't considered an added element of diverseness within the industry…

As a white Irish guy from New Mexico, this attitude irks me as well. No, I'm not the same as every other white guy out there. (I have far more interesting "gringo" stories than a white guy from Connecticut.)

No one should be judged or labeled by their skin color or ethnicity.

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

#214

Post by turc1656 »

"Google said that it would “vigorously defend this lawsuit,” adding that it has a “clear policy to hire candidates based on their merit, not their identity. At the same time, we unapologetically try to find a diverse pool of qualified candidates for open roles, as this helps us hire the best people, improve our culture, and build better products."

You'll notice that official statement from Google did not claim the allegations were false nor that the events by the recruiter's manager did not take place. Defending yourself vigorously doesn't mean you're not guilty. Usually we see companies come right out and say that the claims are false. Google didn't do that, I suspect, because this is almost certainly documented in emails and formal communications. If this guy knew he was stirring the pot and causing issues and making claims of illegal activity, I doubt he didn't put at least some of this in email to protect himself. I'm sure Google performed a preliminary investigation once the lawsuit was filed and found internal emails which clearly show this guy documenting what he was told to do and his objection to it. Emails which the guy probably CC'ed or BCC'ed himself on so that he would also have a record of some of it is probably included/mentioned in the lawsuit when it was filed.

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

#215

Post by znpy »

LordKano wrote: post #135
2aa07e2 wrote: post #2

> 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. Plaintiff refused to comply with this request. Good for him. Google is now exc…

As a black IT professional, I tend to leave the demographic information blank on applications because I want to avoid the racial implications of my application. I don't know if I'll be dismissed because I'm black and I don't want to be an affirmative action hire either. I made it to the 3rd round of interviews with Google back in 2012. Maybe if I had told them I was black, I would have gotten the job.

Unrelated, but this reminds me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwMzZtU5H7I

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

#216

Post by rounce »

chrisper wrote: post #86
SteveCoast wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you failed the test that you were supposed to remove the plates :-O

It's not his job to remove the plates.

Interview task: Implement dirty plate & cutlery classifier.

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

#217

Post by southphillyman »

colmvp wrote: post #126

I have to say, as an Asian male I found this comment by dirtyid in the article to be succinct and all too true: > "Pour one out for Asian males. Get screwed by affirmative action in education, media representation and now employment but can't get screwed on dating apps." Asian men constantly get grouped as a single entity when it comes to tech and aren't considered an added element of diverseness within the industry…

>I've always looked up to tech because it's a realm where we Asians are judged by our skill level and output

Do you think model minority or "Asians are good at math/science" stereotypes have any impact here?

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

#218

Post by eeZah7Ux »

hodgesrm wrote: post #195
xxcode wrote: 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…

Please don't take this the wrong way, but attitudes like what you just described contribute to a toxic work culture--people sticking around just because of the money but hating every minute of it. It implies that people there are not just unhappy but will do/say things they don't believe in just to keep the paychecks rolling in. Working at big companies like Google is not for everyone. Unless you have material reason…

Management is responsible for the environment that is created in a company.

Please don't blame employees that are complaining about stressful working environments - their plate is already full.

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

#219

Post by [deleted] »

decorator wrote: post #159
decorator wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be sure of a counterfactual? Really.

It seems counterfactuals can be known (according to the downvotes). It must be clear how truth-values can be obtained. I must have missed the news about A/B testing reality. Silly me.

[deleted]

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

#220

Post by ashelmire »

gpm wrote: post #87

People should check out the actual complaint [0]. It includes a lot of things the article doesn't including: A screenshot of an email from Allison Alogna to "Team" stating > Please continue with L3 candidates in process and only accept new L3 candidates that are from historically unrepresented groups. Another stating in part > And we should only consider L3s from our underrepresented groups. It also tells us that thi…

Yeesh. Documentation of quotas and racial/gender discrimination in hiring. This is as clear-cut as it gets.
Post reply on HN