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

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

#251

Post by soundwave106 »

fhood wrote: post #206
LordKano wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If including your race gives you a leg up, then I think you should do it. I saw a whole lot of casual racism when I was in college, and if that was indicative of the experience of others then you don't owe the rest of us shit.

The ultimate goal from my perspective should be to eliminate implied tribal biases, rather than band-aid them. There's a fair bit of negatives with trying to force the issue with quotas, in my opinion -- by hiring on grounds other than merit, it might even perpetuate the bias. Those hired might for instance be thought of as "second class hires" within the company from the get go. So despite the casual racism that unfortunately exists, I can see why the poster leaves his or her race off applications.

In other fields, hiring can probably be done by ways that try to heavily reduce bias, and get similar increases in diversity without, from what I can see, the negatives of quotas. Some orchestras for instance have used "blind auditions" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_audition) for quite some time, with a noticeable increase in diversity as a result. I see in the Wiki that some tech companies are experimenting with this approach. I'd strongly prefer this sort of system over what Google has (if the details described in the lawsuit end up being true).

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

#252

Post by edanm »

quotemstr wrote: post #203
edanm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the US has 10s of thousands of open developer positions which are going unfilled, then purely from a pragmatic "what would help the economy" perspective, a good lower bound on "enough" is "we are able to fill those open positions".

There is no such thing as a labor shortage --- only a mismatch with respect to salary expectations.

That's kind-of-true, but I think doesn't fit in this case.

I mean, let's take a hypothetical world - only one person knows how to program. You could say "there's no such thing as a labor shortage - just a price mismatch, she should be receiving one billion dollars for every line of code". But you could also say "maybe we should teach a few more people programming. And clearly, lots of software wouldn't get written, because its cost would be too high.

This is the "same" situation, only a bit more spread out. Maybe those 10k jobs legitimately aren't worth paying more for - that doesn't mean that, if there were more programmers and therefore their salaries would be lower, that software wouldn't be valuable. It's still a good indication that there's lots more to do.

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

#253

Post by driverdan »

gwbas1c wrote: post #55

I suspect that lawsuits like this will show that trying to artificially influence diversity through hiring practices is an incorrect approach. When I'm in a hiring position, it's not like we sit around a table and say, "we'd prefer the white male." We just don't have enough women and minorities in the hiring pool to begin with. The problem is that there aren't enough women and minorities entering our field. We just c…

While what you said is true you can still try to improve your own pipeline by targeting places other people look for jobs, using language that minimizes bias (careful here, lots of pseudoscience going around), and ensuring your company culture is welcoming to others (eg not acting like a frat).

You may not be able to expand the opposite end of the pipeline but you can try to make the start of your pipeline as large as possible.

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

#254

Post by izacus »

memo_ree wrote: post #240
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you two should compare where you work and what you do; Google's a big company with over 72.000 employees, it's highly unlikely everyone has the same experience worldwide.

Exactly, two engineers could have an entirely different experience based on their team. Engineers can transfer to different teams too, though that team will obviously look at the engineer's history of performance.

Two engineers on the same team can even have vastly different experience. Google is big enough that it attracts a huge spectrum of engineers and one person's hellish workplace is another person's bliss.

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

#255

Post by jeshbreadnan »

Clanan wrote: post #213
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.

Hey, a fellow New Mexican! Don't see too many of those on here. Would love to hear your stories.

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

#256

Post by macintux »

0xfeba wrote: post #182
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…

I don't understand how this didn't raise red flags from legal/HR. From the article: > In a statement, Google said [...] 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[...]" You can't have it both ways. You're either based solely on merit, or on merit and how non-male and non-whi…

Good luck defining and hiring purely on merit. Good luck separating merit from unconscious biases related to where you've seen merit previously. And typically most of what you've seen previously is people like you.

I've seen plenty of excellent computer engineers who started out as physics majors, or astronomers, or music majors...but they were universally white men (mostly because I've only ever been around white men in this business).

If a black woman came to me with a background in East Asian linguistics, would I naturally associate her with the success stories I've seen, or would I think she's unqualified and needs to get more experience elsewhere?

I suspect the latter.

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

#257

Post by decorator »

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.

You can't reason with ideologues. That's what makes them dangerous.

With an inability to entertain an opposing view there can be no course correction.

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

#258

Post by malkuth23 »

0xfeba wrote: post #182
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…

I don't understand how this didn't raise red flags from legal/HR. From the article: > In a statement, Google said [...] 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[...]" You can't have it both ways. You're either based solely on merit, or on merit and how non-male and non-whi…

Trying to find a diverse pool is fine. You can recruit at historically black colleges, you can offer benefits like family leave or daycare that might appeal statistically more to women. You can try to show that your organization is not racist and will be welcoming to people of color.

It is fine to try and attract a diverse group of applicants, but after they apply, the basis of hiring should be who is qualified.

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

#260

Post by univalent »

thorwawayforg wrote: post #170
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…

Can you tell me more about this? I have interviewed at google 2 times now. The first interview I bombed -- and I knew it. It was my first interview in near 10 years. The second interview I thought I aced. There was not a single answer I could not answer expect one about obscure hardware that nobody uses any more -- which I think was a test on how I handle not knowing something -- I ended up learning something neat. T…

I feel I must respond since I also moved from Dallas to SFO. Equivalent salary will be around 230ish for your 150. You may still struggle to buy a house because of competition. Just a head's up.
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