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

If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

blog.interviewing.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 496 posts

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#31

Post by chrisBob »

The problem is that it is hard to hire, and if you can pick a criteria up front that makes at least some sense then it can help a lot. Justice Scalia explained why he only takes people from the Ivys:

“I’m going to be picking from the law schools that basically are the hardest to get into. They admit the best and the brightest, and they may not teach very well, but you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. If they come in the best and the brightest, they’re probably going to leave the best and the brightest.”

In this way you are just taking advantage of the hard work that some college admissions committee put in to sorting your candidates.

Of course my current employer has even less diversity. Out of the 50 people in the IT department here I am one of two that didn't go to school here. When I pointed out that fact my boss defended herself and said that she doesn't consider herself to be from here either because she didn't come to to U-M until grad school. That is what qualifies for an outside hire here.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#32

Post by unethical_ban »

Avshalom wrote: post #22
chk_ur_autism wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand your argument here. If we cut through the clutter, you're essentially advocating that you hire people on an individual basis and shouldn't weight at all what school they come from. No?

No, they are advocating hiring from the big 5 and then saying that it's just a coincidence that all the employees they've hired on 'on [their] own merit' are from there.

FYI OP posted alongside you in their own words. What I got from it is "No shit Harvard is better than UPhoenix South Campus" but if we came up with a good way to measure skills and learning capacity independent of rote programming quizzes/etc., hiring from a lower tier school would be less risky.

I know someone who dropped out and is now making plenty of money at a software development gig. I also know CS grads who can't think about anything outside their little realm to save their lives. Point is: some schools legit don't filter well for learning capacity.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#33

Post by jasode »

leeny wrote: post #8
w1ntermute wrote: post #5

This is a good idea in theory, but the problem in practice is that for every Emily or Anthony, there are a hundred students at 2nd and 3rd tier universities who, partly through their own failures and partly due to the unfortunate circumstances they’re in, are completely incompetent. I often find that those who are so keen on “hiring broadly” have never worked in a company that hires primarily from Podunk State - your…

That's why we're really proud of what we do at interviewing.io. All students have to go through a series of practice interviews, so by the time they talk to companies, we know they're great, and so far, most of the students we've presented have gotten offers, independently of their backgrounds. With our model, we free up companies from having to worry about exactly what you described because we incur the vetting.

> With our model, we free up companies from having to worry about exactly what you described because we incur the vetting.

I looked at your webpage & FAQ for employers. (https://interviewing.io/employers)

Can you say how much your service costs?

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#34

Post by dionidium »

naturalgradient wrote: post #10

I was an undergraduate at a no-name university for various personal reasons. A Google, Microsoft and other big tech co offices were nearby. Throughout my undergrad, not a single event, talk or recruiting opportunity emerged. I understand this: the top people are the same everywhere but it does not economically make sense to do events to potentially hire 1-2 people. I am now at a world famous grad school and there are…

I recently moved from St. Louis to New York City. The number of recruiting emails I receive has probably quadrupled (or more). In all things, it helps to be where the people you want to find you are looking.

Also: protip for people in the South or Midwest who are open to relocation: change your online profiles to say you're in the new location.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#35

Post by matthewrobertso »

Avshalom wrote: post #22
chk_ur_autism wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand your argument here. If we cut through the clutter, you're essentially advocating that you hire people on an individual basis and shouldn't weight at all what school they come from. No?

No, they are advocating hiring from the big 5 and then saying that it's just a coincidence that all the employees they've hired on 'on [their] own merit' are from there.

Where does GP advocate for this? As I read it, he is saying that there are some potential bad hires from lower tier schools that should be avoided. I don't think this involves 5 schools or GP's hiring history.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#36

Post by dsr_ »

chrisBob wrote: post #31

The problem is that it is hard to hire, and if you can pick a criteria up front that makes at least some sense then it can help a lot. Justice Scalia explained why he only takes people from the Ivys: “I’m going to be picking from the law schools that basically are the hardest to get into. They admit the best and the brightest, and they may not teach very well, but you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. If th…

Except, of course, for the legacy admissions.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#37

Post by drewg123 »

When I was at Google, I was asked if I wanted to make a recruiting trip to my alma mater. I was excited until I found out they were talking about my grad school where I got my MS, and not UB, a large state school where I got my BS. I told them I'd be happy to take a trip to recruit at UB. I got mostly crickets back from that reply. However, I ended up getting signed up for a series where they had a panel of a few HR (sorry, "people ops") folks and a SWE or two talking over Google Hangouts to auditoriums full of kids at FIVE different schools which they called "Long Tail". (and UB wasn't even one of them)

I think they are missing an incredible amount of talent this way. In my circle of friends, there were 3-4 other people that Google would have been lucky to have, and two of them were women They just don't understand that some people like me, who can get into the (mostly private) elite schools choose to go to a "long tail" school for a variety of reasons (financial, family obligations, etc). There are lots of similar schools all over the country.

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#38

Post by keepper »

pfschell wrote: post #29

This article treats "CS graduates" as interchangeable cogs, where the only variables are race, parents' income, and where they grew up. The reality is that particular tech companies have very specific needs around the kind of training someone has. CS curricula vary widely in terms of technologies and depths covered, and applicability to real world problems. A company like Apple has litte use for someone who has only…

Im sorry, but this is where you need to check your own biases at the door.

For example, your statement "A company like Apple has little use for someone who has only ever worked on IT-focused Java development.".

Actually, Apple has a need for people like these. Their whole web/it/retail infrastructure is a Java backend ( i believe webobjects moved to Java, then was deprecated as an outside project, but kept for internal use, my knowledge is dated on this). Take a look at their jobs site[1]

Now my point wasn't about apple and java. But our own biases that we bring, at every level. We all have biases, but most direct way to effect biases in hiring, is to close your pool down. You need a really wide opening at the beginning of your sourcing funnel to have diversity ( and i mean diversity at every level ).

I work at one of the "big 4" and went to an ivy, but guess what, some of the smartest people I have ever met, had to go to schools based on what their parents could afford. Thats a HUGE selection bias.

So yes, widen your funnel, and recognize your biases ( that we all have, and that basically boil down to having less knowledge ).

[1] https://jobs.apple.com/us/search?job=112907897&openJobId=112...

Re: If you care about diversity, don't just hire from the same five schools

#40

Post by Avshalom »

matthewrobertso wrote: post #35
Avshalom wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are advocating hiring from the big 5 and then saying that it's just a coincidence that all the employees they've hired on 'on [their] own merit' are from there.

Where does GP advocate for this? As I read it, he is saying that there are some potential bad hires from lower tier schools that should be avoided. I don't think this involves 5 schools or GP's hiring history.

They said that there 100 bad hires for every good hire while by omission claiming that every Stanford hire is a good hire... But also that you should definitely be hiring talent 'on it's own merit'.

I feel pretty comfortable with my interpretation.

Post reply on HN