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

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

#351

Post by Consultant32452 »

s73ver_ wrote: post #274
Consultant32452 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I'm questioning is how you could describe being proportionate to the candidate pool as "a large problem." Lack of diversity in STEM is a large problem, but your payroll matching the market doesn't seem like a large problem.

For one, the candidate pool is artificially limited. And, like I said, 3 schools does not the market make.

>For one, the candidate pool is artificially limited.

The candidate pool has an artificially inflated number of women due to the success of nearly universal outreach among STEM programs towards women. I'm not suggesting that's a bad thing, but let's not throw shade at universities where it's undeserved.

>And, like I said, 3 schools does not the market make.

If the 3 schools OP was recruiting from have gender bias against women then let's call them out.

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

#352

Post by wallace_f »

tomtang0514 wrote: post #297
nnd wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my personal experience, Google recruiters appear to range from absolutely horrible to incredible, so are the interviewers.

I second this, but most google recruiters are pretty terrible. Some are so disrespectful that I have to tell someone to put my profile into google blacklist so they don't bother me anymore.

Would you be able to offer some examples?

I don't know what the deal is with some recruiters--I mean, in general. I attended a recruiting event from the US gov near graduation, approached one booth and introduced myself. A friend came over and inquired about a job to which she said "oh, well that's for the creme de la creme" and turned away without asking him anything about himself!? I found that incredibly rude.

Geeze, I wish I had her psychic powers /s.

Personally I think it has to do with the problems of giving people power and authority over others...

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

#353

Post by mcguire »

jakub_g wrote: post #230
whipoodle wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't even understand the whole world of prestige and specialization among colleges when I was 16 or 17 and trying to pick a school. I didn't know that some schools were where the "good" people go. I just knew I was supposed to go to college, so I visited the local Penn State campus and people said "don't come here". Then I visited another state school and people seemed to like it, so that's where I went. I wonder…

Thanks for writing that. Sounds very similar to my experience in Europe. I started high school at 15 and it didn't even cross my mind (and would not have been financially possible) to look for one outside of my town, while I had a reasonable one 5 min walk away from my place. There was one school known to be the top in the state, in a big city 50 km away, but it had a reputation of people going on meth to be able to…

"what's all the fuss about Silicon Valley"

No idea.

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

#354

Post by bane »

drewg123 wrote: post #37

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…

Like many people on HN, I've been through the Google recruitment cattle grinder a few times - the usual observations about absurd process that leads to terrible fit apply. I'm even open at the beginning about various conditions of employment if they want to move forward...such as a desire not to move. They always move forward anyways and then at the end ask if I'd be willing to move to whatever office location has the position.

At this point I tell them not to bother if I get contacted or I just ignore the recruiter. It's effectively a pretty big waste of time 98% of the time and they're just making some kind of internal metric so that positions can be claimed to have been offered fairly.

I think what really bothers me about this process in general, and it applies to a great many companies, is that they contacted me. In that they sought me out. I didn't apply. So a little courtesy on that front would be helpful.

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

#355

Post by busterarm »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #94

I went to a non-top tier undergraduate school. I made efforts--at big companies as well as the one I founded--to recruit from my alma mater . I ended up defaulting to NYU, Harvard and Stanford. Career services at non-top tier schools are shit. Once, as a personal favor, I offered to help a company with a well-known CEO recruit from my state school. When I brought it up with a dean I knew, career services got mad. The…

In the two-plus years I've been at this place, we've only had one woman even apply to our engineering team.

We're attached to the marketing team (~80%+ women), but our company is in a very unpopular industry (plantiff's law).

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

#356

Post by ringaroundthetx »

hueving wrote: post #345
rodgerd wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is even ignoring the 'diversity' angle - a lot of really great people are missed because it's hard to break in without knowing someone or having the right credentials. That is literally the diversity angle.

No, the 'diversity' angle is frequently tied to things like skin color, sex, ethnicity, heritage, etc. You can have two people that match in all of those categories but one chose to go to a state school because of a family issue and then they will be ignored by Google. This is not something any diversity program I know of in the big companies is trying to address.

> but one chose to go to a state school because of a family issue and then they will be ignored by Google

A person with a family issue probably still has a family issue incompatible with working for a corporation across the country.

Ever think their process of selecting unencumbered elitists might be by design and super effective?

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

#357

Post by busterarm »

s73ver_ wrote: post #221
dogruck wrote: post #60

In my experience, major companies are aware of this problem, and would love to find a solution. Frankly, the problem is that, ultimately, they want to hire the best people. Most of the time, the best people are sourced from the top-tier schools. On the other hand, in my experience, they pride themselves on finding great people from outside of that small circle. When they do find such a person, it's not uncommon for h…

Define "best".

I'm glad my metrics are "great to work with" and "huge upside potential" instead of "can whiteboard an algorithm well" and "middle-upper class in appearance"

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

#358

Post by thearn4 »

sndean wrote: post #164
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #94

I went to a non-top tier undergraduate school. I made efforts--at big companies as well as the one I founded--to recruit from my alma mater . I ended up defaulting to NYU, Harvard and Stanford. Career services at non-top tier schools are shit. Once, as a personal favor, I offered to help a company with a well-known CEO recruit from my state school. When I brought it up with a dean I knew, career services got mad. The…

> Career services at non-top tier schools are shit. Doing my undergrad and PhD at an average large state school, I was really lucky to get an internship (and now job), essentially by word of mouth and my PhD advisor. Now that I'm doing a part-time Masters at an elite-ish (top 10) school, I'm realizing how amazing career services can be. They send out weekly emails saying: "James Dimon is coming to speak." "Dir. of En…

Side note: It's interesting that you're getting a masters after your phd. Is it in a pretty different field?

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

#359

Post by crispyambulance »

s73ver_ wrote: post #210
crispyambulance wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How could companies reach the great students at unknown schools systematically? Maybe it's better that these great students at "unknown schools" DON'T get hired by google/facebook/amazon/microsoft ? Maybe their talents are best directed at small-ish companies where they can contribute, grow, and do interesting stuff outside of monstrously large companies with cut-throat competition? Having ALL the "top" candidates…

I think it would be better for those candidates to make that decision themselves.

Well, sure, but they can do that with or without recruiting events sponsored by the top-5 at their schools.

I guess I am also trying to say that these students should not feel so deprived if google recruiters aren't easily accessible, there's plenty of great places to work.

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

#360

Post by mcguire »

habosa wrote: post #80
drewg123 wrote: post #37

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…

I work at Google and have done some university recruiting (not a ton, but some) and I have not had this experience. Recently I saw a list of hundreds of schools of all sizes and locations that we were committed to sending reps to, so I think Google is actually way out ahead of the field when it comes to not only looking at Ivy League / Stanford / MIT.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/05/23/tech_comp... (2014)

How many of those schools have you never hired anyone from, vs how many are hired every year from Stanford?

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