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Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

bloomberg.com

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Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#41

Post by draw_down »

It’s a strange situation. We need measures intended to aid diversity, but the ones I’ve observed in practice seem like a CYA for the inevitable report that not much has changed. “Well we’re trying, it’s not like we’re not doing anything.”

My question has always been the same: if/when these measures don’t change anything, what then? The disconnect I have noticed is that there are all sorts of metrics for measuring diversity, but there is no quantitative argument for why the programs intended to aid diversity will raise those metrics. There’s no “this number is too low, and doing xyz will increase it.” Instead it’s more like “these numbers are bad, so we’re doing some stuff.”

Doing things ostensibly intended to improve diversity, but which don’t improve it, is more insidious than just not doing anything. It provides a moral alibi for the status quo but cynically does not actually want to change it. I’m not saying we’re there yet, but we will be if not much changes in a few years.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#42

Post by raverbashing »

sumeno wrote: post #36
Talyen42 wrote: post #12

I hired about 10 junior dev/qa/pm positions over 3 years as a manager in a SaaS tech company of 50-100. We posted on every job site and received 1,000+ resumes which I reviewed, in a city with ~30% african american population. Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans, and none met most basic requirements for the position (either a relevant degree, or at least 1 year of related experience, or…

How do you know whether someone was African American based on their resume?

People know. It's a collection of clues, starting by their name

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#43

Post by empath75 »

reknirt wrote: post #5

Does the number of black workers that have the technical knowledge/experience account for more than 2-3% of the total pool of hirable workers? Or do black workers only account for 2-3% of tech employees because that's the number that knows how to code?

It’s less than that in a lot of places. It’s a massive societal problem and it needs to be fixed from elementary schools up.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#44

Post by dep_b »

sumeno wrote: post #36
Talyen42 wrote: post #12

I hired about 10 junior dev/qa/pm positions over 3 years as a manager in a SaaS tech company of 50-100. We posted on every job site and received 1,000+ resumes which I reviewed, in a city with ~30% african american population. Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans, and none met most basic requirements for the position (either a relevant degree, or at least 1 year of related experience, or…

How do you know whether someone was African American based on their resume?

Because every sane person hiring Googles people's names?

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#45

Post by noetic_techy »

protonimitate wrote: post #20
weiming wrote: post #4

I'm not originally from America, so I seem to be missing something in articles like this. Why does no one talk about the "pipeline problem," that is, encouraging many more people from "minority" groups (black, women, and so on) to pursue coding from young age? (Edit: or encouraging these groups to enter the field at any age, such as through the community college system/Coursera/etc.) It seems like examining the end o…

Because addressing the pipeline problem means admitting that racism is still alive and embedded in the foundations of our education and work force system. You can't expect there to be more workers if there's no applicants. There are no applicants because there is a severe lack of Black people (among other groups) represented in Engineering/STEM degree programs. That stems from a lack of good public school education.…

> when really we as a national don't honestly want to see marginalized groups succeed

How does that explain the success of Asian Americans?

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#46

Post by paulddraper »

weiming wrote: post #4

I'm not originally from America, so I seem to be missing something in articles like this. Why does no one talk about the "pipeline problem," that is, encouraging many more people from "minority" groups (black, women, and so on) to pursue coding from young age? (Edit: or encouraging these groups to enter the field at any age, such as through the community college system/Coursera/etc.) It seems like examining the end o…

> Why does no one talk about the "pipeline problem,"

If you go too far, it gets uncomfortable. You have to start asking about genetic, parenting, and culture differences. It's way easier to just implement affirmative action or something similar.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#47

Post by Talyen42 »

justin66 wrote: post #26
Talyen42 wrote: post #12

I hired about 10 junior dev/qa/pm positions over 3 years as a manager in a SaaS tech company of 50-100. We posted on every job site and received 1,000+ resumes which I reviewed, in a city with ~30% african american population. Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans, and none met most basic requirements for the position (either a relevant degree, or at least 1 year of related experience, or…

> Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans How do you know? I'm curious because it seems like you'd have to have a spot on the job application for applicants to indicate their race and you'd need to exclude a "prefer not to answer" option in order to be confident about this.

No, but someone's name + linkedin profile (almost always included) tends to give it away 90% of the time. Sometimes you don't know, sure, but usually you do. Just like gender.

We didn't ask, of course.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#48

Post by Talyen42 »

sumeno wrote: post #36
Talyen42 wrote: post #12

I hired about 10 junior dev/qa/pm positions over 3 years as a manager in a SaaS tech company of 50-100. We posted on every job site and received 1,000+ resumes which I reviewed, in a city with ~30% african american population. Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans, and none met most basic requirements for the position (either a relevant degree, or at least 1 year of related experience, or…

How do you know whether someone was African American based on their resume?

Someone's name + linkedin profile (almost always included) tends to give it away 90% of the time. Sometimes you don't know, sure, but usually you do. Just like gender.

We didn't ask, of course.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#49

Post by weiming »

BitterAmethyst wrote: post #40
weiming wrote: post #4

I'm not originally from America, so I seem to be missing something in articles like this. Why does no one talk about the "pipeline problem," that is, encouraging many more people from "minority" groups (black, women, and so on) to pursue coding from young age? (Edit: or encouraging these groups to enter the field at any age, such as through the community college system/Coursera/etc.) It seems like examining the end o…

The meme that you need to start programming from a young age to be successful is dangerous and needs to die.

I agree and I edited post for clarity.

Re: Tech Companies Still Aren’t Hiring Black Workers

#50

Post by to_bpr »

He said the party reminded him of a scene in the film, “Get Out.’’ Like the movie, the new employees looked like props that were conveniently staged to showcase a more welcoming environment than he felt actually existed.

It's amazing to behold how absolutely toxic tech journalism and our industry is becoming. Divisive clickbait full of finger pointing, anecdotal evidence and a clear steerage away from causation... yet sitting pretty on the front page of Hacker News. What a shame.

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