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I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out

dear.mariechatfield.com

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Re: I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out

#41

Post by 0xy »

auslegung wrote: post #26
0xy wrote: post #7

Certain demographics are less inclined towards certain jobs. Does anyone seriously think it's a problem that non-white females are represented at less than 0.1% of deep sea welders? Humans are not all equal in proclivities or even innate abilities. The proposed solution by diversity campaigners is usually some form of discrimination, usually against white and Asian people. An Asian male has a much, much higher bar to…

> Certain demographics are less inclined towards certain jobs. This is true, but it isn't inherent to those demographics. I, as a male, was not inclined to ballet dancer as a child. That's not because men aren't good at it, it's because in my culture, male ballet dancers were gay, and in my culture gay was one of the worst things a man could be. So if women are less inclined towards software jobs, is it because all,…

>Does Jeff Bezos' children and a child born into the foster care system have equal opportunity

This is a bad example that works against you, because the data says that wealth tends to evaporate to 0 after 3 generations, or even sooner.

Elon Musk came from South Africa from nothing. Will his children achieve the same height of success? Not a chance.

>what?

All of the Ivy Leagues consider race as part of admission in order to boost underrepresented groups artificially. This means Asian males have the highest bar to cross, while an underrepresented individual has the lowest bar to cross. This is inherently racist.

>But just in case you or someone else takes this to mean we should give up on diversity initiatives, we shouldn't. Failure doesn't mean give up, it means iterate.

Are you saying that just because your "diversity program" is explicitly and openly racist against Asians and other groups, you should double down?

>So if women are less inclined towards software jobs, is it because all, or at least most, women don't have what it takes?

That's a classic strawman argument. I've personally mentored and hired more than a dozen women. No, it means women are less inclined towards software pathways. Same reason men are less inclined towards being a beautician or in HR.

To even propose the idea that everyone is inherently the same is racist and sexist. You're tearing down entire identities.

Re: I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out

#42

Post by mrec »

Gunax wrote: post #25
0xy wrote: post #7

Certain demographics are less inclined towards certain jobs. Does anyone seriously think it's a problem that non-white females are represented at less than 0.1% of deep sea welders? Humans are not all equal in proclivities or even innate abilities. The proposed solution by diversity campaigners is usually some form of discrimination, usually against white and Asian people. An Asian male has a much, much higher bar to…

The purpose is to give everyone an even chance, not necessarily to make every profession perfectly balanced. There are enough claims of sexism that I think it's reasonable to conclude there is at least some sexism present. If you eliminated sexism and there was still a sex imbalance, no one would care. There is a lot of anger arouns this issue, but when you actually talk to people, just about everyone wants the same…

Unfortunately I don't think your last sentence is true. The article itself refers several times to "equity" as a top priority, and that word now refers very explicitly to equality-of-outcome as opposed to equality-of-opportunity.

Re: I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out

#43

Post by oh_sigh »

warent wrote: post #28
jariel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are millions of 'Tall White Guys' in prison, earning minimum wage, living on the streets. It's really not that much of a privilege.

I was literally homeless and earning minimum wage at one point so this is something I'm familiar with.

So why is easy mode easy for you, but hard for other tall white guys? Is it possibly because there is no "easy mode"?

Re: I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out

#44

Post by maria_weber23 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #33

The advice about interviewing being exhausting is spot-on. Recruiting, interviewing, and hiring candidates is a very different type of work than most of us engineering types enjoy. Until you’ve developed a thick skin, it can also be emotionally draining to reject candidate after candidate. The best compromise I’ve found is to have a dedicated person or team perform high-quality first pass filtering of candidates so t…

> it can also be emotionally draining to reject candidate after candidate.

How so? I mean I can certainly see why interviewing is not for everyone, but this really never crossed my mind. It's not like you know the candidate. Also you want to keep a good standard in your company, don't you? So why would this ever matter to you.

Re: I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out

#45

Post by cwperkins »

not_a_moth wrote: post #2

I don't know, anecdotally, relationships broke down with me and other stakeholders, and I ended up leaving the company, after I pushed hard for an amazing candidate, the first to ever ace my interviews, whereas said other stakeholders wanted a certain diversity candidate, who while I enjoyed meeting didn't do that well. The funny thing is in SF it's the bro-y white guy CEOs who push the wokeness the hardest. Almost f…

This is something I suspect is happening at a wide scale and will only create resentment. I like to see Apple investing in things like the Propel center in Atlanta and a new coding program for kids and teens in Detroit. Ibram Kendi asserts that Discrimination can create Equity. That may be true in the short term, but will it be a permanent solution?

Re: I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out

#46

Post by ajkjk »

oh_sigh wrote: post #43
warent wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was literally homeless and earning minimum wage at one point so this is something I'm familiar with.

So why is easy mode easy for you, but hard for other tall white guys? Is it possibly because there is no "easy mode"?

Do you really find it absurd that someone is saying they feel like they have a well-known, widely-documented privilege?

Re: I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out

#47

Post by ip26 »

tolbish wrote: post #12

I would hate to be a minority or woman in Silicon Valley--even if you're qualified, many of your colleagues would presume you "don't deserve" to be there (see the James Damore saga).

I wonder if Lisa Su is more broadly changing hearts & minds, or just written off as an anomaly.

Re: I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out

#48

Post by xvedejas »

xenihn wrote: post #9

2015: White men [Jewish Americans, CIS immigrants, EU immigrants] are not diverse 2020: Asian men [Chinese-Americans, Korean-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, and immigrants from all respective countries] are not diverse 2025: White and Asian women are not diverse 2030: ???

Well, this is kind of the goal right? When a group of people isn't obviously less-represented, then they won't be targets of D&I hiring. Call me an optimist but maybe by 2030, or 2040, the racial makeup of tech companies will be much less distinguishable from random selection of local demographics. Then sure, you could phrase that as "nobody is diverse", I guess.

Re: I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out

#49

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

maria_weber23 wrote: post #44
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #33

The advice about interviewing being exhausting is spot-on. Recruiting, interviewing, and hiring candidates is a very different type of work than most of us engineering types enjoy. Until you’ve developed a thick skin, it can also be emotionally draining to reject candidate after candidate. The best compromise I’ve found is to have a dedicated person or team perform high-quality first pass filtering of candidates so t…

> it can also be emotionally draining to reject candidate after candidate. How so? I mean I can certainly see why interviewing is not for everyone, but this really never crossed my mind. It's not like you know the candidate. Also you want to keep a good standard in your company, don't you? So why would this ever matter to you.

I think that's just the key reason why interviewing isn't for everyone. It's hard for me to emotionally step back from a candidate without zoning out entirely and delivering a bad interview experience.

Re: I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out

#50

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

The question I looked for an answer to: What is the frequency that her colleagues interview at? If she is 2x per week, are all the other engineers also interviewing at that rate? If not, why not?

Diversity starts from the input stream. Are the recruiters sending a significant % of non-white & Asian male candidates and they aren't getting hired? Or are they simply not fielding those candidates?

I've been hiring embedded SW as well as EEs for 4 years. We're a small firm but out of 8 adds to the department, I managed to hire two women and promote one to engineering internally. I can say we have that preference (for under-represented candidates), but it remains the case that the vast majority of resumes are white and Asian men.

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