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The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

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Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#411

Post by naijaboiler »

tdb7893 wrote: post #368
readthenotes1 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is the sort of DEI effort that gives the rest a bad name." I'd be interested to read about a DEI effort that gives the rest a good name.

The "Women in Engineering" group where I worked was instrumental in retaining multiple good engineers who would've definitely left otherwise after some gendered issues (asked out by coworkers, asked whether they were an engineer in meetings, etc). I was a mentor for early career engineers and I had a woman talking about leaving but the woman in engineering group at work helped her immensely and she's a top performer.…

this is what at the core of DEI. Correct!

Far too many people believe in the myth of pure meritocracy. Instead, what most people really see as meritocracy is actually just something reinforces built-in un-meritocratic advantages.

For real meritocracy, the best approach is to nurture all people with ability, not just device some "test" of meritocracy and demand that fidelity to that test result is the answer.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#412

Post by tstrimple »

tim333 wrote: post #345
apical_dendrite wrote: post #148

I'm fairly certain this was an example of overfitting and Freedman's Paradox, not deliberate cheating. Let's say you have a completely random data set. You generate a bunch of random variables x1 through xn and a random dependent variable y. Then you poke around and see whether any of the x variables look like they might predict y, so you pick those variables and try to build a model on them. What you end up with is…

Have you looked at the info on the test here https://kaisoapbox.com/projects/faa_biographical_assessment/ ? (copied from another post) To pass the test you have to click A on all 62 questions apart from question 16 where you have to click D to say your lowest grade in school was in history. The thing's a complete travesty.

Did you get a different question/answer than I did? For me it showed science as the only correct answer awarding 15 points.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#414

Post by mistermann »

ailun wrote: post #377
mistermann wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your post added nothing to the conversation except insults though. You are describing your experience, but stating it as if it is a universal fact. A relevant post from this morning: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42946854

I guess I'll save a click for other readers. The post linked is completely unrelated to the subject of this thread. This person isn't interested in real conversation.

As a fan of irony, many thanks!

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#415

Post by snailmailstare »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #395
snailmailstare wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we step away from the traffic controllers nonsense for a moment, the actual problem sounded like a military pilot to me. It's my understanding that people who have a family line of pilots go into that funnel knowing a specific nepotism related result occurs such that when it comes time to become a commercial pilot you are probably from such a family. I have no idea if helicopter pilots work the same way or are sta…

Robust systems are designed to avoid single points of failure. Humans are fallible. So, for example, both the pilot and the air traffic controller are intended to be paying attention so that if one of them makes a mistake the other can pick it up. If the pilot is making an error, the air traffic controller gets on the radio to tell them they're getting too close to another aircraft, in time for them to course correct…

There's obviously some number of mistakes one party can make in a single incident such that the other has a limited probability of preventing an accident. If flight control is the robustness, it would take flight control with a lot of free time to be reducing those mistakes in pilots by following up on all sorts of errors unrelated to an incident until a pilot rarely makes multiple overlapping mistakes.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#416

Post by naijaboiler »

sfteus wrote: post #265
boohoo123 wrote: post #118

There's a simple fix to removing discrimination in hiring practices that no one seems to notice. Remove all demographic questions from the application. Hide the name and gender and attach a applicant ID. It's as easy as that. Every job should be looking for the most qualified individual regardless of race, nationality, religion, and sex. Demographics in the application are a recipe for disaster on both sides of the i…

My company's DEI program effectively does this. The main tenets are: - Cast a wide recruiting net to attract a diverse candidate pool - Don't collect demographic data on applications - Separate the recruiting / interview process from the hiring committee - The hiring committee only sees qualifications and interview results; all identifying info is stripped - Our guardrail is the assumption that our hiring process is…

notice how these solution requires a dedication to diversity throughout the process from candidate sourcing to interviewing and all the way through, and not some simple cut and paste answers.

The road to a more inclusive solution is dedicated effort, with continuous re-assessment at every step. There is no magical answer.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#417

Post by PaulHoule »

xcrunner529 wrote: post #372
PaulHoule wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to blame anything on the Democrats it is this: Valuing competence is one thing. Valuing diversity is another thing. You can have neither, either one, or both. The democrats make a conspicuous show of not valuing competence in addition to making some noises about diversity. Nobody said Barack Obama was an affirmative action case, no, he was one of the greatest politicians of the first quarter-century. On the…

But you also have MTG who literally believes “they” control the weather so I’m not sure exactly why you single democrats out here or even the it to any kind of ideology specific consequence.

I don't completely understand it but Republicans manage cognitive dissonance better.

Around 1994 I was interested in Trotskyism and Anarchism and wasn't sure if we needed to get the 4th international back in the US or start a 5th international.

I believed in this really stupid kind of vanguardism where if you put up the biggest and most radical flag you would get everyone to rally behind it. I reformed because I got tough love from black nationalists who told me in no uncertain words they wanted to decide things for themselves and not get bossed around by some white guy.

A modern form of this involves the adding of random stripes to the rainbow flag which means that when you really do put that flag up you won't have anybody under it, at least not when the going gets tough, when it rains, etc.

For one thing left-wing movements have this divergent character where they feel they have to follow all these people who are subaltern for different reasons. Right-wing movements have this convergent character that moves towards something which makes it much easier form them to manage inconsistencies.

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#418

Post by naijaboiler »

sporkland wrote: post #197

I look at stories like this and a key moment of failure that is obvious to anyone that has ever deployed code is don't make a change and roll it out to 100% of all devices/servers immediately. Feels like there is just some basic things missing from folks brains that gradual release and validation of the impacted cohort isn't a built in instinct for us.

yeah, they should have absolutely piloted this approach, look at the results, re-avaluated or fixed things, try again, before making it the absolute new policy

Re: The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

#420

Post by spectraldrift »

jimmydddd wrote: post #80
spectraldrift wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the actions of the rogue employee who leaked those instructions, that's clearly wrong and illegal, and it's right to call that out. However, I believe there is some misunderstanding because sharing those answers doesn’t mean the FAA lowered the bar. What happened was akin to someone unethically telling people how to cheat to get an interview referral at google- yet the actual subsequent qualification…

What if corporation A wanted to fill their CFO position. They put out an ad, but decided to interview folks only from ethnicity W. They then hired a qualified person from ethnicity W. When challenged about excluding from the process non-ethnicity W folks, they respond "but they still had to be qualified." Are you fine with that?

Respectfully, that's a strawman and not what happened. Realistically the inverse happens more, and we often only interview people from certain backgrounds even though qualified people exist in other walks of life. Just look at the racial and wealth backgrounds of people who eventually become CEOs.
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