I'm an interviewer at my company and burnt out • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by marcinzm » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #69

marcinzm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inclusive environment does not mean you have a diverse team already but that you have an inclusive team. That generally means ensuring that your company feels like a safe space to candidates. That means paying very close attention to even the small things your team does especially during interviews. In my experience, minorities and women have a lifetime of training in spotting red flags early as very bad things can h…

I don't think this is as simple as you're suggesting. You mention talking over people and interrupting, but there are cultures like my own where that's just how you have a conversation. In order to fit the "inclusive environment" mold, I have to deliberately suppress my natural speech patterns, making sure I don't ever talk to my coworkers the way I would to my family. I don't mean to claim this is the biggest proble…

Sure but the question was about how a small business can be more inclusive without spending a lot of money. Not how they can be more inclusive without doing anything or changing anything. In the end everything has a cost and it's up to them to decide if it's worth it.

The largest cost is that certain people will simply not stop doing these things so you have to decide if firing them is worth the inclusion gains or not.

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

#72

Post by curryst » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 4:46 AM UTC

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.

Doing the right thing doesn't always make it easy. I've rejected candidates that I thought were awesome people, just not at the right level of expertise for the role. I really appreciate the enthusiasm that people just entering the industry have, but at some point you can't overcome the lack of experience with enthusiasm. Likewise when you do Zoom interviews with people who don't have awesome jobs currently, and think about what they could do with their lives if they made the kind of money the job pays.

It's emotionally draining because there might be a dozen reasons you want to hire someone, and you have to mentally debate whether any of those reasons can outweigh their faults enough to let you say yes. But they can't, so you have to smash that person's hopes and say no.

It's also emotionally draining to try to confront unconscious bias. You have to tediously step through each link of your decision to say no and make sure that it's consistent with how you treat other people. It's important to do, but it does take some mental effort.

And at a certain point, when you've rejected 5, 7, 10 candidates for the role, it starts to feel hopeless. Are we ever going to find someone to fill the role? And yet you can't let that hopelessness bleed into the interview, so you have to take 5 minutes before the interview to get into "pep mode" so you don't let the interviewee realize how bleak you feel about their prospects of passing, and then to make sure you don't your hopelessness seep into how you review the candidate.

It really is emotionally draining. Especially if you're doing it once or twice a week, because there isn't enough time to forget about your last experience.

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

#73

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #71

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is as simple as you're suggesting. You mention talking over people and interrupting, but there are cultures like my own where that's just how you have a conversation. In order to fit the "inclusive environment" mold, I have to deliberately suppress my natural speech patterns, making sure I don't ever talk to my coworkers the way I would to my family. I don't mean to claim this is the biggest proble…

Sure but the question was about how a small business can be more inclusive without spending a lot of money. Not how they can be more inclusive without doing anything or changing anything. In the end everything has a cost and it's up to them to decide if it's worth it. The largest cost is that certain people will simply not stop doing these things so you have to decide if firing them is worth the inclusion gains or no…

My point is that the idea of "more inclusive" as a unidimensional thing is wrong. Mandating a specific set of speech standards is more inclusive of some people and less inclusive of others. It can often be the right thing to do, but you've gotta bite the bullet and acknowledge the effects on both sides. It's a bit offensive, frankly, to dismiss any culture that's incompatible with the standards you'd prefer as "certain people will simply not stop doing these things".

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

#74

Post by cwperkins » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 4:51 AM UTC

warent wrote: post #70

cwperkins wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you also college educated? Under 30, middle-aged or old? Why treat "White Guys" as a monolith?

The comment opens with "I can share my individual perspective" There's no intent to negate other people's struggles at all. Here's the hypothesis. If life is like an RPG, then whiteness / being male (in America) is a passive buff you get in character creation, like "+10 Social Points" Truly, for many people, that still isn't enough to offset the many other debuffs life can bring.

The context of the original post is a hiring manager moralizing only considering candidates from underrepresented groups. I think many people have a deep sense of empathy for the struggles of people trying to climb the economic ladder and starting from a lesser point. I commend Apple for investing in the Propel center in Atlanta and creating a developer program in Detroit as creative ways to alleviate the social problem, but a hiring manager exclusively considering underrepresented minorities is discrimination and will lead to more racial resentment. If we are to work towards an inclusive future it means everyone is included and I really think we'd achieve more by working together than fighting. I think a lot more people have a deep sense of empathy than are given credit for. I'm concerned with the rent seeking behavior that I see and hear instead of a focus on wealth creation and growing the pie for everyone.

I think its great to give personal anecdotes, but I never want to judge an individual person from their group membership. There will definitely be similar experiences across members of a given group.

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

#75

Post by starky » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 5:45 AM UTC

acjohnson55 wrote: post #56

One of the hard parts of being a person from an underrepresented demographic is having to bear an unequal burden to help make your company more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. There is a tremendous amount of talent out there from underestimated groups, but many of us don't want to work places where we're going to be the only person. And as your interview panel is the most crucial touch point with candidates, the f…

>because it is really, really hard to to build an org that is more diverse than the average (let alone anything near society), and you still have to meet other objectives.

I've thought about this a many times with the hiring I'm involved with. There are some potential problems you can tackle internally, such as whether you have bias against certain types of candidate. However, the major blocker is one I really don't know how to solve.

Essentially you have to solve the underlying problem of, "How do you increase the number of qualified and diverse candidates in the hiring pool?" Since the pool of applicants for the jobs I'm interviewing for are overwhelmingly male, and the vast majority are White, East Asian, or South Asian, the candidates we end up hiring end up more or less matching people of those descriptions. I am somewhat encouraged that there are improvements happening in the gender split through, there has definitely been an increase in the number of women applying for our student positions, hopefully that translates to more looking for full time positions in the near future.

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

#76

Post by jasonpeacock » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 5:50 AM UTC

qwantim1 wrote: post #4

I worked at a company where we interviewed frequently in teams of two. The pairs were chosen mostly at random from the large development team, except that at least one would be more experienced with the company, typically. The first team of two would get to know the person. The second team would do a technical interview. If the candidate did well by getting four thumbs-ups, they would often be invited to have lunch w…

> Eventually the lunch part was skipped, but it was a helpful way to expose potential culture or tech fit problems that were missed earlier.

Maybe it's due to how you wrote it, but this is a big red flag.

Firstly, lunch should not be an interview. Everyone enjoys themselves except the candidate who is carefully trying to navigate a high pressure unknown situation that's mixing professional and social expectations.

Second - "culture" is a bad word, it's loaded with bias. What "culture" are you exposing during lunch - that the candidate is vegetarian? Halal? Sober? Are you looking for someone "friendly" aka an extrovert?

Third - What are "tech fit" problems, and how are they identified during lunch? The candidate is busy trying to eat very politely and be friendly after a day of interviews, you shouldn't be expecting any technical performance.

Lunch is lunch. Give the candidate the option to take it on their own, or with a non-interview employee who's there to answer the candidate's own questions.

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

#77

Post by lazyasciiart » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 6:37 AM UTC

cma wrote: post #29

ekianjo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does education fit in in your assumptions ? Even poor people make it up the social ladder thru education. Most of our ancesters were farmers, and most of them very poor too.

You have things like alumni admissions preference at schools that didn't allow black people within just a couple alumni generations.

Or public school districts neatly drawn to separate rich white areas from poor black areas.

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

#78

Post by GoodDreams » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 7:40 AM UTC

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…

I stopped interviewing out of fear of being accused of bias and the subsequent effects of such an accusation.

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

#79

Post by username90 » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 8:19 AM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #13

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…

Most any homogenous group will become discriminatory to outsiders unless effort is taken to prevent it. It varies from subtle to overt but overall makes it very clear to outsiders that they are not one of the group and not really welcome. The group when called out will then usually blame it on the outsiders. I feel forcing affirmative action is not the right move but claiming the group is blame free or shouldn't chan…

Asians and Europeans are very different, not a homogeneous group.

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

#80

Post by masonic » Mon, Feb 08, 2021, 9:30 AM UTC

MikeTheGreat wrote: post #68

oh_sigh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

First - I don't know if this guy originated the term or not, but he's got an eloquent, well-written explanation about what is meant by "straight white male is easy mode for real life": His original post is here[1], along with two follow up articles [2][3]. Definitely worth taking the time to read. In terms of why life isn't easy for all tall white guys - being tall, and white, and a guy helps but it's not everything.…

  never had to worry about being pulled over by a cop for "driving while white"

I was pulled over twice in three days in Los Altos a few years ago for a light being out, both times by non-white officers.

Last spring, I was pulled over in Sunnyvale for expired tags (I paid on time; DMV was horribly behind) by an Asian officer.

While I was politely volunteering my documents and proof of payment, a second unit responded with a Latino officer.

They held me for 45 minutes for what should have been a wave-off. To justify their time, they wrote me a fix-it ticket (which required two trips to the courthouse and 5 months to clear.

Now, I'll wager that if the ethnicities were reversed, the average driver has been sufficiently conditioned by narrative to assume a racist motivation... even if pulled over from behind at night, where it's impossible to know driver ethnicity before the stop.