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Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

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Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#81

Post by abeppu »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #37

The only problem with blind selection, is that, sooner or later, the race/gender/sexual orientation/religion/fitness/attractiveness/age (I'm an old fart, so I can tell you a thing or two about ageism in tech) becomes apparent. I have heard story after story from peers (around my age), about passing numerous rounds of phone and test interviews, only to see the interviewer's face fall, as soon as they walk in the door.…

> The only problem with blind selection, is that, sooner or later, the race/gender/sexual orientation/religion/age becomes apparent.

Changing the emphasis of your statement slightly, I think one of the gaps of focusing on blind selection is that by attempting to work around assumed biases within the org, even if it works perfectly in the hiring process, it does nothing for employees once hired (when presumably several of the traits you listed are not going to remain hidden). Blinding part of the hiring process doesn't help employees have equal access to projects, growth opportunities, involvement in decision-making, etc.

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#82

Post by dkersten »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #37

The only problem with blind selection, is that, sooner or later, the race/gender/sexual orientation/religion/fitness/attractiveness/age (I'm an old fart, so I can tell you a thing or two about ageism in tech) becomes apparent. I have heard story after story from peers (around my age), about passing numerous rounds of phone and test interviews, only to see the interviewer's face fall, as soon as they walk in the door.…

Oof that sucks and is scary, since we will all be older at some stage. Personally, I prefer having people older than me on my team (I'm 35) because they tend to have experience I and younger members don't have and that experience can save quite a lot of problems in the long run.

Sure, maybe older people aren't caught up on the latest fad tech, but most of that is BS anyway, so no biggy...

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#83

Post by abduhl »

bluntfang wrote: post #47
monoideism wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if they don't capitalize "white", because that's what white supremacists do, what does that say about capitalizing "black"? A good number of the people pushing the "Black" spelling are openly Afrocentric, or profess to be.

I dunno man, are black people systemically killing other ethnic groups in America right now? Do they have a history of genocide and slavery on the scale of white people? Do we see a bunch of black people doing the black equivalent of Nazi salutes on the side of the road around the country?

No, yes, and maybe.

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#84

Post by CydeWeys » 

    Women:                       +9 to +10% chance of callback relative to men
    Black, Hispanic, and Asian:  -8 to -13% chance of callback relative to White people.
I wish they had broken out the other ethnicities separately in the abstract. The reasons that Black and Hispanic people might be getting fewer callbacks relative to whites are likely quite different from the reasons that Asian people might be getting fewer callbacks.

I'm making my way through the main paper but there's a lot of tables in there that would take me a lot of reading to decipher and it's really not clear which are best to use for any purpose. The tables do break out the separate ethnicities separately though (along with callback/interview/offer rates, not just callback) and it does appear that Black, Hispanic, and Asian very much do not have the same experience. In particular, the graph on page 22 seems to show that, when it comes to receiving offers, female candidates have a 29.5% advantage in receiving offers, Black 4%, -21% Asian, and -24% Hispanic. The previous column (received interview) is much worse for Asian, Black, and Hispanic applicants though; all were significantly less likely to receive interviews than whites.

Anyway, there's lots of potentially good data in here, assuming you trust their methodology, but I personally feel like I need someone who knows this stuff better to write up a longer abstract based on all this data to really explain it to me properly.

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#86

Post by raxxorrax »

jackfrodo wrote: post #20
einpoklum wrote: post #4

Key point of the abstract: Women: +9 to +10% chance of callback relative to men Black, Hispanic, and Asian: -8 to -13% chance of callback relative to White people. Anyway, kudos (I guess?) to the researchers for choosing the absolutely most fashionable subject they could possibly study in this day and age.

"Fashionable"? Being so dismissive of the push for racial equality is deeply arrogant and small minded.

If the medicine has more side effects than the indication, it might be time for an honest review.

In my experience there is little discrimination in tech. I am located in Europe and maybe other factors apply. But here you could be a raccoon and if you have an affinity for tech, you can almost get the job you like.

edit: On the contrary, I think these talk about discrimination drives people away, but I hold back my criticism because I think people mean well.

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#87

Post by dkersten »

throwawaympfsin wrote: post #78
treeman79 wrote: post #36

Personal experience. Got hired into a company that did everything possible to avoid hiring straight white men. Everything was completely dominated by not offending anyone over anything. Unless you were the aforementioned group. Turns out there simply isn’t a lot of the right race/gender/sex. I’m sure that’ll be different as time progresses, but for now there is clearly some catching up to do. So it was all jr develop…

That's one of the reasons I left tech and went to work for an investment bank. At least here no one pretends to be in it to "make the world a better place" or whatever agenda tech companies are selling nowadays. YMMV

Ugh, that's one thing I really hate about much of tech: supposedly everyone is in it to make the world a better place, somehow, by actually making it worse through advertisement and destroying privacy and getting people addicted to social media.

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#88

Post by [deleted] »

imglorp wrote: post #67

Okay, honest question coming from ignorance. In computing at least, there's a well known diversity disparity going back to STEM graduation rates. It seems financial is a similar boat: Wells Fargo recently claimed a “limited talent pool" but got criticized by AOC for lacking "talent to recruit Black workers". Obviously society, including industry, could do more to get kids into school. But right now, in the resume pil…

[deleted]

Re: Gender and Race Preferences in Hiring at Silicon Valley Tech Firms [pdf]

#89

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

abeppu wrote: post #81
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #37

The only problem with blind selection, is that, sooner or later, the race/gender/sexual orientation/religion/fitness/attractiveness/age (I'm an old fart, so I can tell you a thing or two about ageism in tech) becomes apparent. I have heard story after story from peers (around my age), about passing numerous rounds of phone and test interviews, only to see the interviewer's face fall, as soon as they walk in the door.…

> The only problem with blind selection, is that, sooner or later, the race/gender/sexual orientation/religion/age becomes apparent. Changing the emphasis of your statement slightly, I think one of the gaps of focusing on blind selection is that by attempting to work around assumed biases within the org, even if it works perfectly in the hiring process, it does nothing for employees once hired (when presumably severa…

Exactly.

I think that it is sort of "darwinian." If a corporation doesn't establish a culture of excellence (whatever the measure may be), then they will get not-excellent results.

"Cultural fit" is important, but, as a former manager that had to make many accommodations for highly-qualified and diverse employees, it's also important for a team/company to be prepared to adjust their culture to get that excellence.

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