9 ms·

Cancer survivors less likely to receive callbacks from potential employers

76 points by lujim 11y ago

baldfat 11y ago
Doesn't surprise me. I certainly did not disclose my son's health issue when I was looking for a second job. Must say that when asked why I was looking for a second job I just stated our current situation needs me to have a second job and not my wife has to be with our son as he fights for his life and he is in remission but 99% chance of it coming back int he next 6-12 months. When my son's cancer did come back the second job (And my main job) were both outstanding and really gave me flexibility and understanding, but I doubt I would have gotten the job the first place. It is hard to figure out what to disclose and what not to disclose for simple jobs like retail.
- lujim 11y ago
  Holy crap man, best of luck. I'm not sure how I would function enough to hold one job. Do you have any active crowd funding or anything going on right now?
  - baldfat 11y ago
    Edit: I certainly don't mind sharing about our family's and son's struggle. Please don't feel bad that you brought up something bad or talking about it. Unfortunately he passed away 2 years ago. We had an incredible supportive local community and few local organizations who's purpose was supporting local families. I do highly recommend supporting St. Baldrick's http://www.stbaldricks.org/ http://www.stbaldricks.org/ for cancer research. Kids get the shaft in research money especially with only 1% from Cancer Society of America and 4% of the Federal Cancer Research Grants got o fight pediatric cancer. Any adult research is of little value to kids, but any findings with kids benefits adults in cancer treatment. So in 20+ years we have the first new chemo drug because of St Baldrick's research funded project paid off.
    - lujim 11y ago
      Ugh shit sorry. Taking this discussion offline.
    - omginternets 11y ago
      Good god. Nobody should have to go through that. From one internet stranger to another: my sincerest condolences. Edit: Victor Hugo lost his daughter and subsequently wrote what I consider to be one of the most beautiful poems in the French language. Here it is with an English translation: http://www.frenchtoday.com/french-poetry-reading/poem-demain-des-l-aube-hugo http://www.frenchtoday.com/french-poetry-reading/poem-demain... I wish I could do more.
      - omginternets 11y ago
        Wikipedia has a better translation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demain_d%C3%A8s_l%27aube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demain_d%C3%A8s_l%27aube
- jakejake 11y ago
  That's a tragic story. I certainly don't think it's anybody's business why you need a second job. Ultimately why do we need any job? Money of course. What you do with that money is your own business.
cryoshon 11y ago
Yeah, because the idea is that the person is already weak and may have a relapse which will negatively impact their job performance, which is institutionally thought of as unacceptable. Welcome to late capitalism, where the money is gone and the "power" of labor doesn't matter. Even if people don't have a conscious bias against potential liabilities that an employee might have, I'd suspect that subconsciously they do due to a general awareness of their own bottom line. When it comes time to make a hiring decision (an already an a-rational and largely emotional process), the subconscious biases against taking on a potential liability will probably manifest themselves, causing employers to invent an unrelated "reason" to disqualify a cancer-survivor candidate. Or maybe it's just an invisible push to the bottom of the pile without any false narratives. Either way, I assume the data doesn't lie.
- zeveb 11y ago
  > Yeah, because the idea is that the person is already weak and may have a relapse which will negatively impact their job performance If I'm hiring, I want the best possible candidate for the job at the best possible price. Someone who has a higher likelihood of being absent is less likely to be the best possible candidate for the job. Those emotional biases have real foundations. I happen to belong to a protected group and also have a higher chance of being absent; I disclose that status, do my best to indicate that I am the best possible candidate, and let the chips fall where they may. It's worked alright for me so far, although I'm sure that it's cost me a little.
  - vkou 11y ago
    Unfortunately, not everyone is in the position of privilege where they can afford to be discriminated against.
- Pyxl101 11y ago
  > which is institutionally thought of as unacceptable That's not it at all. The goal of hiring is simple: maximize the effectiveness of the company by hiring people who are the most effective at least cost. Typically, the hiring manager thinks about what he needs and reduces the hiring question to: "For this role, we need a person with these skills or better, and we're willing to pay this amount or less." Then you evaluate candidates to determine their effectiveness. Many factors impact someone's relative effectiveness: if they take time off work for any reason, then they are less effective than someone who is equal in other ways but works full time. You simply get more weeks of effort out of them for the same pay - it's really simple. It has nothing to do with being "unacceptable" so much as a "bad deal for the employer". Imagine that you're considering two candidates, one who you believe will work full time, and another who you think has 25% chance of working half-time (while being paid for full time) over some period. The two employees are equal otherwise. The expected value of the first worker is 100%1.0 = 1.0, and the expected value of the second worker is (25%)(0.5) + (75%1.0) = 0.875. Thus by going with the first worker, your expected outcome is 14% better. Imagine that the second worker is 10% better than the first. Then his expected value is (25%)(1.10/2) + (75%*1.10) = 0.96, or still worse than the regular worker. The worker who is 25% likely to work half-time must be 15% better in order for their expected value to equal a normal worker. The results change rapidly if they are more than 25% likely to take time off, and if they work less than half-time. If they are 25% likely to stop working completely, then they have to be 33% more competent in order for the expected value to equal a regular worker. All of this ignores the practical complexity of employees who take time off work unpredictably. The problem is that for the company to function, the job still needs to get done, which means burdening other employees, or hiring more employees - but if you hire another employee, then they won't be needed when the first employee comes back, and they are by law entitled to their same job. A simple rational analysis shows that workers who work full time have a better expected value for an employer, and are a lot simpler to deal with because they're predictable and you can plan around their schedule.
VeryVito 11y ago
This "study" seems flawed in so many ways (or the article describing it doesn't do it justice). According to the article, the people who did not get a job were the ones who "indicated on their resumes they were cancer survivors AND WORE A HAT that read 'cancer survivor' when applying for a job." NEWS FLASH: Wearing a novelty baseball cap to a job interview may not be the best idea -- cancer or not.
- sixtypoundhound 11y ago
  Yeah, I call "rigged science" on this one. Wearing any clothing other than professional apparel would bias an interview outcome regardless of the cause. The control either should have involved people wearing hats for another cause and/or they should have had a resume-mention only group in the test. Point of fact, I would not be suprised if discrimination exists. But no need to rig the test.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- pbnjay 11y ago
  > or the article describing it doesn't do it justice Yup, total linkbait writing here. I was able to find more info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10533808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10533808
- daenz 11y ago
  > NEWS FLASH: Wearing a novelty baseball cap to a job interview may not be the best idea -- cancer or not. > In the control condition, the resume provided no extra information and participants wore a plain white hat. Finally, it is important to note that all confederates served as their own control—they entered some stores wearing the “Cancer Survivor” hat and other stores with the plain white hat.
  - cmyr 11y ago
    At the very least the control group's hats should say "Control Group" on the front.
PixelB 11y ago
This is disgusting, but not surprising. Companies want young, healthy people that they can under-pay and over-work without fear of them needing a medical leave.
- jakejake 11y ago
  Well, I was in a situation where my small company had two people and I needed another programmer. One applicant came in who was clearly older - in his 60s I would guess. He came to the interview with a walker and looked in very bad health. I really didn't care the age of who I hired but my company was tiny and it was a struggle for me to pay a good salary and provide insurance (both of which I did). I was not looking to take advantage of anybody. However if somebody came on and went on extended medical leave, I wouldn't have been able to keep paying them - not out of personal greed but because there literally would not be money to pay them. My salary was not much, if any more than my employees. Possible I might have had some legal obligation to keep providing some type of insurance - I'm not sure. As it turns out he was completely unqualified - his resume did not jive at all with his knowledge - so I did not have to face the dilemma of whether I would hire him vs a younger, healthier applicant. But it did make me think and appreciate both sides of the situation.
  - shostack 11y ago
    This is always the conundrum that people don't like to discuss but I think is worth discussing. For very early-stage companies where the total employees (and potentially revenue) can be counted on one hand, all hires are critical. So a single hire who goes on extended medical leave, or sends your insurance rates through the roof can literally kill your company. Is it the person's fault? Not at all, but you are still left dealing with the consequences. I wonder how early-stage companies draw this line and deal with this type of decision assuming the reason is not related to any of the protected classes from a hiring standpoint.
    - jakejake 11y ago
      It is tough for sure. People who take a hard-line opinion on the subject I think may not have worked at a small company and/or have never had to think about payroll and insurance expenses. I know when I was younger it never even occurred to me to wonder where my paycheck came from.
logfromblammo 11y ago
Unfortunately, this doesn't tell us whether ethics in hiring practices have grown worse, or whether they have always been this bad, and we are just getting better at objectively measuring them. Either way, the well-intentioned laws governing discrimination in hiring will always be toothless as long as there is any legal reason to not hire a person that otherwise meets the stated job qualifications.
- PixelB 11y ago
  I'm willing to say subjectively that they have gotten worse. Some of the practices I've seen from the inside are downright despicable. Take your pick.. age, race, gender, health status.. I've seen the hiring department at our company pull it all. We had a candidate turned down because she spoke with a lisp and the manager said she wanted someone "intelligent" for the job.. despite the candidate's graduation from an ivy league college.
  - kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
    I would be looking for another employer if that's the sort of petty behavior they promote.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  For many roles where there is differentiation of abilities (or projected abilities), IMO, you can't just enumerate job qualifications and hire the first one that fits. NFL quarterback, MLB pitcher, NHL goalie are obvious examples, but my strongest senior employees are closer to that spread of ability and "value" versus the field than a pieceworker in a clothing factory or assembly line could ever be (and are compensated accordingly). I also regularly hire people who don't meet the letter of the stated job qualifications. I certainly don't want to devolve to a lawyerly interpretation of job descriptions as contracts and litigate whether or not Chris Jones did or did not objectively meet the stated JD or whether I became aware that Chris Jones did meet them before I was aware that Terry Smith did, or whether after becoming aware that both met the qualifications, why I did not engage in salary negotiations to determine the lowest price that each would accept to join. "I believe that candidate X was stronger than candidate Y [or a better value]" are valid reasons to select candidate X over Y, even if they both meet the job desc and regardless of whether either is in a majority or minority group of any sort, IMO. Unfortunately, when mis-used, that hiring manager flexibility results in some ugly outcomes. It also results in a lot of good outcomes (where the strongest candidates are highly sought after, and where there is incentive to distinguish yourself positively as a candidate and as an employee).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ohnomrbill 11y ago
This says more about the state of experimental methods in psychology than it does about the employability of cancer survivors.
lagadu 11y ago
After reading the headline but before reading the article the question in my mind as I clicked it was: "how would these potential employers know about someone's health status?" Fortunately they explain it fairly quickly: They wear baseball caps saying "cancer survivor" and/or include that they had cancer on their resumes for no reason, other than for the study. The way I see it, had I read on a resume that someone is a cancer survivor (or any other unwarranted personal detail that's clearly being shoehorned in) I'd find it very off-putting. That alone (along with the "wear a baseball cap" thing accounts for the discrepancy in hiring, as far as I'm concerned. This isn't even fake science, this is just a piece designed to generate outrage.
- pbnjay 11y ago
  Actually, it's just bad reporting. I had the same thoughts as you, but I found the paper here: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Craig_White6/publication/279631346_Selection_BIAS_Stereotypes_and_Discrimination_Related_to_Having_a_History_of_Cancer/links/559e8a0e08aeed377e57932d.pdf http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Craig_White6/publication... Control group wore plain white hats, and each participant acted as their own control by applying to one store with a cancer hat and a different with the plain hat: > In the experimental condition, confederates wore hats and provided resumes that disclosed cancer survivor status. The resumes included the following statement, “Please note: There is a gap in my employment because I was diagnosed and treated for cancer. I have been in remission for one year” and the hat had the words “Cancer Survivor” depicted across the front. In the control condition, the resume provided no extra information and participants wore a plain white hat. Finally, it is important to note that all confederates served as their own control—they entered some stores wearing the “Cancer Survivor” hat and other stores with the plain white hat. Confederate applicants remained blind to condition
  - DannoHung 11y ago
    I kinda wish they'd skipped the hat thing, because the resume aspect is pretty important. Explaining a gap in your resume is a reasonable thing for people to do when applying for a job.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
conductr 11y ago
Although this is flawed and kind of silly, the hypothesis the study tries to support does just kind of make sense in a pure common sense way. My wife is a survivor and she'd would never show that side of her life during the interview phase of employment. It just makes sense. Once you get the gig, and has more meaningful relationships with the people she would likely share. It's kind of assumed you never get that personal in an interview.
- x1024 11y ago
  "Although it's obviously a bad study, I am going to think its hypothesis is true." The only reason we have science is because "common sense" is too easily fooled.
  - michaelkeenan 11y ago
    You're allowed to have a prior: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_probability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_probability A study lacking the power to prove its hypothesis doesn't disprove the hypothesis.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
vpribish 11y ago
I'd love to see a study using actual cancer survivors and a control - who do not in any way include this information in their resume or discussion or clothing - and see if anyone is digging into personal medical history as part of their hiring practices. Probably have to apply for a different sort of job than retail though.
rdl 11y ago
I could see cases where this could be relevant. Imagine someone with a great career path in, say, SFBA -- forward and upward progression. In 2006 he quits a job after 6mo and moves to Houston, Boston, Rochester MN, etc. and takes a much lower job (say IT manager or something remote, and with flexible hours..,or maybe no job at all for a couple years) for 0-5y, and is now looking for a job again, based on the previous experience. Maybe he got fired from the good jobs and couldn't get a job somewhere good again and had to move somewhere cheaper to take a job more readily available. Maybe he or a family member had cancer and wanted to be near the world's best particular cancer care. I'd probably be a lot more strongly biased to hire the person who was willing to sacrifice his career for a while to save someone's life than otherwise. (Although Stanford and UCSF are pretty good...)

76 points by lujim 11y ago

Doesn't surprise me. I certainly did not disclose my son's health issue when I was looking for a second job. Must say that when asked why I was looking for a second job I just stated our current situation needs me to have a second job and not my wife has to be with our son as he fights for his life and he is in remission but 99% chance of it coming back int he next 6-12 months. When my son's cancer did come back the second job (And my main job) were both outstanding and really gave me flexibility and understanding, but I doubt I would have gotten the job the first place. It is hard to figure out what to disclose and what not to disclose for simple jobs like retail.

lujim 11y ago
Holy crap man, best of luck. I'm not sure how I would function enough to hold one job. Do you have any active crowd funding or anything going on right now?
- baldfat 11y ago
  Edit: I certainly don't mind sharing about our family's and son's struggle. Please don't feel bad that you brought up something bad or talking about it. Unfortunately he passed away 2 years ago. We had an incredible supportive local community and few local organizations who's purpose was supporting local families. I do highly recommend supporting St. Baldrick's http://www.stbaldricks.org/ http://www.stbaldricks.org/ for cancer research. Kids get the shaft in research money especially with only 1% from Cancer Society of America and 4% of the Federal Cancer Research Grants got o fight pediatric cancer. Any adult research is of little value to kids, but any findings with kids benefits adults in cancer treatment. So in 20+ years we have the first new chemo drug because of St Baldrick's research funded project paid off.
  - lujim 11y ago
    Ugh shit sorry. Taking this discussion offline.
  - omginternets 11y ago
    Good god. Nobody should have to go through that. From one internet stranger to another: my sincerest condolences. Edit: Victor Hugo lost his daughter and subsequently wrote what I consider to be one of the most beautiful poems in the French language. Here it is with an English translation: http://www.frenchtoday.com/french-poetry-reading/poem-demain-des-l-aube-hugo http://www.frenchtoday.com/french-poetry-reading/poem-demain... I wish I could do more.
    - omginternets 11y ago
      Wikipedia has a better translation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demain_d%C3%A8s_l%27aube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demain_d%C3%A8s_l%27aube
jakejake 11y ago
That's a tragic story. I certainly don't think it's anybody's business why you need a second job. Ultimately why do we need any job? Money of course. What you do with that money is your own business.

cryoshon 11y ago

Yeah, because the idea is that the person is already weak and may have a relapse which will negatively impact their job performance, which is institutionally thought of as unacceptable. Welcome to late capitalism, where the money is gone and the "power" of labor doesn't matter. Even if people don't have a conscious bias against potential liabilities that an employee might have, I'd suspect that subconsciously they do due to a general awareness of their own bottom line. When it comes time to make a hiring decision (an already an a-rational and largely emotional process), the subconscious biases against taking on a potential liability will probably manifest themselves, causing employers to invent an unrelated "reason" to disqualify a cancer-survivor candidate. Or maybe it's just an invisible push to the bottom of the pile without any false narratives. Either way, I assume the data doesn't lie.

zeveb 11y ago
> Yeah, because the idea is that the person is already weak and may have a relapse which will negatively impact their job performance If I'm hiring, I want the best possible candidate for the job at the best possible price. Someone who has a higher likelihood of being absent is less likely to be the best possible candidate for the job. Those emotional biases have real foundations. I happen to belong to a protected group and also have a higher chance of being absent; I disclose that status, do my best to indicate that I am the best possible candidate, and let the chips fall where they may. It's worked alright for me so far, although I'm sure that it's cost me a little.
- vkou 11y ago
  Unfortunately, not everyone is in the position of privilege where they can afford to be discriminated against.
Pyxl101 11y ago
> which is institutionally thought of as unacceptable That's not it at all. The goal of hiring is simple: maximize the effectiveness of the company by hiring people who are the most effective at least cost. Typically, the hiring manager thinks about what he needs and reduces the hiring question to: "For this role, we need a person with these skills or better, and we're willing to pay this amount or less." Then you evaluate candidates to determine their effectiveness. Many factors impact someone's relative effectiveness: if they take time off work for any reason, then they are less effective than someone who is equal in other ways but works full time. You simply get more weeks of effort out of them for the same pay - it's really simple. It has nothing to do with being "unacceptable" so much as a "bad deal for the employer". Imagine that you're considering two candidates, one who you believe will work full time, and another who you think has 25% chance of working half-time (while being paid for full time) over some period. The two employees are equal otherwise. The expected value of the first worker is 100%1.0 = 1.0, and the expected value of the second worker is (25%)(0.5) + (75%1.0) = 0.875. Thus by going with the first worker, your expected outcome is 14% better. Imagine that the second worker is 10% better than the first. Then his expected value is (25%)(1.10/2) + (75%*1.10) = 0.96, or still worse than the regular worker. The worker who is 25% likely to work half-time must be 15% better in order for their expected value to equal a normal worker. The results change rapidly if they are more than 25% likely to take time off, and if they work less than half-time. If they are 25% likely to stop working completely, then they have to be 33% more competent in order for the expected value to equal a regular worker. All of this ignores the practical complexity of employees who take time off work unpredictably. The problem is that for the company to function, the job still needs to get done, which means burdening other employees, or hiring more employees - but if you hire another employee, then they won't be needed when the first employee comes back, and they are by law entitled to their same job. A simple rational analysis shows that workers who work full time have a better expected value for an employer, and are a lot simpler to deal with because they're predictable and you can plan around their schedule.

VeryVito 11y ago

This "study" seems flawed in so many ways (or the article describing it doesn't do it justice). According to the article, the people who did not get a job were the ones who "indicated on their resumes they were cancer survivors AND WORE A HAT that read 'cancer survivor' when applying for a job." NEWS FLASH: Wearing a novelty baseball cap to a job interview may not be the best idea -- cancer or not.

sixtypoundhound 11y ago
Yeah, I call "rigged science" on this one. Wearing any clothing other than professional apparel would bias an interview outcome regardless of the cause. The control either should have involved people wearing hats for another cause and/or they should have had a resume-mention only group in the test. Point of fact, I would not be suprised if discrimination exists. But no need to rig the test.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
pbnjay 11y ago
> or the article describing it doesn't do it justice Yup, total linkbait writing here. I was able to find more info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10533808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10533808
daenz 11y ago
> NEWS FLASH: Wearing a novelty baseball cap to a job interview may not be the best idea -- cancer or not. > In the control condition, the resume provided no extra information and participants wore a plain white hat. Finally, it is important to note that all confederates served as their own control—they entered some stores wearing the “Cancer Survivor” hat and other stores with the plain white hat.
- cmyr 11y ago
  At the very least the control group's hats should say "Control Group" on the front.

PixelB 11y ago

This is disgusting, but not surprising. Companies want young, healthy people that they can under-pay and over-work without fear of them needing a medical leave.

jakejake 11y ago
Well, I was in a situation where my small company had two people and I needed another programmer. One applicant came in who was clearly older - in his 60s I would guess. He came to the interview with a walker and looked in very bad health. I really didn't care the age of who I hired but my company was tiny and it was a struggle for me to pay a good salary and provide insurance (both of which I did). I was not looking to take advantage of anybody. However if somebody came on and went on extended medical leave, I wouldn't have been able to keep paying them - not out of personal greed but because there literally would not be money to pay them. My salary was not much, if any more than my employees. Possible I might have had some legal obligation to keep providing some type of insurance - I'm not sure. As it turns out he was completely unqualified - his resume did not jive at all with his knowledge - so I did not have to face the dilemma of whether I would hire him vs a younger, healthier applicant. But it did make me think and appreciate both sides of the situation.
- shostack 11y ago
  This is always the conundrum that people don't like to discuss but I think is worth discussing. For very early-stage companies where the total employees (and potentially revenue) can be counted on one hand, all hires are critical. So a single hire who goes on extended medical leave, or sends your insurance rates through the roof can literally kill your company. Is it the person's fault? Not at all, but you are still left dealing with the consequences. I wonder how early-stage companies draw this line and deal with this type of decision assuming the reason is not related to any of the protected classes from a hiring standpoint.
  - jakejake 11y ago
    It is tough for sure. People who take a hard-line opinion on the subject I think may not have worked at a small company and/or have never had to think about payroll and insurance expenses. I know when I was younger it never even occurred to me to wonder where my paycheck came from.

logfromblammo 11y ago

Unfortunately, this doesn't tell us whether ethics in hiring practices have grown worse, or whether they have always been this bad, and we are just getting better at objectively measuring them. Either way, the well-intentioned laws governing discrimination in hiring will always be toothless as long as there is any legal reason to not hire a person that otherwise meets the stated job qualifications.

PixelB 11y ago
I'm willing to say subjectively that they have gotten worse. Some of the practices I've seen from the inside are downright despicable. Take your pick.. age, race, gender, health status.. I've seen the hiring department at our company pull it all. We had a candidate turned down because she spoke with a lisp and the manager said she wanted someone "intelligent" for the job.. despite the candidate's graduation from an ivy league college.
- kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
  I would be looking for another employer if that's the sort of petty behavior they promote.
sokoloff 11y ago
For many roles where there is differentiation of abilities (or projected abilities), IMO, you can't just enumerate job qualifications and hire the first one that fits. NFL quarterback, MLB pitcher, NHL goalie are obvious examples, but my strongest senior employees are closer to that spread of ability and "value" versus the field than a pieceworker in a clothing factory or assembly line could ever be (and are compensated accordingly). I also regularly hire people who don't meet the letter of the stated job qualifications. I certainly don't want to devolve to a lawyerly interpretation of job descriptions as contracts and litigate whether or not Chris Jones did or did not objectively meet the stated JD or whether I became aware that Chris Jones did meet them before I was aware that Terry Smith did, or whether after becoming aware that both met the qualifications, why I did not engage in salary negotiations to determine the lowest price that each would accept to join. "I believe that candidate X was stronger than candidate Y [or a better value]" are valid reasons to select candidate X over Y, even if they both meet the job desc and regardless of whether either is in a majority or minority group of any sort, IMO. Unfortunately, when mis-used, that hiring manager flexibility results in some ugly outcomes. It also results in a lot of good outcomes (where the strongest candidates are highly sought after, and where there is incentive to distinguish yourself positively as a candidate and as an employee).

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ohnomrbill 11y ago

This says more about the state of experimental methods in psychology than it does about the employability of cancer survivors.

lagadu 11y ago

After reading the headline but before reading the article the question in my mind as I clicked it was: "how would these potential employers know about someone's health status?" Fortunately they explain it fairly quickly: They wear baseball caps saying "cancer survivor" and/or include that they had cancer on their resumes for no reason, other than for the study. The way I see it, had I read on a resume that someone is a cancer survivor (or any other unwarranted personal detail that's clearly being shoehorned in) I'd find it very off-putting. That alone (along with the "wear a baseball cap" thing accounts for the discrepancy in hiring, as far as I'm concerned. This isn't even fake science, this is just a piece designed to generate outrage.

pbnjay 11y ago
Actually, it's just bad reporting. I had the same thoughts as you, but I found the paper here: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Craig_White6/publication/279631346_Selection_BIAS_Stereotypes_and_Discrimination_Related_to_Having_a_History_of_Cancer/links/559e8a0e08aeed377e57932d.pdf http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Craig_White6/publication... Control group wore plain white hats, and each participant acted as their own control by applying to one store with a cancer hat and a different with the plain hat: > In the experimental condition, confederates wore hats and provided resumes that disclosed cancer survivor status. The resumes included the following statement, “Please note: There is a gap in my employment because I was diagnosed and treated for cancer. I have been in remission for one year” and the hat had the words “Cancer Survivor” depicted across the front. In the control condition, the resume provided no extra information and participants wore a plain white hat. Finally, it is important to note that all confederates served as their own control—they entered some stores wearing the “Cancer Survivor” hat and other stores with the plain white hat. Confederate applicants remained blind to condition
- DannoHung 11y ago
  I kinda wish they'd skipped the hat thing, because the resume aspect is pretty important. Explaining a gap in your resume is a reasonable thing for people to do when applying for a job.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

conductr 11y ago

Although this is flawed and kind of silly, the hypothesis the study tries to support does just kind of make sense in a pure common sense way. My wife is a survivor and she'd would never show that side of her life during the interview phase of employment. It just makes sense. Once you get the gig, and has more meaningful relationships with the people she would likely share. It's kind of assumed you never get that personal in an interview.

x1024 11y ago
"Although it's obviously a bad study, I am going to think its hypothesis is true." The only reason we have science is because "common sense" is too easily fooled.
- michaelkeenan 11y ago
  You're allowed to have a prior: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_probability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_probability A study lacking the power to prove its hypothesis doesn't disprove the hypothesis.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

vpribish 11y ago

I'd love to see a study using actual cancer survivors and a control - who do not in any way include this information in their resume or discussion or clothing - and see if anyone is digging into personal medical history as part of their hiring practices. Probably have to apply for a different sort of job than retail though.

rdl 11y ago

I could see cases where this could be relevant. Imagine someone with a great career path in, say, SFBA -- forward and upward progression. In 2006 he quits a job after 6mo and moves to Houston, Boston, Rochester MN, etc. and takes a much lower job (say IT manager or something remote, and with flexible hours..,or maybe no job at all for a couple years) for 0-5y, and is now looking for a job again, based on the previous experience. Maybe he got fired from the good jobs and couldn't get a job somewhere good again and had to move somewhere cheaper to take a job more readily available. Maybe he or a family member had cancer and wanted to be near the world's best particular cancer care. I'd probably be a lot more strongly biased to hire the person who was willing to sacrifice his career for a while to save someone's life than otherwise. (Although Stanford and UCSF are pretty good...)