5 ms·

If your organization's demographics don't match the demographics of the broader population of qualified candidates, there's a good chance it's because you're bi

If your organization's demographics don't match the demographics of the broader population of qualified candidates, there's a good chance it's because you're biased (intentionally or not) in your recruiting or evaluation. In that sense, "focusing on the pool of applicants and making sure everyone gets a fair shake" are pretty much exactly what diversity efforts are about.

ajhurliman 10y ago
By their wording, it seems like they're more focused on the outcome of the hiring process. No black managers is the outcome, and they said that's unacceptable. If you look at the process instead of the outcome, it might not be the same. If the scenario was that no qualified black people applied for management positions which resulted in not having any black managers they could still come back to the public and say "We have nothing to apologize for, we tried to hire black managers but none applied" instead of "We failed, we don't have any black managers and it's our fault". It's good to be unbiased in your hiring practices, but you can only shoulder so much blame. There are many factors that play into the process and you can only accept responsibility for your own actions.
- jason_dstillery 10y ago
  How do you evaluate whether your process is good or bad without looking at the outcome it produces? While I grant that even the best/fairest processes can fail on individual cases, if your aggregate result is poor, what other conclusion can you draw except that your process is broken? To take your example, if the scenario was that no qualified person from a given group applied, you can look at your process and ask what prevented them from doing so. Maybe there's a perception that your organization is hostile to that group, and you can do something to address that perception. Maybe your job postings are only going up in places that target a specific type. Maybe your 3rd-party recruiters are biased. Whatever the reason is, if the broader population of qualified candidates includes groups that aren't applying to your organization, that's pointing to a process problem you can try to fix (which I very much think of as accepting responsibility for my own actions).
  - george_soros 10y ago
    Your reasoning makes me sick.
nawitus 10y ago
> If your organization's demographics don't match the demographics of the broader population of qualified candidates This hasn't been demonstrated.
GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
>there's a good chance it's because you're biased (intentionally or not) in your recruiting or evaluation. I don't think this is necessarily the case. Or even likely the case. For example, we know that the number of blacks, latinos, and women studying CS, etc., is much lower than their proportion in the population. It follows that even the most equitable tech company is unlikely to have demographics which match the population at large. You can't hire black coders in proportion to the general population if black coders form 5% (or whatever it is) of coders while black people form 14% of the general population. The math just doesn't work.
- pron 10y ago
  But it's also possible that the reason that some groups are underrepresented because is because they don't like their prospects (say, in term of a welcoming work environment). Causality works both up and down the pipeline; not just up.
  - GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
    It's possible, but you'd have to prove it, and I think that's an uphill battle. Further, that's not what the previous poster was saying, and not what I was addressing. They said that there's a high degree of likelihood that not reflecting the population at large is the result of bias. That, as I said, is not likely to be true.
    - pron 10y ago
      > That, as I said, is not likely to be true. I think it's by far the likeliest explanation given everything we know of human societies and human history (i.e, as a general rule, almost everything is fluid). Moreover, it's the safest: if, as a result of such under-representations, certain groups have less power in society, it's unreasonable not to try to fix it. If people get sick and you don't know if the disease is curable or not, the far safer (and more ethical) assumption is that it is. Both assumptions are not symmetrical.
- jason_dstillery 10y ago

ajhurliman 10y ago

By their wording, it seems like they're more focused on the outcome of the hiring process. No black managers is the outcome, and they said that's unacceptable. If you look at the process instead of the outcome, it might not be the same. If the scenario was that no qualified black people applied for management positions which resulted in not having any black managers they could still come back to the public and say "We have nothing to apologize for, we tried to hire black managers but none applied" instead of "We failed, we don't have any black managers and it's our fault". It's good to be unbiased in your hiring practices, but you can only shoulder so much blame. There are many factors that play into the process and you can only accept responsibility for your own actions.

jason_dstillery 10y ago
How do you evaluate whether your process is good or bad without looking at the outcome it produces? While I grant that even the best/fairest processes can fail on individual cases, if your aggregate result is poor, what other conclusion can you draw except that your process is broken? To take your example, if the scenario was that no qualified person from a given group applied, you can look at your process and ask what prevented them from doing so. Maybe there's a perception that your organization is hostile to that group, and you can do something to address that perception. Maybe your job postings are only going up in places that target a specific type. Maybe your 3rd-party recruiters are biased. Whatever the reason is, if the broader population of qualified candidates includes groups that aren't applying to your organization, that's pointing to a process problem you can try to fix (which I very much think of as accepting responsibility for my own actions).
- george_soros 10y ago
  Your reasoning makes me sick.

nawitus 10y ago

> If your organization's demographics don't match the demographics of the broader population of qualified candidates This hasn't been demonstrated.

GunboatDiplomat 10y ago

>there's a good chance it's because you're biased (intentionally or not) in your recruiting or evaluation. I don't think this is necessarily the case. Or even likely the case. For example, we know that the number of blacks, latinos, and women studying CS, etc., is much lower than their proportion in the population. It follows that even the most equitable tech company is unlikely to have demographics which match the population at large. You can't hire black coders in proportion to the general population if black coders form 5% (or whatever it is) of coders while black people form 14% of the general population. The math just doesn't work.

pron 10y ago
But it's also possible that the reason that some groups are underrepresented because is because they don't like their prospects (say, in term of a welcoming work environment). Causality works both up and down the pipeline; not just up.
- GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
  It's possible, but you'd have to prove it, and I think that's an uphill battle. Further, that's not what the previous poster was saying, and not what I was addressing. They said that there's a high degree of likelihood that not reflecting the population at large is the result of bias. That, as I said, is not likely to be true.
  - pron 10y ago
    > That, as I said, is not likely to be true. I think it's by far the likeliest explanation given everything we know of human societies and human history (i.e, as a general rule, almost everything is fluid). Moreover, it's the safest: if, as a result of such under-representations, certain groups have less power in society, it's unreasonable not to try to fix it. If people get sick and you don't know if the disease is curable or not, the far safer (and more ethical) assumption is that it is. Both assumptions are not symmetrical.
jason_dstillery 10y ago