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Such line of questions would pretty much disqualify you in my eyes, regardless if I'm the interviewer or the candidate. Not just because of the improperly perso

by Jare 9y ago

Such line of questions would pretty much disqualify you in my eyes, regardless if I'm the interviewer or the candidate. Not just because of the improperly personal nature, but also they require a lot of assumptions and random chances in order to be remotely considered useful. Note that I'm not challenging the statistical correlation with certain outcomes, but I'm questioning the mindset of someone who would use them to make a decision.

reitanqild 9y ago
Upvoted. I'll tell about my family sometime later. One possible reason I came up with however in defense of the women who said this (yeah, old habit) is maybe this is more relevant in VP / CEX level hiring processes were I guess a certain amount of socializing takes place before contracts are signed?
- Jare 9y ago
  Socializing may happen at all levels, for example if the candidate is taken out to lunch. In that context the information may come out. The big problem is that the margin of error for judging an individual case on such factors is enormous. If the CEO is a guy and has daughters then there's a 16% chance he will treat his female employees better, or close the wage gap by 3%, than he did before having daughters. If not, then... what? The stat is only applicable to "CEOs that have daughters"... how do you compare with other kids of CEOs? If you are not careful, your brain will start filling in the gaps, creating false correlations, and worse yet, feel encouraged to look for or come up for more, even less substantiated correlations. It's a very slippery slope. Or maybe I'm only saying all this because a long time ago, I thought the fact that my future CEO liked to play the violin meant he cared about the art we were going to produce. You won't believe what happened next! ;)
  - reitanqild 9y ago
    I think we agree. I just tried to come up with an explanation as to why this would be suggested.

by Jare 9y ago

reitanqild 9y ago

Upvoted. I'll tell about my family sometime later. One possible reason I came up with however in defense of the women who said this (yeah, old habit) is maybe this is more relevant in VP / CEX level hiring processes were I guess a certain amount of socializing takes place before contracts are signed?

Jare 9y ago
Socializing may happen at all levels, for example if the candidate is taken out to lunch. In that context the information may come out. The big problem is that the margin of error for judging an individual case on such factors is enormous. If the CEO is a guy and has daughters then there's a 16% chance he will treat his female employees better, or close the wage gap by 3%, than he did before having daughters. If not, then... what? The stat is only applicable to "CEOs that have daughters"... how do you compare with other kids of CEOs? If you are not careful, your brain will start filling in the gaps, creating false correlations, and worse yet, feel encouraged to look for or come up for more, even less substantiated correlations. It's a very slippery slope. Or maybe I'm only saying all this because a long time ago, I thought the fact that my future CEO liked to play the violin meant he cared about the art we were going to produce. You won't believe what happened next! ;)
- reitanqild 9y ago
  I think we agree. I just tried to come up with an explanation as to why this would be suggested.