5 ms·

Can you give some examples of the positive discrimination?

by brown9-2 9y ago

jorgemf 9y ago
Hiring people to achieve a diversity in the company and not hiring the candidate who fits better for the position.
- brown9-2 9y ago
  Can you give any evidence that this is actually what occurs, that the "better fit" is not selected?
  - jorgemf 9y ago
    They are adding a bias in their selection process with gender diversity programs, so if two candidates are very similar they will probably select the one who belongs to the minority. As it is a minority, you are more likely to choose less qualified people from the minority. For example, your pool of candidates is 75 (mayority) / 25 (minority). If you want in your company 50/50 ratio, you must leave out better candidates from the mayority in order to increase your number of people of the minority. EDIT: as other person replied to me in a comment, my argument fails if the target ratio is close to the pool of candidates. But we don't have any reference what was the goal of the diversity program to make any assumption. I assume the goal was not feasible and that lead to the famous memorandum.
    - alexbeloi 9y ago
      >But we don't have any reference what was the goal of the diversity program to make any assumption. In California, when companies are audited by the government to check for discriminatory employment practices, they're checking that the employment ratios are relatively close to the ratio of the pool of applicants, not some prescribed ratio like 50/50.
      - jorgemf 9y ago
        I had no idea (I am from another continent) thanks for the information. Do you know how they calculate the ratios for the pool of candidates? It seems it is not a easy thing to do.
        alexbeloi 9y ago
        They sample resumes from various source (online hiring boards, recruiting companies, etc.). They also do compare companies to their industry average for their region to see if a company is hiring abnormally compared to similar companies. Companies with 50 employees have a lot more variation than companies with 1000 employees, they're very aware of the related sampling biases and do the best they can, they employ a good amount of statisticians and sociologists. The margin for error is also quite high, the kind of auditing I'm talking about is meant to catch very serious, long term, company wide systemic discrimination. After companies grow to a certain size (I think >50 employees), they are also obligated to record demographics information about applicants in the form of voluntary surveys in their application process.
        jorgemf 9y ago
        What? As far as I know you shouldn't put your gender, age or photo in the CV because the company who review it can be sued for discrimination. (A recruiter from US made me delete that information when I was applying to us companies). Isn't Google ratios similar to Facebook and other companies in San Francisco? (But not to other states). I am more confuse now after the information you gave me.
        mr_spothawk 9y ago
        > (A recruiter from US made me delete that information when I was applying to us companies) funny, when I started applying outside of the US, I added that information into my resume. in the US, there's often an attached (optional) form that allows the applicant to add this information. I'd never really put it together before tonight, but I've always shunned filling out that form. I also shunned saying the pledge of allegiance in grade school. wondering, for myself, if those behaviors are related.
  - Aunche 9y ago
    Google has internship programs specifically targeted towards "underrepresented groups."

Can you give some examples of the positive discrimination?

jorgemf 9y ago

Hiring people to achieve a diversity in the company and not hiring the candidate who fits better for the position.

brown9-2 9y ago
Can you give any evidence that this is actually what occurs, that the "better fit" is not selected?
- jorgemf 9y ago
  They are adding a bias in their selection process with gender diversity programs, so if two candidates are very similar they will probably select the one who belongs to the minority. As it is a minority, you are more likely to choose less qualified people from the minority. For example, your pool of candidates is 75 (mayority) / 25 (minority). If you want in your company 50/50 ratio, you must leave out better candidates from the mayority in order to increase your number of people of the minority. EDIT: as other person replied to me in a comment, my argument fails if the target ratio is close to the pool of candidates. But we don't have any reference what was the goal of the diversity program to make any assumption. I assume the goal was not feasible and that lead to the famous memorandum.
  - alexbeloi 9y ago
    >But we don't have any reference what was the goal of the diversity program to make any assumption. In California, when companies are audited by the government to check for discriminatory employment practices, they're checking that the employment ratios are relatively close to the ratio of the pool of applicants, not some prescribed ratio like 50/50.
    - jorgemf 9y ago
      I had no idea (I am from another continent) thanks for the information. Do you know how they calculate the ratios for the pool of candidates? It seems it is not a easy thing to do.
      - alexbeloi 9y ago
        They sample resumes from various source (online hiring boards, recruiting companies, etc.). They also do compare companies to their industry average for their region to see if a company is hiring abnormally compared to similar companies. Companies with 50 employees have a lot more variation than companies with 1000 employees, they're very aware of the related sampling biases and do the best they can, they employ a good amount of statisticians and sociologists. The margin for error is also quite high, the kind of auditing I'm talking about is meant to catch very serious, long term, company wide systemic discrimination. After companies grow to a certain size (I think >50 employees), they are also obligated to record demographics information about applicants in the form of voluntary surveys in their application process.
        jorgemf 9y ago
        What? As far as I know you shouldn't put your gender, age or photo in the CV because the company who review it can be sued for discrimination. (A recruiter from US made me delete that information when I was applying to us companies). Isn't Google ratios similar to Facebook and other companies in San Francisco? (But not to other states). I am more confuse now after the information you gave me.
        mr_spothawk 9y ago
        > (A recruiter from US made me delete that information when I was applying to us companies) funny, when I started applying outside of the US, I added that information into my resume. in the US, there's often an attached (optional) form that allows the applicant to add this information. I'd never really put it together before tonight, but I've always shunned filling out that form. I also shunned saying the pledge of allegiance in grade school. wondering, for myself, if those behaviors are related.
- Aunche 9y ago
  Google has internship programs specifically targeted towards "underrepresented groups."