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what happens if among 100 applicants, 80% are male, 20% female? Within each bucket, top 25% are qualified; hence 20 male, and 5 female. But you only have room
by pcurve 9y ago
what happens if among 100 applicants, 80% are male, 20% female?
Within each bucket, top 25% are qualified; hence 20 male, and 5 female.
But you only have room for 10 positions, 5 for male, 5 for female to reflect customer population
For male, you end up hiring top 5% whereas for female, it's top 25%.
What's an equitable way to address this?
- kevingadd 9y agoExpand the pool of applicants until selecting the top 5% produces a male/female balance closer to that of the general population. Smaller companies don't necessarily have the ability to do this, but Google has the resources to do it. Expanding the applicant pool will never reduce fairness, and it gives you more opportunities to hire the best of the best, assuming your hiring pipeline can actually select them.
- pcurve 9y agoYes, Google has the resources to do that, and so can other big companies. But you'd have to pay top 5% female engineer more than top 5% male engineer because there's a lot fewer of them to go around. Simple supply and demand. Do you then raise the male salary? That will only contribute to larger male candidate pool.
- kevingadd 9y agoPaying them equal to what the men get might be enough, since the last time people did a comparison, women at Google earned less. (It's possible this is fixed now, but since they aren't open with salary numbers, people assume it's not.)