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> expecting equal representation is foolish. That's the part I don't really get. Google clearly desires equal representation (take this as exogenous), and beli

> expecting equal representation is foolish. That's the part I don't really get. Google clearly desires equal representation (take this as exogenous), and believes it won't happen on its own, so puts these initiatives in place to dig up qualified candidates from currently-underrepresented groups. This doesn't mean that the chosen candidates will be worse at their jobs, just that Google needs to work harder to find them. Say you have 10 job openings for which there are 5 qualified men and 1000 qualified women. But, you want your employee base to be 50/50. Is that desire "foolish", just because it s unlikely to happen naturally? I guess you could say that the resources of the business should not be spent on recruiting to hit that 50/50 target when it will be difficult to do so. Or that, given human frailties, maybe the recruiters would be tempted to dip into the much larger pool of slightly-underqualified candidates to hit the target. I think both objections can be answered with: well, it's a business that is free to make its own choices, and the market will decide whether they are good ones in the long run.

malandrew 9y ago
> Say you have 10 job openings for which there are 5 qualified men and 1000 qualified women. Notice how you already constrained the number of men so that it has to be 50/50 representation, because you only have 5 qualified mean in your example. In reality, there are a lot more than 5 qualified men. There may be as many qualified men as women. There may be more qualified men than women. There may be fewer qualified men than women. The proportion of qualified men to women is irrelevant. It's illegal to make hiring decisions based on gender because gender is a protected class. You can't discriminate against women and you can't discriminate against men. You need to choose the most qualified candidates for those 10 position. It may be 50/50, it may not be. You don't know the distribution of the 10 most qualified candidates. If the company wants to spend more money on outreach to increase the pool of applicants from a certain group, that's legal. However once, they are in the hiring funnel and competing with other candidates for a position, you legally cannot make hiring decisions based on gender. How much the company spends on outreach to recruit under-represented groups is up to debate. I personally think that budget should be decided like any other budget. It should be evaluated as an investment. What are estimated benefits relative to the amount of money invested worth it relative to other ways that money could be spent?

malandrew 9y ago

> Say you have 10 job openings for which there are 5 qualified men and 1000 qualified women. Notice how you already constrained the number of men so that it has to be 50/50 representation, because you only have 5 qualified mean in your example. In reality, there are a lot more than 5 qualified men. There may be as many qualified men as women. There may be more qualified men than women. There may be fewer qualified men than women. The proportion of qualified men to women is irrelevant. It's illegal to make hiring decisions based on gender because gender is a protected class. You can't discriminate against women and you can't discriminate against men. You need to choose the most qualified candidates for those 10 position. It may be 50/50, it may not be. You don't know the distribution of the 10 most qualified candidates. If the company wants to spend more money on outreach to increase the pool of applicants from a certain group, that's legal. However once, they are in the hiring funnel and competing with other candidates for a position, you legally cannot make hiring decisions based on gender. How much the company spends on outreach to recruit under-represented groups is up to debate. I personally think that budget should be decided like any other budget. It should be evaluated as an investment. What are estimated benefits relative to the amount of money invested worth it relative to other ways that money could be spent?