3 ms·

I often think the bias occurs before the interview in terms of the pipeline. For me, that's my largest self-correcting area. There are groups of people or peopl

I often think the bias occurs before the interview in terms of the pipeline. For me, that's my largest self-correcting area. There are groups of people or people who present themselves in a certain way that I simply don't want to interview because it feels like 'wasting my time'. Clearly that's bullshit and I make an active effort to overcome those biases and, if anything, now am overcorrecting (a better mistake to make imo). Once they're in the room, you're outline seems like a solid way to measure they're abilities. Of course I'm not saying there isn't opportunity for bias here as well (mainly in the selection of the question), but you've offset it magnificently by having written down the correct answer and (hopefully) prioritizing getting said answer rather than the manner in which it was conveyed ("I think..", questions rather than statements ("It's x, right?"), "Maybe it's..", etc. since those types of self-effacing comments are often seen and presented as polite forms of communicating for women).

rsj_hn 9y ago
In my case, I'm not a recruiter, so I interview everyone they ask me to interview -- I've never played a role in the original vetting. I think most large companies have a formalized system of initial screening -- which has been criticized for relying on keywords and such. It's done by HR. After that, there's a phone screen which is much like an in person interview -- the questions should be pre-written based on the resume and generally they are. In my company I've worked to write up large banks of questions w/answers and distributed them to people doing phone screens for this purpose, and I've used that in my own phone screens. What people should do is formalize the interview process which helps in so many ways -- a repeatable process with repeatable questions lets you compare people across times and gives a lot of insight. It also helps reduce bias. I do think that small companies tend to do a worse job that big companies with established HR practices. That's not only true for HR, it's true across the board. Young people who are inexperienced are going to make mistakes. Certainly there is going to be "culture" type bias in start ups and other small companies at least during the screening process. I wouldn't say that's too relevant for "Silicon Valley", as you have these issues in small businesses in every industry.

rsj_hn 9y ago

In my case, I'm not a recruiter, so I interview everyone they ask me to interview -- I've never played a role in the original vetting. I think most large companies have a formalized system of initial screening -- which has been criticized for relying on keywords and such. It's done by HR. After that, there's a phone screen which is much like an in person interview -- the questions should be pre-written based on the resume and generally they are. In my company I've worked to write up large banks of questions w/answers and distributed them to people doing phone screens for this purpose, and I've used that in my own phone screens. What people should do is formalize the interview process which helps in so many ways -- a repeatable process with repeatable questions lets you compare people across times and gives a lot of insight. It also helps reduce bias. I do think that small companies tend to do a worse job that big companies with established HR practices. That's not only true for HR, it's true across the board. Young people who are inexperienced are going to make mistakes. Certainly there is going to be "culture" type bias in start ups and other small companies at least during the screening process. I wouldn't say that's too relevant for "Silicon Valley", as you have these issues in small businesses in every industry.