5 ms·

I wish we could move away from resumes for tech role screening anyway, since they convey very little real reliable information. I’ve seen too many great hires f

I wish we could move away from resumes for tech role screening anyway, since they convey very little real reliable information. I’ve seen too many great hires from candidates with relatively weak resumes, and failed interviews from candidates with great resumes (and obviously vice versa). I’m not sure what the best alternative should be, though. I am a fan of open source work as a sort of code portfolio, but it doesn’t work for every kind of engineering/science (edit: and also would introduce bias against professionals too busy for open source.) Regarding bias — it seems the only way to truly eliminate it (including unconscious bias) is author-blind reviews, i.e. reviewing code written by a candidate without knowing anything about that candidate’s identity. (And the nice thing about code is it usually doesn’t signal any identity traits of the author via side channels.)

fhbdukfrh 8y ago
It doesn't work for the vast majority of professional work because it's not open source and not done in the public
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
kentm 8y ago
Unfortunately using open source work, even if only for programming, introduces all sorts of biases as well. A lot of very competent programmers work at jobs that do not have open source contributions and also have families which limit the time they can spend coding after work.
- electrograv 8y ago
  Good point! I didn’t mean to propose it as a solution, but rather as an enumeration or one possibility I’ve considered, and ruled out because it doesn’t work for everyone.
  - kentm 8y ago
    I didn't mean to assume you did, sorry. Its just fun to be the jerk that points out that hiring without bias is actually really hard. We've had quite a lot of discussions about this internally, and even with humans at the helm with best of intentions about being unbiased, its really easy for a lot of bias to slip in. Even things like the phrasing of questions can introduce bias (i.e. the ol' apocryphal SAT word association problem that had 'regatta:boat').
stef25 8y ago
> author-blind reviews Should I ever be in a position to hire a colleague, I wouldn't ever do so without having a chat with them. I spend 8hrs a day in an office with my colleagues (sometimes more than with my wife & kid) and the ones I can't stand is about the only thing wrong with my job. If we can't even see the person's face over some gender bias hysteria then I wonder how the hell we got here. People should just get over the fact that men and women are different.
- moate 8y ago
  You'll also get people who (rightfully) point out that "plays nice with others" is a nice to have and not a must have. Certain people have skills so valuable they don't need to be liked (the productivity lost due to internal politics/people complaining is < the productivity gained by having them hired). It's great when everyone can coexist perfectly. However, that might not be the best business decision. There's no such thing as "objectively best" just a list of pros and cons to any candidate, and a company's internal preferences.
- electrograv 8y ago
  I’m not saying that all candidates should be interviewed without ever meeting or interviewing the candidate face-to-face; rather, I was speaking specifically of the coding interview portions. In these segments, face-to-face doesn’t really matter IMO, since it’s all about the candidate’s problem-solving ability. Yes there’s a lot of “bias hysteria” out there, as you put it, but I would dispute that advocating “author-blind meritocracy” falls into that category. Quite the contrary: An author-blind review process would actually make any bias impossible — either for or against any particular identity group. It seems to me most people should be able to get behind that, but maybe I’m wrong. In fact, the main opposition to author-blind meritocracy is the “post-meritocracy” movement which is slowly making its way into open-source projects codes of conduct.
  - stef25 8y ago
    You're totally right in that coding tests can and probably should be done "blind". When it gets to the "let's meet" stage, it could be possible that the bias just comes back. Yes this woman made a perfect score on the coding but she's a woman and I'm not going to hire her for reason X that just bubbled up out of my biased brain. I can totally see that happening, unfortunately.
arayh 8y ago
I agree that resumes are a poor means to distinguish between good and bad candidates. Humans already struggle with the screening process. There's no way an AI can reveal some kind of hidden secret sauce written into all great candidate resumes. This project was doomed to fail from the beginning, in my opinion.

fhbdukfrh 8y ago

It doesn't work for the vast majority of professional work because it's not open source and not done in the public

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

kentm 8y ago

Unfortunately using open source work, even if only for programming, introduces all sorts of biases as well. A lot of very competent programmers work at jobs that do not have open source contributions and also have families which limit the time they can spend coding after work.

electrograv 8y ago
Good point! I didn’t mean to propose it as a solution, but rather as an enumeration or one possibility I’ve considered, and ruled out because it doesn’t work for everyone.
- kentm 8y ago
  I didn't mean to assume you did, sorry. Its just fun to be the jerk that points out that hiring without bias is actually really hard. We've had quite a lot of discussions about this internally, and even with humans at the helm with best of intentions about being unbiased, its really easy for a lot of bias to slip in. Even things like the phrasing of questions can introduce bias (i.e. the ol' apocryphal SAT word association problem that had 'regatta:boat').

stef25 8y ago

> author-blind reviews Should I ever be in a position to hire a colleague, I wouldn't ever do so without having a chat with them. I spend 8hrs a day in an office with my colleagues (sometimes more than with my wife & kid) and the ones I can't stand is about the only thing wrong with my job. If we can't even see the person's face over some gender bias hysteria then I wonder how the hell we got here. People should just get over the fact that men and women are different.

moate 8y ago
You'll also get people who (rightfully) point out that "plays nice with others" is a nice to have and not a must have. Certain people have skills so valuable they don't need to be liked (the productivity lost due to internal politics/people complaining is < the productivity gained by having them hired). It's great when everyone can coexist perfectly. However, that might not be the best business decision. There's no such thing as "objectively best" just a list of pros and cons to any candidate, and a company's internal preferences.
electrograv 8y ago
I’m not saying that all candidates should be interviewed without ever meeting or interviewing the candidate face-to-face; rather, I was speaking specifically of the coding interview portions. In these segments, face-to-face doesn’t really matter IMO, since it’s all about the candidate’s problem-solving ability. Yes there’s a lot of “bias hysteria” out there, as you put it, but I would dispute that advocating “author-blind meritocracy” falls into that category. Quite the contrary: An author-blind review process would actually make any bias impossible — either for or against any particular identity group. It seems to me most people should be able to get behind that, but maybe I’m wrong. In fact, the main opposition to author-blind meritocracy is the “post-meritocracy” movement which is slowly making its way into open-source projects codes of conduct.
- stef25 8y ago
  You're totally right in that coding tests can and probably should be done "blind". When it gets to the "let's meet" stage, it could be possible that the bias just comes back. Yes this woman made a perfect score on the coding but she's a woman and I'm not going to hire her for reason X that just bubbled up out of my biased brain. I can totally see that happening, unfortunately.

arayh 8y ago

I agree that resumes are a poor means to distinguish between good and bad candidates. Humans already struggle with the screening process. There's no way an AI can reveal some kind of hidden secret sauce written into all great candidate resumes. This project was doomed to fail from the beginning, in my opinion.