3 ms·

You seem to be conflating quotas and diversity, and also conflating mechanisms and results. The point of a diversity office or officer is to provide a resource

by kaitai 8y ago

You seem to be conflating quotas and diversity, and also conflating mechanisms and results. The point of a diversity office or officer is to provide a resource for discussing whether mechanisms of hiring and recruitment are fair, and trying to improve them if they're not. Once all those studies that send out the same exact resume with the names John, Jane, T'yesha, Jamal, Xiaoying, and Shan Shan at the top find you get the same number of callbacks, then we'll actually be in a situation where people are being hired on their qualifications!

Aqua 8y ago
Apologies, I should have been more clear as I intended to point out an example, not a fixed quota, because clearly if you consider diversity when making a hiring decision you inevitably have to end up aiming to hire more people of certain characteristics(and not necessarily qualifications) that fit your long term quota goals. Besides, what do you mean by fair recruitment? Because personally in this context I view diversity and fairness as contradicting terms, since it would always be more fair to hire a candidate that has higher qualifications and is a good cultural fit over one that wasn't as qualified, but turned out to be a good match when it comes to meeting present quarter's diversity goals? I believe that basing hiring decisions on physical appearance, race, religion, gender or political views is simply wrong. I recall there was a company that focused on distorting candidates' voices during phone interviews that effectively prevented the interviewers from distinguishing the interviewees' gender. If companies like Google want to actually be more "fair", perhaps they should move in that direction rather than introducing artificial quotas and justifying them with a vague "need for diversity"?
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  You mentioned "good cultural fit". I have heard many hiring managers mention that they want somebody who is a good fit for the team. And it's very natural, I mean, everybody is going to have to work with this person, right? This almost guarantees the perpetuation of inequality. We need to stop hiring for that kind of fit. I'm certain that I have heard of research (by IBM maybe?) that determined that more diversity made teams more productive, but the people on the teams were less happy/comfortable.
  - tk75x 8y ago
    > more diversity made teams more productive, but the people on the teams were less happy/comfortable. Maybe because nobody wanted to socialize with each other so they spent more time doing work?
repolfx 8y ago
The resume problem is the inverse, isn't it? The studies I've seen where resumes were having names removed before being sent to recruiters showed a slight bias against white men which is why these schemes always get shut down - increasing fairness decreases (slightly) diversity.

by kaitai 8y ago

Aqua 8y ago

Apologies, I should have been more clear as I intended to point out an example, not a fixed quota, because clearly if you consider diversity when making a hiring decision you inevitably have to end up aiming to hire more people of certain characteristics(and not necessarily qualifications) that fit your long term quota goals. Besides, what do you mean by fair recruitment? Because personally in this context I view diversity and fairness as contradicting terms, since it would always be more fair to hire a candidate that has higher qualifications and is a good cultural fit over one that wasn't as qualified, but turned out to be a good match when it comes to meeting present quarter's diversity goals? I believe that basing hiring decisions on physical appearance, race, religion, gender or political views is simply wrong. I recall there was a company that focused on distorting candidates' voices during phone interviews that effectively prevented the interviewers from distinguishing the interviewees' gender. If companies like Google want to actually be more "fair", perhaps they should move in that direction rather than introducing artificial quotas and justifying them with a vague "need for diversity"?

amanaplanacanal 8y ago
You mentioned "good cultural fit". I have heard many hiring managers mention that they want somebody who is a good fit for the team. And it's very natural, I mean, everybody is going to have to work with this person, right? This almost guarantees the perpetuation of inequality. We need to stop hiring for that kind of fit. I'm certain that I have heard of research (by IBM maybe?) that determined that more diversity made teams more productive, but the people on the teams were less happy/comfortable.
- tk75x 8y ago
  > more diversity made teams more productive, but the people on the teams were less happy/comfortable. Maybe because nobody wanted to socialize with each other so they spent more time doing work?

repolfx 8y ago

The resume problem is the inverse, isn't it? The studies I've seen where resumes were having names removed before being sent to recruiters showed a slight bias against white men which is why these schemes always get shut down - increasing fairness decreases (slightly) diversity.