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I am rolling my eyes at the thought that political correctness plays any major role in hiring at Google. Striving to improve diversity doesn’t mean that you onl

I am rolling my eyes at the thought that political correctness plays any major role in hiring at Google. Striving to improve diversity doesn’t mean that you only hire “PC-engineers”.

jjoonathan 7y ago
Didn't they just get in hot water for throwing out resumes from undesirable demographics en masse and having racial convictions so strong they didn't even realize it was legally inadvisable to do this in the open?
- paganel 7y ago
  I directly know of a well known international institution that did the PC thing when trying to hire someone (“we’ll very much prefer if you’d send us a woman instead of a man for on-premises support role”) but they were smart enough to only say this over the phone, not over email, especially not in an official manner out in the open. If Google really did the thing you say they did (not saying that they didn’t, is just that a source would be helpful) then they’re beyond stupid. If it matters I live in Europe, not in the States.
  - jjoonathan 7y ago
    Oh yeah, it's very much a thing. Someone responsible for hiring in my office regularly engages in illegal PC-motivated resume dumping and regularly brags and laughs about it. I've kept my mouth shut because I value my job, I don't trust the system to protect me from retaliation, and the guy in question isn't dumb enough to make his confessions in written media.
    - Redoubts 7y ago
      This just seems hard to believe given how strapped for manpower everyone seems to be, and how limited the quality of the resumes walking in the door are.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - jjoonathan 7y ago
        Yes, discrimination costs, but the person in question doesn't care or has rationalized the costs away.
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  Do you have a link you can share about that? I can’t seem to find anything.
  - jjoonathan 7y ago
    https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wilberg-recruiter-hiring-reverse-discrimination-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wi... > In one hiring round, the team was allegedly instructed to cancel all software engineering interviews with non-diverse applicants below a certain experience level, and to “purge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees from the hiring pipeline.”
pgt 7y ago
Definition of politics: anything that doesn't have the product's best interests at heart. My central point was not that Google only hires PC engineers (although the James Damore debacle seems to support this), but that engineers like me (since I can only speak for myself and my peers) don't want to work for politically-correct organisations. Why? Because if you want to work on great products, you can't be concerned with politics. If the politics were aligned with product, it would be considered an apolitical organisation, or a product company.
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  So your central thesis is that the only engineers that are product-focused would not want to work for Google because they feel the environment is too political? So what do you make of other companies that are product-focused that also care about “PC” things like diversity?
  - pgt 7y ago
    Yes. I am suspicious of any company that has written diversity into its corporate structure. Here in South Africa, racism is economically sanctioned by well-intentioned BBE (black economic empowerment) "diversity" laws, which made it illegal to do business with government unless your company is majority black-owned. This guaranteed the creation of countless rent-seeking middlemen, which increased costs for the poor majority they were designed to protect and caused valuable skills to leave the country. With widespread power outages, South Africa is not doing so well. If diversity does not arise naturally in an equal opportunity environment, then either the opportunity is unequal, or the homogeneity is inherent in the makeup of the hiring pool. If you try to compensate for this by hiring for diversity in your company instead of excellence, you will lose in the marketplace. Of course, I support giving everyone an equal opportunity, but I remain unconvinced you can reconcile forced diversity with excellence.
    - cycrutchfield 7y ago
      Just because you have a goal to correct the inequities of the past doesn't mean that you cannot be excellent. Surely as a South African, with its horrible history relating to race, you should understand that.

I am rolling my eyes at the thought that political correctness plays any major role in hiring at Google. Striving to improve diversity doesn’t mean that you only hire “PC-engineers”.

jjoonathan 7y ago

Didn't they just get in hot water for throwing out resumes from undesirable demographics en masse and having racial convictions so strong they didn't even realize it was legally inadvisable to do this in the open?

paganel 7y ago
I directly know of a well known international institution that did the PC thing when trying to hire someone (“we’ll very much prefer if you’d send us a woman instead of a man for on-premises support role”) but they were smart enough to only say this over the phone, not over email, especially not in an official manner out in the open. If Google really did the thing you say they did (not saying that they didn’t, is just that a source would be helpful) then they’re beyond stupid. If it matters I live in Europe, not in the States.
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  Oh yeah, it's very much a thing. Someone responsible for hiring in my office regularly engages in illegal PC-motivated resume dumping and regularly brags and laughs about it. I've kept my mouth shut because I value my job, I don't trust the system to protect me from retaliation, and the guy in question isn't dumb enough to make his confessions in written media.
  - Redoubts 7y ago
    This just seems hard to believe given how strapped for manpower everyone seems to be, and how limited the quality of the resumes walking in the door are.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - jjoonathan 7y ago
      Yes, discrimination costs, but the person in question doesn't care or has rationalized the costs away.
cycrutchfield 7y ago
Do you have a link you can share about that? I can’t seem to find anything.
- jjoonathan 7y ago
  https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wilberg-recruiter-hiring-reverse-discrimination-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wi... > In one hiring round, the team was allegedly instructed to cancel all software engineering interviews with non-diverse applicants below a certain experience level, and to “purge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees from the hiring pipeline.”

pgt 7y ago

Definition of politics: anything that doesn't have the product's best interests at heart. My central point was not that Google only hires PC engineers (although the James Damore debacle seems to support this), but that engineers like me (since I can only speak for myself and my peers) don't want to work for politically-correct organisations. Why? Because if you want to work on great products, you can't be concerned with politics. If the politics were aligned with product, it would be considered an apolitical organisation, or a product company.

cycrutchfield 7y ago
So your central thesis is that the only engineers that are product-focused would not want to work for Google because they feel the environment is too political? So what do you make of other companies that are product-focused that also care about “PC” things like diversity?
- pgt 7y ago
  Yes. I am suspicious of any company that has written diversity into its corporate structure. Here in South Africa, racism is economically sanctioned by well-intentioned BBE (black economic empowerment) "diversity" laws, which made it illegal to do business with government unless your company is majority black-owned. This guaranteed the creation of countless rent-seeking middlemen, which increased costs for the poor majority they were designed to protect and caused valuable skills to leave the country. With widespread power outages, South Africa is not doing so well. If diversity does not arise naturally in an equal opportunity environment, then either the opportunity is unequal, or the homogeneity is inherent in the makeup of the hiring pool. If you try to compensate for this by hiring for diversity in your company instead of excellence, you will lose in the marketplace. Of course, I support giving everyone an equal opportunity, but I remain unconvinced you can reconcile forced diversity with excellence.
  - cycrutchfield 7y ago
    Just because you have a goal to correct the inequities of the past doesn't mean that you cannot be excellent. Surely as a South African, with its horrible history relating to race, you should understand that.