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"You will begin to get the (objectively) best candidates" If "it's [everyone's] job to say no-hire" when they're "not sure" about a candidate, I'd like to know

"You will begin to get the (objectively) best candidates" If "it's [everyone's] job to say no-hire" when they're "not sure" about a candidate, I'd like to know what is done to avoid systemic bias in hiring decisions. Anyone here from FB able to comment? How diverse is the work force, especially compared to applicants?

yishan 16y ago
Hi, I'm the author. Someone alerted me that this showed up on HN, so I figured I should come by to clarify. I believe my statement might be clear. What I mean by that is "it's [everyone's] job to say no-hire," as opposed to anyone feeling like "well, I'm not sure about this candidate, but I'll let someone else reject them because I don't want to be perceived as mean." One problem with hiring is that everyone must be willing to uphold the standard - if you have too many people who are never willing to be the one to say no-hire, the standard will fall - everyone has to be willing to take the responsibility for saying no. That said, systemic bias is an orthogonal (and real) issue. Being "not sure" should be applied to "does this candidate measure up" not "is this candidate a lot like me?"
- cpeterso 16y ago
  Saying "no hire" can be hard for some people, but becomes easier if your team adopts the attitude that "maybe means no". It's probably better for the team to miss out hiring some promising "maybe" candidates than later trying to fire a bad one.
- danielharan 16y ago
  Good to know. Does Facebook collect data about how they're doing internally to avoid these systemic biases? Is this tracked? Although it appears orthogonal, if everyone starts making hiring decisions without any checks and balances that an HR person would put in, I'd assume more bias to creep in. At the very least, I'd want the "standard" to be clearly defined.
tgflynn 16y ago
One of the things that strikes me about what I've heard about hiring practices is that they all seem primarily focussed on keeping the wrong people out rather than on finding the right people. Does anyone consider the possibility that there might be really capable people who don't fit the model that N developers have of what a good candidate should be ?
- aprrrr 16y ago
  Sure there are. The standard rationale is that when hiring, the cost of a false negative is far lower than the cost of a false positive. I guess it's also true that the cost of a false negative is unknown and not felt. It would be a really extreme case to be forced to say, "Hey, remember that woman we didn't hire two years ago? She went off and founded Company Y that's now eating our lunch." With a false positive, you feel the pain of cleaning up their messes until after they're gone. Finally, sad to say, the majority of job applicants are not competent to do serious engineering work. A negative bias is right most of the time.
  - tgflynn 16y ago
    Finally, sad to say, the majority of job applicants are not competent to do serious engineering work. I've often heard this claim. I have no data for denying it. However I have a suspicion that when people make this claim the observation that it is actually based on is that "the majority of job applicants aren't very good at answering programmer interview questions.". They are hence making an implicit assumption that not being good at interview questions implies not being competent to do serious engineering work. I think this assumption is highly suspect, because of the extreme differences in stress levels, time scales and general context between interviews and actual work situations.
    - aristus 16y ago
      That is a very good point, but what alternative do you suggest? Keep in mind that hiring can consume a lot of existing employee time.

yishan 16y ago

Hi, I'm the author. Someone alerted me that this showed up on HN, so I figured I should come by to clarify. I believe my statement might be clear. What I mean by that is "it's [everyone's] job to say no-hire," as opposed to anyone feeling like "well, I'm not sure about this candidate, but I'll let someone else reject them because I don't want to be perceived as mean." One problem with hiring is that everyone must be willing to uphold the standard - if you have too many people who are never willing to be the one to say no-hire, the standard will fall - everyone has to be willing to take the responsibility for saying no. That said, systemic bias is an orthogonal (and real) issue. Being "not sure" should be applied to "does this candidate measure up" not "is this candidate a lot like me?"

cpeterso 16y ago
Saying "no hire" can be hard for some people, but becomes easier if your team adopts the attitude that "maybe means no". It's probably better for the team to miss out hiring some promising "maybe" candidates than later trying to fire a bad one.
danielharan 16y ago
Good to know. Does Facebook collect data about how they're doing internally to avoid these systemic biases? Is this tracked? Although it appears orthogonal, if everyone starts making hiring decisions without any checks and balances that an HR person would put in, I'd assume more bias to creep in. At the very least, I'd want the "standard" to be clearly defined.

tgflynn 16y ago

One of the things that strikes me about what I've heard about hiring practices is that they all seem primarily focussed on keeping the wrong people out rather than on finding the right people. Does anyone consider the possibility that there might be really capable people who don't fit the model that N developers have of what a good candidate should be ?

aprrrr 16y ago
Sure there are. The standard rationale is that when hiring, the cost of a false negative is far lower than the cost of a false positive. I guess it's also true that the cost of a false negative is unknown and not felt. It would be a really extreme case to be forced to say, "Hey, remember that woman we didn't hire two years ago? She went off and founded Company Y that's now eating our lunch." With a false positive, you feel the pain of cleaning up their messes until after they're gone. Finally, sad to say, the majority of job applicants are not competent to do serious engineering work. A negative bias is right most of the time.
- tgflynn 16y ago
  Finally, sad to say, the majority of job applicants are not competent to do serious engineering work. I've often heard this claim. I have no data for denying it. However I have a suspicion that when people make this claim the observation that it is actually based on is that "the majority of job applicants aren't very good at answering programmer interview questions.". They are hence making an implicit assumption that not being good at interview questions implies not being competent to do serious engineering work. I think this assumption is highly suspect, because of the extreme differences in stress levels, time scales and general context between interviews and actual work situations.
  - aristus 16y ago
    That is a very good point, but what alternative do you suggest? Keep in mind that hiring can consume a lot of existing employee time.