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In my experience, making an interview less biased is not about color of skin. It's about comfort and acknowledging how these anxieties creep up. At big companie

In my experience, making an interview less biased is not about color of skin. It's about comfort and acknowledging how these anxieties creep up. At big companies I've worked at, we coached interviewers to do at least 5 minutes of small talk and resume review, to smile, to always leave time for questions at the end, to show some amount of enthusiasm for the work the interviewee is doing. It's not about an interview format for a different race but interviews that take into account how being the odd person out may make it harder than it needs to be. In my ideal process, that helps everyone have a better interview.

skybrian 7y ago
When I was at Google, interviewing was considered everybody's job, but without any particular benefit from doing them. They'd just try to guilt you into doing them. (I think they'd try to guilt some people harder than others, though.) I think this is a mistake. Interviewing is a teaching/sales role and many people need coaching to come across as friendly. They aren't going to get that coaching if they see it primarily as an obligation. I did them for many years out of a feeling of obligation, but if I got better at it, it was slowly, and with diminishing returns. It was just more of the same experience.
- gedaxiang 7y ago
  So much this. I don’t mind running interviews, but I don’t think I’m particularly good at running them, especially in the “making the candidate feel comfortable” angle. With engineering having such an outsized proportion of introverts and, for the lack of a better term, oddballs, we could take a better look at who _should_ be interviewing.
ryandrake 7y ago
Yea, I’m white and I feel I have less in common with the Ivy League Zuckerbro personality than I have with poor and working class folks like who I grew up with. When I see my interviewer has two popped collars under his Stanford sweater I can instantly feel the anxiety growing. I think to myself “the minute I open my mouth he’s going to hear the mining town and farm work coming out.” It’s more about cultural background and not about race.
- sbilstein 7y ago
  Thank you for understanding where I'm coming from and sharing this point. I've def had friends who corroborate this experience as well.
- ijiiijji1 7y ago
  Salt of the Earth, if you ask me. BTW, outside of undergrad legacy and big name donor admits, there's a lot of "normal" people who work and study at Stanford. (I worked there for 5 years in a 3% acceptance program with CS/MD IITians and other lesser Ivy Leagues like Haáàrvard ;).) 98% are normal, only 1 in many is a talent jerk because it's very socially selective rather than talent only. To be honest, it's the popped collar folks who need to prove that they didn't land their job from their pedigree alone and didn't skate through life on other people doing their homework and their parents teaching them laws/rules don't apply to them because they're an aristocrat because M O N E Y.
wnoise 7y ago
> At big companies I've worked at, we coached interviewers to do at least 5 minutes of small talk For some people that causes anxiety, the exact opposite of comfort.

skybrian 7y ago

When I was at Google, interviewing was considered everybody's job, but without any particular benefit from doing them. They'd just try to guilt you into doing them. (I think they'd try to guilt some people harder than others, though.) I think this is a mistake. Interviewing is a teaching/sales role and many people need coaching to come across as friendly. They aren't going to get that coaching if they see it primarily as an obligation. I did them for many years out of a feeling of obligation, but if I got better at it, it was slowly, and with diminishing returns. It was just more of the same experience.

gedaxiang 7y ago
So much this. I don’t mind running interviews, but I don’t think I’m particularly good at running them, especially in the “making the candidate feel comfortable” angle. With engineering having such an outsized proportion of introverts and, for the lack of a better term, oddballs, we could take a better look at who _should_ be interviewing.

ryandrake 7y ago

Yea, I’m white and I feel I have less in common with the Ivy League Zuckerbro personality than I have with poor and working class folks like who I grew up with. When I see my interviewer has two popped collars under his Stanford sweater I can instantly feel the anxiety growing. I think to myself “the minute I open my mouth he’s going to hear the mining town and farm work coming out.” It’s more about cultural background and not about race.

sbilstein 7y ago
Thank you for understanding where I'm coming from and sharing this point. I've def had friends who corroborate this experience as well.
ijiiijji1 7y ago
Salt of the Earth, if you ask me. BTW, outside of undergrad legacy and big name donor admits, there's a lot of "normal" people who work and study at Stanford. (I worked there for 5 years in a 3% acceptance program with CS/MD IITians and other lesser Ivy Leagues like Haáàrvard ;).) 98% are normal, only 1 in many is a talent jerk because it's very socially selective rather than talent only. To be honest, it's the popped collar folks who need to prove that they didn't land their job from their pedigree alone and didn't skate through life on other people doing their homework and their parents teaching them laws/rules don't apply to them because they're an aristocrat because M O N E Y.

wnoise 7y ago

> At big companies I've worked at, we coached interviewers to do at least 5 minutes of small talk For some people that causes anxiety, the exact opposite of comfort.