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That's why I sprinkled the word "ideally" so liberally throughout that comment, as that was the premise of your question. To actually reflect the population, yo
by omar_a1 7y ago
That's why I sprinkled the word "ideally" so liberally throughout that comment, as that was the premise of your question. To actually reflect the population, you'd have to somehow address centuries of institutionalized disenfranchisement, de facto segregation, educational barriers, racially-moticated policing and disproportionate conviction rates (highlighted by the OP). That's a lot to put on a hiring manager who isn't even sure that racism is an actual, tangible thing.
Realistically, the most that hiring managers (save for huge FAANG institutions) can do is thoroughly ensure that their team isn't inadvertently (or blatantly) racist/sexist in their hiring process and on the job, and to post the job in enough places that a diverse applicant pool will see the posting.
With that said, hand-waving away that there are few to no women or African Americans/Latinos/Native Americans/etc. on the team with an overzealous application of the Equality Paradox is a pretty dangerous mindset to get into. It's essentially passing the buck, and is eerily reminiscent of the claims made by 1950's Southern US Politicians that Blacks were the ones who were self-segregating because they wanted to, not the other way around.
What I'm saying is, the ideal 50/50 gender ratio/representative race may be unrealistic for a myriad of reasons, but if you're a 50-person start-up with 2 women, one of whom is HR, and no black people, I'd take a good, hard look at the company culture that's being fostered, and particularly whether turnover for women and People of Color at your company is worse than average.
- collyw 7y ago> Realistically, the what most hiring managers (save for huge FAANG institutions) can do is thoroughly ensure that their team isn't inadvertently (or blatantly) racist/sexist in their hiring process and on the job, and to post the job in enough places that a diverse applicant pool will see the posting. I have been involved in hiring people before. There was absolutely nothing racist or sexist in the way we hire. Fact was we go two applicants. Neither were women or minority status. Fact is that the industry is full of white men (even here in Europe). We should be hiring on ability to do the job and nothing else.
- omar_a1 7y agoSo, a quick note that my comments regarding racial representation are somewhat US-centric. I'd expect a company in Europe to be a much higher % white because your population is. > We should be hiring on ability to do the job and nothing else. This is exactly my point! Yet there is quite a lot of inadvertent, or even blatant, racism and sexism that happens during the hiring process and on the job.
- collyw 7y agoIf that is exactly you point then why do you have an expectation on outcome?
- omar_a1 7y agoBecause programming ability isn't determined by melanin concentration in the skin, or by what pronouns you use, and hence shouldn't show selection bias in hiring, save for a biased selection process.
- collyw 7y agoThat makes no sense. Hire base purely on ability. Have expectations about the numbers of skin tones / vaginas in the outcome. It reminds me of when GitHub had blind submissions for conference talks, expecting to get more women, then ended up cancelling the conference when it was all male talks that got chosen.
- omar_a1 7y agoIn the same way that handedness has no bearing on programming ability. If your firm were staffed entirely by left-handed folk, it should rightfully raise questions about how that happened. You seem overly defensive about your hiring process, and unsatisfied with any answer that asserts men and women are equal. Ironic, no?
- collyw 7y ago