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The "standardized" interview at companies like Google has lead to them hiring mostly White/Asian males though... I have had plenty of people tell me that interv

The "standardized" interview at companies like Google has lead to them hiring mostly White/Asian males though... I have had plenty of people tell me that interviewing at Google is essentially a roll of the dice these days. You can answer all the 5x interviews in a satisfactory manner and still get rejected. I feel "just wing it" can lead to somebody talented from a non-traditional background getting a chance at a great career that they would be auto-rejected by google at the resume submit phase.

apta 7y ago
> hiring mostly White/Asian males though Which seems reflective of the underlying pool of applicants.
- klipklop 7y ago
  Has a company like Google ever released data proving this? Latino's make up a fairly large number of the people that live in the bay area (23.5% [1]) yet there are like what 3.6%[2] of those people working at google. Seems like a pretty big gap. It would be interesting to see what their application/success ratio demographics are like. 1. http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm 2. https://www.wired.com/story/googles-employee-diversity-numbers-havent-really-improved/ https://www.wired.com/story/googles-employee-diversity-numbe...
  - smegma2 7y ago
    Bay area residents probably make up a small portion of Google's applicants. It would be more interesting to hear what percentage of their applicants are Hispanic. Of course the most important thing is: out of minority applicants who are qualified, what percent are hired? Because we may expect a smaller proportion to be qualified due to systematic barriers that they face. Google is not necessarily in a position to fix those.
  - apta 7y ago
    > Latino's make up a fairly large number of the people that live in the bay area How many of them hold relevant degrees for job openings at Google?
    - xenihn 7y ago
      I know multiple people who don't have a degree at all and have full-time SWE positions at FAANGs. One is even an engineering manager. This isn't the 2000s. There's even a sourced 2018 article about current hiring practices trending away from degree requirements for you to peruse: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/15-companies-that-no-longer-require-employees-to-have-a-college-degree.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/15-companies-that-no-longer-... It's not about the degrees (relevant or otherwise).
  - stickfigure 7y ago
    You can effectively look this information up yourself by checking on the demographics of CS graduates. I'm willing to bet that Google's demographics hew pretty closely to CS graduate demographics. You need to look farther upstream.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  It works in the opposite direction too, though. If you live in a place where a given sort of people is scarce, it doesn't matter how hard you try to be unbiased, you internalize prejudices based on your lack of (or minimal) experience with them. Then someone does come along and they don't fit in, and they are set up for failure, and try as you might, you (subconsciously) associate whatever group they belong to.
fphhotchips 7y ago
I 100% agree with you. I got my shot at my job title (not SWE, but in SaaS) from a non-traditional background for that role because the hiring manager was given carte-blanche to find the person he wanted to work with. We had breakfast, we clicked, we spent two years killing it. No way my resume gets through a more traditional hiring process (I know this, because I know some of the traditional hiring team wanted to throw out my resume).

apta 7y ago

> hiring mostly White/Asian males though Which seems reflective of the underlying pool of applicants.

klipklop 7y ago
Has a company like Google ever released data proving this? Latino's make up a fairly large number of the people that live in the bay area (23.5% [1]) yet there are like what 3.6%[2] of those people working at google. Seems like a pretty big gap. It would be interesting to see what their application/success ratio demographics are like. 1. http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm 2. https://www.wired.com/story/googles-employee-diversity-numbers-havent-really-improved/ https://www.wired.com/story/googles-employee-diversity-numbe...
- smegma2 7y ago
  Bay area residents probably make up a small portion of Google's applicants. It would be more interesting to hear what percentage of their applicants are Hispanic. Of course the most important thing is: out of minority applicants who are qualified, what percent are hired? Because we may expect a smaller proportion to be qualified due to systematic barriers that they face. Google is not necessarily in a position to fix those.
- apta 7y ago
  > Latino's make up a fairly large number of the people that live in the bay area How many of them hold relevant degrees for job openings at Google?
  - xenihn 7y ago
    I know multiple people who don't have a degree at all and have full-time SWE positions at FAANGs. One is even an engineering manager. This isn't the 2000s. There's even a sourced 2018 article about current hiring practices trending away from degree requirements for you to peruse: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/15-companies-that-no-longer-require-employees-to-have-a-college-degree.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/16/15-companies-that-no-longer-... It's not about the degrees (relevant or otherwise).
- stickfigure 7y ago
  You can effectively look this information up yourself by checking on the demographics of CS graduates. I'm willing to bet that Google's demographics hew pretty closely to CS graduate demographics. You need to look farther upstream.
perl4ever 7y ago
It works in the opposite direction too, though. If you live in a place where a given sort of people is scarce, it doesn't matter how hard you try to be unbiased, you internalize prejudices based on your lack of (or minimal) experience with them. Then someone does come along and they don't fit in, and they are set up for failure, and try as you might, you (subconsciously) associate whatever group they belong to.

fphhotchips 7y ago

I 100% agree with you. I got my shot at my job title (not SWE, but in SaaS) from a non-traditional background for that role because the hiring manager was given carte-blanche to find the person he wanted to work with. We had breakfast, we clicked, we spent two years killing it. No way my resume gets through a more traditional hiring process (I know this, because I know some of the traditional hiring team wanted to throw out my resume).