7 ms·

Whether one thinks that discrimination in hiring is justified to offset suspected discrimination in other areas is besides the point. The point is, there exists

Whether one thinks that discrimination in hiring is justified to offset suspected discrimination in other areas is besides the point. The point is, there exists discrimination in hiring that results in women and URM candidates getting offers that would not have been obtained were it not for diversity status. The opportunities of people categorized as diverse in tech company interviewing is substantially different from those not categorized as diverse. Maybe I'm biased towards the SF bay area, but there's a palpable mismatch between how common and prevalent these practices are and the offense people take when they're acknowledged. I'm not sure why you think what I'm saying is different. At my company, white and asian male new grads are only given a chance to interview if they're CS (or math, EE, or other tech majors) grads from top universities like Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, etc. Candidates from boot camps, less well known universities, or non-tech majors are only extended the chance to interview if they're diverse. Does that mean that a diverse candidate from a boot camp who gets hired is unskilled? No, probably not. Does it mean that a diverse candidate from a boot camp would not have been hired if they weren't diverse? Yes, because non-diverse candidates from boot camps don't get interviewed at all. Maybe I'm biased toward the SF Bay Area, but the mismatch between the prevalence of these policies and the discomfort with acknowledgement of their existence is concerning.

deleted 7y ago
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omar_a1 7y ago
No, it's not an SF Bay Area thing. I've moved to SF from the Midwest a year ago, and have been called racial slurs more times during my year here than in my entire adult life living in a medium-sized Midwestern town. Shall we assume that because you haven't had a similar experience or personally faced discrimination on the job that no one else has? Exaggerating the status of "diversity hires" just ignores the harsh reality of rampant discrimination in the tech industry. And not just on the basis of sex and race, but age and disability too. There wouldn't need to be such a hard push for underrepresented candidates if it were a more welcoming, diverse workforce in the first place.
- manfredo 7y ago
  Who is getting the short or long end of the stick is not something I aim to answer, or even purport to be able to answer. This is a matter of perspective. I'm a Hispanic person that attended an elite university and have household names on my resume. I'd have a good chance of getting interviews regardless of my gender or ethnicity - and when you do take ethnicity into account it probably helps me even more. I'm largely indifferent towards this kind of discrimination in hiring. But is the perspective of a white or asian man pursuing a coding boot-camp to try and break into tech going to have the same opinion on policies that greatly reduce or eliminate his chances of getting an interview as compared to if he was a woman or URM? Many see getting called slurs as a small price to pay to get a chance to break into tech. The only thing that bothers me is attempting to equate acknowledgement of these practices as offensive or taboo. The reality is that this is what many companies are doing. Thus, the only way one can avoid offense in that scenario is to deny reality.
  - omar_a1 7y ago
    > Many see getting called slurs as a small price to pay to get a chance to break into tech. No, no they really dont! What a horrifying thing to say. Normalizing racial and sexual harassment is a large part of the problem. Are you going to claim you don't understand how the tech industry is so homogenous while simultaneously claiming that racial slurs are just some inconsequential price of admission in tech?
    - manfredo 7y ago
      > No, no they really dont! Yes, they really do. I've explained the details my employers' hiring processes to white and asian men trying to get into tech, and the majority feel like it is an overall benefit to diverse candidates - other discrimination in tech notwithstanding. Really, how can you write this? Do your claim to know the opinions of every white and asian man in this country? My point is, that the fact that diverse tech workers may face discrimination in other ways (e.g. slurs as you pointed out) doesn't necessarily "even out" discrimination in hiring that favors diverse candidates. Someone who can't land an interview may feel that the opportunity to get a job, even if it comes at the expense of other forms of hostility, is a net positive. > What a horrifying thing to say. Normalizing racial and sexual harassment is a large part of the problem. Are you going to claim you don't understand how the tech industry is so homogenous while simultaneously claiming that racial slurs are just some inconsequential price of admission in tech? The idea that discrimination in hiring is justified because of other forms of discrimination (such as slurs) is something you originally claimed: > Exaggerating the status of "diversity hires" just ignores the harsh reality of rampant discrimination in the tech industry. And not just on the basis of sex and race, but age and disability too. There wouldn't need to be such a hard push for underrepresented candidates if it were a more welcoming, diverse workforce in the first place. Your message here is that discrimination in hiring is necessary and justified because of other forms of discrimination. This seems like the "price of admission" mentality you refer to above. Whether or not this is "Horrifying" is up to you, but lets be clear: the idea that one form of discrimination justifies another form of discrimination is an idea that you originally brought up. For what it's worth, I'm of the mind that two wrongs don't make a right. If people are being treated with contempt on the basis of race, then the appropriate response is to curb that behavior - not discriminate in favor of the targeted demographic in hiring. Claiming that one slurs are okay because candidates are beneficiaries of discrimination is wrong. So is claiming that discrimination is okay because these people are subject to slurs, or other forms of hostility.
zozbot234 7y ago
Referral candidates definitely get plenty of offers that they "would not have obtained" were it not for their referral status. I think it's more than a bit silly to worry about diversity focus introducing unwanted "biases" in hiring, when it's never really possible for something as random as hiring to be "fair" in any real sense.
- manfredo 7y ago
  There's also the issue of laws that mandate offering equal opportunity on the basis of race and gender. By comparison, I'm not aware of any legislation mandating equal opportunity between candidates with and without referrals. Furthermore, I'm hesitant to write off discrimination as a non-issue. I don't feel personally impacted by it - but I'm also incredibly fortunate to have graduated from one of the most prestigious universities for computer science, and to have household names on my resume. The fact that my employers don't interview White and Asian men from boot camps doesn't impact me. But what would a white or Asian man think about this situation? The nature of this discrimination is that we don't get to hear the opinions of the people who are impacted by it. We get to talk to the diverse people who were included because of discrimination, but the people who were excluded because of it are absent from our workplaces. Ultimately, I have no good answer here. Tech companies are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Companies are getting criticized for having "only" 20-25% of women in tech roles, when most estimates put the share of women in tech roles industry-wide at 18-20%. So companies have to choose between either enduring criticism and being portrayed as sexist, or discriminating in their hiring policies to increase their diversity numbers. With the techlash in full swing, public perception is important and I don't fault companies for doing the latter.

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omar_a1 7y ago

No, it's not an SF Bay Area thing. I've moved to SF from the Midwest a year ago, and have been called racial slurs more times during my year here than in my entire adult life living in a medium-sized Midwestern town. Shall we assume that because you haven't had a similar experience or personally faced discrimination on the job that no one else has? Exaggerating the status of "diversity hires" just ignores the harsh reality of rampant discrimination in the tech industry. And not just on the basis of sex and race, but age and disability too. There wouldn't need to be such a hard push for underrepresented candidates if it were a more welcoming, diverse workforce in the first place.

manfredo 7y ago
Who is getting the short or long end of the stick is not something I aim to answer, or even purport to be able to answer. This is a matter of perspective. I'm a Hispanic person that attended an elite university and have household names on my resume. I'd have a good chance of getting interviews regardless of my gender or ethnicity - and when you do take ethnicity into account it probably helps me even more. I'm largely indifferent towards this kind of discrimination in hiring. But is the perspective of a white or asian man pursuing a coding boot-camp to try and break into tech going to have the same opinion on policies that greatly reduce or eliminate his chances of getting an interview as compared to if he was a woman or URM? Many see getting called slurs as a small price to pay to get a chance to break into tech. The only thing that bothers me is attempting to equate acknowledgement of these practices as offensive or taboo. The reality is that this is what many companies are doing. Thus, the only way one can avoid offense in that scenario is to deny reality.
- omar_a1 7y ago
  > Many see getting called slurs as a small price to pay to get a chance to break into tech. No, no they really dont! What a horrifying thing to say. Normalizing racial and sexual harassment is a large part of the problem. Are you going to claim you don't understand how the tech industry is so homogenous while simultaneously claiming that racial slurs are just some inconsequential price of admission in tech?
  - manfredo 7y ago
    > No, no they really dont! Yes, they really do. I've explained the details my employers' hiring processes to white and asian men trying to get into tech, and the majority feel like it is an overall benefit to diverse candidates - other discrimination in tech notwithstanding. Really, how can you write this? Do your claim to know the opinions of every white and asian man in this country? My point is, that the fact that diverse tech workers may face discrimination in other ways (e.g. slurs as you pointed out) doesn't necessarily "even out" discrimination in hiring that favors diverse candidates. Someone who can't land an interview may feel that the opportunity to get a job, even if it comes at the expense of other forms of hostility, is a net positive. > What a horrifying thing to say. Normalizing racial and sexual harassment is a large part of the problem. Are you going to claim you don't understand how the tech industry is so homogenous while simultaneously claiming that racial slurs are just some inconsequential price of admission in tech? The idea that discrimination in hiring is justified because of other forms of discrimination (such as slurs) is something you originally claimed: > Exaggerating the status of "diversity hires" just ignores the harsh reality of rampant discrimination in the tech industry. And not just on the basis of sex and race, but age and disability too. There wouldn't need to be such a hard push for underrepresented candidates if it were a more welcoming, diverse workforce in the first place. Your message here is that discrimination in hiring is necessary and justified because of other forms of discrimination. This seems like the "price of admission" mentality you refer to above. Whether or not this is "Horrifying" is up to you, but lets be clear: the idea that one form of discrimination justifies another form of discrimination is an idea that you originally brought up. For what it's worth, I'm of the mind that two wrongs don't make a right. If people are being treated with contempt on the basis of race, then the appropriate response is to curb that behavior - not discriminate in favor of the targeted demographic in hiring. Claiming that one slurs are okay because candidates are beneficiaries of discrimination is wrong. So is claiming that discrimination is okay because these people are subject to slurs, or other forms of hostility.

zozbot234 7y ago

Referral candidates definitely get plenty of offers that they "would not have obtained" were it not for their referral status. I think it's more than a bit silly to worry about diversity focus introducing unwanted "biases" in hiring, when it's never really possible for something as random as hiring to be "fair" in any real sense.

manfredo 7y ago
There's also the issue of laws that mandate offering equal opportunity on the basis of race and gender. By comparison, I'm not aware of any legislation mandating equal opportunity between candidates with and without referrals. Furthermore, I'm hesitant to write off discrimination as a non-issue. I don't feel personally impacted by it - but I'm also incredibly fortunate to have graduated from one of the most prestigious universities for computer science, and to have household names on my resume. The fact that my employers don't interview White and Asian men from boot camps doesn't impact me. But what would a white or Asian man think about this situation? The nature of this discrimination is that we don't get to hear the opinions of the people who are impacted by it. We get to talk to the diverse people who were included because of discrimination, but the people who were excluded because of it are absent from our workplaces. Ultimately, I have no good answer here. Tech companies are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Companies are getting criticized for having "only" 20-25% of women in tech roles, when most estimates put the share of women in tech roles industry-wide at 18-20%. So companies have to choose between either enduring criticism and being portrayed as sexist, or discriminating in their hiring policies to increase their diversity numbers. With the techlash in full swing, public perception is important and I don't fault companies for doing the latter.