12 ms·

Why do you say Google discriminates on the basis of race? I used to work there and was involved in the hiring processes and never saw evidence for this

ghostcluster 6y ago
> Why do you say Google discriminates on the basis of race? Google told their recruiters to actively not hire white or asian males for certain roles. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wilberg-recruiter-hiring-reverse-discrimination-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wi...
- rubicon33 6y ago
  What ever happened with that lawsuit?
- KorematsuFred 6y ago
  As an employee of Google who is involved in hiring let me tell you the process is extremely rigorous and we work very hard to make it bias free. I am not an unbiased individual myself but when it comes to hiring, I work extra hard to ensure fairness regardless of other person's characteristics.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    And as a former Googler who did hundreds of interviews there, let me tell you you're wrong. It wasn't bias free even years ago, and Google has gone much more hard-core SJW since then. It's still much better than at most companies, and the article we're discussing is so wrong about the way executives are hired. But Google isn't some paragon of freedom from bias, far from it. Ignore yourself. The system surrounding you is not unbiased and never was. Here are some things I'm aware of that happened at Google/other comparable tech firms: 1. Recruiters tracked the quality of interviewers (as judged by candidate and hiring committee feedback) and assign the best interviewers to women/minorities. 2. Sourcers could get much higher bonuses if they recruited women. 3. Comp can end up artificially higher for women, which obviously is a form of recruiting. At Microsoft managers were given bonus pots that could only be allocated to women. 4. Women who failed phone screens were presented for on-site interviews anyway in the hope that they could somehow make up for it. Men were dropped immediately. 5. Women are targeted with specialist recruiting teams, fought over to a dramatically higher extent than men. 6. Men are sometimes just excluded from recruiting events completely, e.g. "Code Jam to IO for Women". And you seem to have chosen to ignore flashing red alarms like recruiters filing lawsuits with copies of emails where they were told to stop recruiting white men. BTW, don't look at the firing process. Unlike hiring+promotion, engineers don't control that, HR does (PeopleOps or whatever it's called now). It's an open secret that at Google it's nearly impossible to get fired if you're a female engineer, even if your performance is terrible and your team hates you. At worst they'll start moving you around.
    - KorematsuFred 6y ago
      > But Google isn't some paragon of freedom from bias, far from it. Not my claim that Google is bias free. I am not denying what you have claimed, it is just that I have not come across such incidents and if you are a qualified person it is extremely unlikely that I will not judge you performance properly because of your gender, race or ethnicity. There is no doubt that Google has gone lala SJW route in last few years but then many of us put conscious efforts in fixing those problems.
    - christophilus 6y ago
      I’ve seen this, too, at a number of places I’ve worked. Pointing it out always gets you downvoted (or whatever the real life equivalent is).
      - Glide 6y ago
        Committing a Career Limiting Move?
      - alp10 6y ago
        Yep, or to state it in AnimalFarm terms: If cardinality(pigs + sheep) > cardinality(work horses), the truth will be downvoted. In software, the work horses need to be more proactive and not give up what is theirs.
    - Drew_ 6y ago
      Nothing you're referring to has anything to do with the actual hiring process. None of the issues you listed makes anyone more or less likely to pass the hiring committee. Offers are based on merit as much as they can be. You just have a problem with efforts to reach out to people who normally have a hard time making it into the industry.
      - lucaspm98 6y ago
        Every one of those 6 points made have to do directly with the hiring process. Supporting education and outreach for underrepresented groups is a noble cause, but when it gets to the point of giving a group an easier interview path the hiring is by nature not merit based. In the long run, this will only undermine the efforts to get these groups involved by forcing experience to be viewed with the asterisk that they may or may not have earned their position.
- dmos62 6y ago
  > Wilberg’s lawsuit targets Google and 25 unnamed Google employees who allegedly enforced discriminatory hiring rules, quoting a number of emails and other documents. It claims that for several quarters, Google would only hire people from historically underrepresented groups for technical positions. In one hiring round, the team was allegedly instructed to cancel all software engineering interviews with non-diverse applicants below a certain experience level, and to “purge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees from the hiring pipeline.” California labor law prohibits refusing to hire employees based on characteristics like race or gender. Perception shaping is always unsavoury, but that's pretty dark.
downerending 6y ago
Take a close look at the diversity report they publish each year.
- downerending 6y ago
  Not sure why this got downvoted. Google publishes some pretty detailed stats (which I applaud), and the "thumb on the scale" could not be more obvious. Whether or not you feel this is a problem, it's worth reviewing the data. [And for the record, I've enjoyed every female or minority colleague I've ever worked with, and made efforts to ensure their success, whatever their ability. I don't particularly object to AA hiring, but I don't like wasting my time on "fake" interviews, so I think publication of stats like this should be required.]
kortilla 6y ago
Underrepresented groups get more attempts and are actively recruited more.
- charlesu 6y ago
  Underrepresented groups are actively recruited but don't get more attempts. If you think otherwise just ask an engineer from an underrepresented groups about their recruiting experiences. They would probably know better. All their interviews include an underrepresented candidate, so their sample size is probably larger :) The active recruitment is to counterbalance the fact that referrals, one of the biggest sources of talent, is not a diverse pipeline. Everyone's network is mostly male and white or Asian. This is even true of engineers from underrepresented groups. If you want a shot at hiring qualified underrepresented candidates, you have to actively recruit them. Your existing workforce cannot help identify them. That's what's meant by diversity and inclusion. Now whether you agree that diversity and inclusion are worthwhile is another discussion altogether.
  - wernercd 6y ago
    > Underrepresented groups are actively recruited but don't get more attempts. Other posts in this thread make claims oppose that. One person says that bad phone screens for men? No call back... bad phone screens for women? call back and face-to-face to get them another chance. that's the definition of "more attempts". Whether said comment is real and honest is unknown (random internet comment) and whether "diversity and inclusion" are worth it (actively choosing ("recruiting") someone on race/color/etc to battle perceived racism is... a form of racism itself) is of course another battle...
    - charlesu 6y ago
      I can't speak to other companies, but in my experience, inhouse recruiters have no incentive to pass bad candidates past the phone screen. I have no incentive to pass bad candidates to onsite. We want to spend as much time needed to find the right candidate and no more and we don't want miss out on anyone. But we don't want to waste our time either. I just want to call out that diversity and inclusion are not about battling "perceived racism". Diversity and inclusion measures are to counterbalance the fact that professional (and personal) networks in tech are not diverse. The status quo left alone would bias itself toward white and Asian males irrespective of intent. By actively looking for underrepresented candidates, companies can counterbalance network effects in hiring.

ghostcluster 6y ago

> Why do you say Google discriminates on the basis of race? Google told their recruiters to actively not hire white or asian males for certain roles. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wilberg-recruiter-hiring-reverse-discrimination-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/2/17070624/google-youtube-wi...

rubicon33 6y ago
What ever happened with that lawsuit?
KorematsuFred 6y ago
As an employee of Google who is involved in hiring let me tell you the process is extremely rigorous and we work very hard to make it bias free. I am not an unbiased individual myself but when it comes to hiring, I work extra hard to ensure fairness regardless of other person's characteristics.
- thu2111 6y ago
  And as a former Googler who did hundreds of interviews there, let me tell you you're wrong. It wasn't bias free even years ago, and Google has gone much more hard-core SJW since then. It's still much better than at most companies, and the article we're discussing is so wrong about the way executives are hired. But Google isn't some paragon of freedom from bias, far from it. Ignore yourself. The system surrounding you is not unbiased and never was. Here are some things I'm aware of that happened at Google/other comparable tech firms: 1. Recruiters tracked the quality of interviewers (as judged by candidate and hiring committee feedback) and assign the best interviewers to women/minorities. 2. Sourcers could get much higher bonuses if they recruited women. 3. Comp can end up artificially higher for women, which obviously is a form of recruiting. At Microsoft managers were given bonus pots that could only be allocated to women. 4. Women who failed phone screens were presented for on-site interviews anyway in the hope that they could somehow make up for it. Men were dropped immediately. 5. Women are targeted with specialist recruiting teams, fought over to a dramatically higher extent than men. 6. Men are sometimes just excluded from recruiting events completely, e.g. "Code Jam to IO for Women". And you seem to have chosen to ignore flashing red alarms like recruiters filing lawsuits with copies of emails where they were told to stop recruiting white men. BTW, don't look at the firing process. Unlike hiring+promotion, engineers don't control that, HR does (PeopleOps or whatever it's called now). It's an open secret that at Google it's nearly impossible to get fired if you're a female engineer, even if your performance is terrible and your team hates you. At worst they'll start moving you around.
  - KorematsuFred 6y ago
    > But Google isn't some paragon of freedom from bias, far from it. Not my claim that Google is bias free. I am not denying what you have claimed, it is just that I have not come across such incidents and if you are a qualified person it is extremely unlikely that I will not judge you performance properly because of your gender, race or ethnicity. There is no doubt that Google has gone lala SJW route in last few years but then many of us put conscious efforts in fixing those problems.
  - christophilus 6y ago
    I’ve seen this, too, at a number of places I’ve worked. Pointing it out always gets you downvoted (or whatever the real life equivalent is).
    - Glide 6y ago
      Committing a Career Limiting Move?
    - alp10 6y ago
      Yep, or to state it in AnimalFarm terms: If cardinality(pigs + sheep) > cardinality(work horses), the truth will be downvoted. In software, the work horses need to be more proactive and not give up what is theirs.
  - Drew_ 6y ago
    Nothing you're referring to has anything to do with the actual hiring process. None of the issues you listed makes anyone more or less likely to pass the hiring committee. Offers are based on merit as much as they can be. You just have a problem with efforts to reach out to people who normally have a hard time making it into the industry.
    - lucaspm98 6y ago
      Every one of those 6 points made have to do directly with the hiring process. Supporting education and outreach for underrepresented groups is a noble cause, but when it gets to the point of giving a group an easier interview path the hiring is by nature not merit based. In the long run, this will only undermine the efforts to get these groups involved by forcing experience to be viewed with the asterisk that they may or may not have earned their position.
dmos62 6y ago
> Wilberg’s lawsuit targets Google and 25 unnamed Google employees who allegedly enforced discriminatory hiring rules, quoting a number of emails and other documents. It claims that for several quarters, Google would only hire people from historically underrepresented groups for technical positions. In one hiring round, the team was allegedly instructed to cancel all software engineering interviews with non-diverse applicants below a certain experience level, and to “purge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees from the hiring pipeline.” California labor law prohibits refusing to hire employees based on characteristics like race or gender. Perception shaping is always unsavoury, but that's pretty dark.

downerending 6y ago

Take a close look at the diversity report they publish each year.

downerending 6y ago
Not sure why this got downvoted. Google publishes some pretty detailed stats (which I applaud), and the "thumb on the scale" could not be more obvious. Whether or not you feel this is a problem, it's worth reviewing the data. [And for the record, I've enjoyed every female or minority colleague I've ever worked with, and made efforts to ensure their success, whatever their ability. I don't particularly object to AA hiring, but I don't like wasting my time on "fake" interviews, so I think publication of stats like this should be required.]

kortilla 6y ago

Underrepresented groups get more attempts and are actively recruited more.

charlesu 6y ago
Underrepresented groups are actively recruited but don't get more attempts. If you think otherwise just ask an engineer from an underrepresented groups about their recruiting experiences. They would probably know better. All their interviews include an underrepresented candidate, so their sample size is probably larger :) The active recruitment is to counterbalance the fact that referrals, one of the biggest sources of talent, is not a diverse pipeline. Everyone's network is mostly male and white or Asian. This is even true of engineers from underrepresented groups. If you want a shot at hiring qualified underrepresented candidates, you have to actively recruit them. Your existing workforce cannot help identify them. That's what's meant by diversity and inclusion. Now whether you agree that diversity and inclusion are worthwhile is another discussion altogether.
- wernercd 6y ago
  > Underrepresented groups are actively recruited but don't get more attempts. Other posts in this thread make claims oppose that. One person says that bad phone screens for men? No call back... bad phone screens for women? call back and face-to-face to get them another chance. that's the definition of "more attempts". Whether said comment is real and honest is unknown (random internet comment) and whether "diversity and inclusion" are worth it (actively choosing ("recruiting") someone on race/color/etc to battle perceived racism is... a form of racism itself) is of course another battle...
  - charlesu 6y ago
    I can't speak to other companies, but in my experience, inhouse recruiters have no incentive to pass bad candidates past the phone screen. I have no incentive to pass bad candidates to onsite. We want to spend as much time needed to find the right candidate and no more and we don't want miss out on anyone. But we don't want to waste our time either. I just want to call out that diversity and inclusion are not about battling "perceived racism". Diversity and inclusion measures are to counterbalance the fact that professional (and personal) networks in tech are not diverse. The status quo left alone would bias itself toward white and Asian males irrespective of intent. By actively looking for underrepresented candidates, companies can counterbalance network effects in hiring.