3 ms·

I get that she was actually a nice person who simply didn't know when .NET was invented. But I do not accept that she made a harmless and easily fixed error on

by mcherm 6y ago

I get that she was actually a nice person who simply didn't know when .NET was invented. But I do not accept that she made a harmless and easily fixed error on the job requirements because of this. Frankly, I'm not that concerned that the job requirements demanded more years of .NET experience then it was possible to have. I am more concerned about all the other requirements that were listed on that job description which were just as wrong but in a way that was not obvious. Consider the analogy to all of the exonerations of convicted prisoners we have had since DNA analysis became possible. The minor problem is that hundreds of innocent people were held in prison for years before DNA analysis proved they were innocent. The bigger problem is that we have now demonstrated that the legal process has a significant rate of error, meaning that there are tens of thousands of innocent people serving years in prison whose cases didn't happen to permit exoneration by DNA. That line in the job requirements that specifies you must have a college degree -- is that unnecessarily excluding a lot of qualified candidates? The general tendency to request more expertise and years of experience than are really needed -- is that driving off candidates with lower levels of self-aggrandizement? If it is, does that have anything to do with the deplorable number of women succeeding in our industry? Asking for 12 years experience in Kubernetes isn't just a silly error: it is an unmistakable sign of a much deeper problem.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
> That line in the job requirements that specifies you must have a college degree -- is that unnecessarily excluding a lot of qualified candidates? Outside of careers requiring vocational degrees (like engineering), yes - but for any job posting simply requiring a degree (any degree) has a valuable selective effect of eliminating swathes of objectively unqualified and less-qualified candidates and thus shrinking the pool of people you'd need to call-in for an on-site interview - even though many objectively qualified but non-degree-holding candidates would be eliminated unfairly. It's a trade-off based around how much value you assign to your recruiter's time.
rjkennedy98 6y ago
I agree and disagree with this. I do feel that everyone who has been around the block knows that job requirements are nice to haves rather than need to haves. Otherwise no one would get hired. On the other hand, I do think there are issues with how recruiters use descriptions that imply expectations that candidates have certain qualities like obsession with coding outside of work, being a tech bro, etc. And I do think some of the job requirement stuff overlaps. It makes it difficult for people who can do the work to feel comfortable applying and obviously is a negative for people who feel excluded from hacker culture which obviously does include minorities and women.
- janoc 6y ago
  The problem is when resumes get filtered into trash because the computer determined that you don't fulfill the stated requirements (no matter how silly). Which is a common practice these days, especially in hiring agencies who are hired to do pre-screening of candidates for a company. Add the outright dishonest recruiters ("Oh don't worry about that ultra short start date, I have only put that in there so that people apply faster!" - one 20something HR dude trying to rope me into a BS job ...) to the mix and then companies are wondering why they "can't find talent" and why skilled people have difficulties to find jobs.
air7 6y ago
I totally agree. There are many fields and situations where the cost for a certain type of error is negligible or non existant. This inevitably creates a system biased towards making gambles that end up create such errors. If for example, a case where a person is discovered to have been wrongly accused and incarcerated would trigger a very serious investigation of the specific people that were involved in that decision (judge, jury, lawyers, experts etc), the system would be much more careful with such acts.
koheripbal 6y ago
If you are expecting perfection then the world is going to be disappointing, in general.
- mcherm 6y ago
  I am sure perfection cannot be reached. I am hoping that we can recognize how far from perfection we are and adjust our systems to take account of that. For the criminal justice system in the US, one of the clearest implications is that we should allow lawyers -- or at least judges -- to inform jurors about the basics of what we know about witness reliability. Because a huge portion of those we now know to have been falsely convicted we're convicted solely or primarily on the basis of witnesses. For hiring, I think it means we should deemphasize filtering out candidates using some basic thresholds (like X years experience with Y) and emphasize opportunities for the candidates to demonstrate the skills they will use on the job.
- Brian_K_White 6y ago
  Therefor, out of all the 360 directions one can choose to walk, we should not even bother trying to figure out in which direction perfection lies, let alone pick that direction to walk. Got it.
P-ala-din 6y ago
just supporting your point: Why Women Don’t Apply for Jobs Unless They’re 100% Qualified [1] [1] - https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless...
- mjevans 6y ago
  Or they could clearly put out actual REQUIREMENTS and then a list of 'nice to have's.

by mcherm 6y ago

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago

> That line in the job requirements that specifies you must have a college degree -- is that unnecessarily excluding a lot of qualified candidates? Outside of careers requiring vocational degrees (like engineering), yes - but for any job posting simply requiring a degree (any degree) has a valuable selective effect of eliminating swathes of objectively unqualified and less-qualified candidates and thus shrinking the pool of people you'd need to call-in for an on-site interview - even though many objectively qualified but non-degree-holding candidates would be eliminated unfairly. It's a trade-off based around how much value you assign to your recruiter's time.

rjkennedy98 6y ago

I agree and disagree with this. I do feel that everyone who has been around the block knows that job requirements are nice to haves rather than need to haves. Otherwise no one would get hired. On the other hand, I do think there are issues with how recruiters use descriptions that imply expectations that candidates have certain qualities like obsession with coding outside of work, being a tech bro, etc. And I do think some of the job requirement stuff overlaps. It makes it difficult for people who can do the work to feel comfortable applying and obviously is a negative for people who feel excluded from hacker culture which obviously does include minorities and women.

janoc 6y ago
The problem is when resumes get filtered into trash because the computer determined that you don't fulfill the stated requirements (no matter how silly). Which is a common practice these days, especially in hiring agencies who are hired to do pre-screening of candidates for a company. Add the outright dishonest recruiters ("Oh don't worry about that ultra short start date, I have only put that in there so that people apply faster!" - one 20something HR dude trying to rope me into a BS job ...) to the mix and then companies are wondering why they "can't find talent" and why skilled people have difficulties to find jobs.

air7 6y ago

I totally agree. There are many fields and situations where the cost for a certain type of error is negligible or non existant. This inevitably creates a system biased towards making gambles that end up create such errors. If for example, a case where a person is discovered to have been wrongly accused and incarcerated would trigger a very serious investigation of the specific people that were involved in that decision (judge, jury, lawyers, experts etc), the system would be much more careful with such acts.

koheripbal 6y ago

If you are expecting perfection then the world is going to be disappointing, in general.

mcherm 6y ago
I am sure perfection cannot be reached. I am hoping that we can recognize how far from perfection we are and adjust our systems to take account of that. For the criminal justice system in the US, one of the clearest implications is that we should allow lawyers -- or at least judges -- to inform jurors about the basics of what we know about witness reliability. Because a huge portion of those we now know to have been falsely convicted we're convicted solely or primarily on the basis of witnesses. For hiring, I think it means we should deemphasize filtering out candidates using some basic thresholds (like X years experience with Y) and emphasize opportunities for the candidates to demonstrate the skills they will use on the job.
Brian_K_White 6y ago
Therefor, out of all the 360 directions one can choose to walk, we should not even bother trying to figure out in which direction perfection lies, let alone pick that direction to walk. Got it.

P-ala-din 6y ago

just supporting your point: Why Women Don’t Apply for Jobs Unless They’re 100% Qualified [1] [1] - https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless...

mjevans 6y ago
Or they could clearly put out actual REQUIREMENTS and then a list of 'nice to have's.