4 ms·

That's a sign it's a good question. It is, after all, logically impossible for every company to hire the best candidate on the same scale. If you interview peo

by geofft 6y ago

That's a sign it's a good question. It is, after all, logically impossible for every company to hire the best candidate on the same scale. If you interview people by general aptitude, one company (with the best salary etc.) will get the top folks and everyone else will settle. (It also makes independent interviewing rather useless: each company may as well outsource the job to a single service provider who's good at interviewing and returns a scalar.) So, the effective way to interview, if you happen not to be a monopoly in your field, is to find candidates who are better for your company. Some companies believe diversity of skin color actually matters and demonstrates a serious commitment to avoiding groupthink. Some companies believe they should not be caring about skin color at all. You're looking for a company in the latter group, and they're looking for you. If you give a poor answer to this question, as posed by a company in the first group, it serves the purpose of interviewing - it accurately determines that both you and the company will be unhappy with you being hired at that company.

username90 6y ago
Yeah, the correct answer in some interviews is to go on a rant about PC culture. Just not at this place, they'd probably like it if you went on a rant about how privileged white men are though.
- geofft 6y ago
  The correct answer is not the passing answer. The purpose of an interview, both for the candidate and the company, is to see if you're the right fit. If you say "Oh yes I agree with your DEI goals" and you don't, you'll be miserable pretending to care about them your whole job, same as if you said "Oh yes I love showing up at 8 AM wearing a suit" if you don't to a company that cares about you doing so.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    No, there are many companies that claim to care about these things so it shows up in their interview process. They actually don’t much so if you can’t suffer through the stupidity it can very well be the right career move to take the job.
kortilla 6y ago
> color actually matters and demonstrates a serious commitment to avoiding groupthink This statement is based on the racist assumption that skin color makes you think differently. A middle class Asian person who went to college at Stanford is going to think identically to a white middle class person who went to college. A white person who grew up dirt poor and self taught online is going to be vastly different from either.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > This statement is based on the racist assumption that skin color makes you think differently. Skin color doesn't make you think differently, but it (and, even moreso, racial identity, which is different than skin color) does correlate with things beyond socioeconomic class and personal level of education that do. > A middle class Asian person who went to college at Stanford is going to think identically to a white middle class person who went to college. It's possible, because the range of variation overlaps considerably, but, overall, no, major subcultural and lived-experience differences in the US don't reduce to economic class and whether (or even where) you went to college.
- geofft 6y ago
  It sounds like you don't want to work at a company in the latter group, then!
- bradlys 6y ago
  > A middle class Asian person who went to college at Stanford is going to think identically to a white middle class person who went to college. I thought this was true for a while but I've worked with enough asians (who are also born in USA - some even with their parents being American too) to realize this just isn't true. The white/asian experience has a very different parental/family background. A lot of kids learning some other language from an early age even if their parents weren't born in that country the language is known for. Most white kids don't go through a lot of that stuff. I used to think "Ah, hello, my fellow American!" And then I realized many asians didn't align with the American identity - at least in SV. Many felt like they were very closely tied (or closer) to their parents or grandparents homeland. Super weird - imo...
Viliam1234 6y ago
> Some companies believe diversity of skin color actually matters and demonstrates a serious commitment to avoiding groupthink. The best combination for being hired by these companies is having a diverse skin color and being committed to the groupthink. The second best combination is having a non-diverse skin color and being committed to the groupthink.

by geofft 6y ago

username90 6y ago

Yeah, the correct answer in some interviews is to go on a rant about PC culture. Just not at this place, they'd probably like it if you went on a rant about how privileged white men are though.

geofft 6y ago
The correct answer is not the passing answer. The purpose of an interview, both for the candidate and the company, is to see if you're the right fit. If you say "Oh yes I agree with your DEI goals" and you don't, you'll be miserable pretending to care about them your whole job, same as if you said "Oh yes I love showing up at 8 AM wearing a suit" if you don't to a company that cares about you doing so.
- kortilla 6y ago
  No, there are many companies that claim to care about these things so it shows up in their interview process. They actually don’t much so if you can’t suffer through the stupidity it can very well be the right career move to take the job.

kortilla 6y ago

> color actually matters and demonstrates a serious commitment to avoiding groupthink This statement is based on the racist assumption that skin color makes you think differently. A middle class Asian person who went to college at Stanford is going to think identically to a white middle class person who went to college. A white person who grew up dirt poor and self taught online is going to be vastly different from either.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> This statement is based on the racist assumption that skin color makes you think differently. Skin color doesn't make you think differently, but it (and, even moreso, racial identity, which is different than skin color) does correlate with things beyond socioeconomic class and personal level of education that do. > A middle class Asian person who went to college at Stanford is going to think identically to a white middle class person who went to college. It's possible, because the range of variation overlaps considerably, but, overall, no, major subcultural and lived-experience differences in the US don't reduce to economic class and whether (or even where) you went to college.
geofft 6y ago
It sounds like you don't want to work at a company in the latter group, then!
bradlys 6y ago
> A middle class Asian person who went to college at Stanford is going to think identically to a white middle class person who went to college. I thought this was true for a while but I've worked with enough asians (who are also born in USA - some even with their parents being American too) to realize this just isn't true. The white/asian experience has a very different parental/family background. A lot of kids learning some other language from an early age even if their parents weren't born in that country the language is known for. Most white kids don't go through a lot of that stuff. I used to think "Ah, hello, my fellow American!" And then I realized many asians didn't align with the American identity - at least in SV. Many felt like they were very closely tied (or closer) to their parents or grandparents homeland. Super weird - imo...

Viliam1234 6y ago

> Some companies believe diversity of skin color actually matters and demonstrates a serious commitment to avoiding groupthink. The best combination for being hired by these companies is having a diverse skin color and being committed to the groupthink. The second best combination is having a non-diverse skin color and being committed to the groupthink.