8 ms·

All of this sounds horribly cringe-inducing and I don't fault you at all for walking away from IBM. At the same time, I can't help but look at this from an ite

All of this sounds horribly cringe-inducing and I don't fault you at all for walking away from IBM. At the same time, I can't help but look at this from an iterated organizational perspective. Let's say you had taken the offer at IBM. Next year, IBM does the recruiting event. But this time they have a Native American employee, you, that they can talk to about how to reach out to that group. So it's a little less awkward. Maybe they hire a couple more. Over time, the organization builds enough to overcome its own internal systemic bias and does have a strong local representative culture of Native American employees. But I don't see how an organization gets to that point without it being sort of weird and cringy at first. Of course, you are under no personal obligation to be the one to take those first steps simply because you happen to be a member of that group. But I have to wonder, if we're going to criticize an organization for trying to correct their biases this way... what other process would we suggest?

ipaddr 6y ago
Just hire based on skill / experience and don't not hire someone because they are a minority. Basic fair hiring goes a long way. If you want more diverse candidates advertise in more diverse places. To go through some cringe-inducing ordeal is not helpful. People want to be judged based on their skills not skin / gender.
- kvetching 6y ago
  You clearly don't understand Equity.
- WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  Oh, I think initial guidelines had that. And then it was all tramped on by some insane incentive like a bonus being dependent on how many "diverse" people a particular person actually gets to hire. Or a stack ranking based on the same. All it takes is just one perverse component in the mix.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    > it was all tramped on by some insane incentive like a bonus being dependent on how many "diverse" people a particular person actually gets to hire my company has done this and while it's not illegal to provide the incentives, I don't understand how they can expect it not to result in illegal hiring behavior (discrimination based on protected class) by those optimizing for those incentives.
    - teddyh 6y ago
      > I don't understand how they can expect it not to result in illegal hiring behavior Of course they expect it to result in illegal hiring behavior. They just also expect to always get away with it, because some technically illegal things are nonetheless tolerated by society.
- conception 6y ago
  How does that overcome systemic bias, eg prevalent poverty in many minority groups. The poor don’t have resources, wealth or contacts, to become a super coder/manager/whatever so they don’t make it into your applicant pool based on skill alone in the first place. The cycle continues. Breaking the cycle is hard. You could target low income children but that leaves everyone looking for jobs today in the cold, etc etc. It’s a tough nut to crack but trying to fix historical bias isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
  - ipaddr 6y ago
    You need to fix that at the education level. Offering free top notch education can go a long way.
    - conception 6y ago
      I agree but that ignores people trying to make it today and doesn’t create any “heroes” or mentors for those in education today.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Usually, you need to start super super early. Achievement gaps show up pretty early and only get wider. And I don’t think most companies have the stomach for broad-based improvements to education starting all the way from elementary school or even preschool, particularly when the payoff is going to be when the first wave of kids in preschool make it out of at least undergrad. Of course, the superlocal, balkanized property tax system used to fund schools really doesn’t help things.
    - malandrew 6y ago
      > Offering free top notch education can go a long way I find it strange that people think you can just magically provide a top notch school and things magically correct themselves. How can you completely discount the impact of the parents involvement with their children's educational life? Paraphasing JFK, "Ask not what your school can do for your kid's education, but what you can do for your kid's education". Parents play a huge part in imparting good values in their children and also holding their children accountable for their performance in school. Furthermore, when some kids do poorly that rubs off on all the other kids by lowering the bar and setting bad examples. The parents set bad examples for their kids and then those kids set bad examples for other kids. It's turtles all the way down. "If you want to see the poor remain poor, generation after generation, just keep the standards low in their schools and make excuses for their academic shortcomings and personal misbehavior. But please don't congratulate yourself on your compassion." – Thomas Sowell
- bena 6y ago
  Ideally, yes. But the problem is that our implicit biases affect how we view potential candidates. Certain groups need the chance to prove themselves. If certain groups aren't fairly represented, then it does pay to prefer to hire from those groups when everything else is roughly equal. I do find it hard to believe that "the best" candidate is more often than not a straight white man.
  - betwixthewires 6y ago
    > I do find it hard to believe that "the best" candidate is more often than not a straight white man. So do I, which is why I find this diversity hire exercise entirely pointless.
- UShouldBWorking 6y ago
  But then mit would be only male asians and every it department would follow suit. There would be not female programmers at all.
- johnfn 6y ago
  I think the point is that IBM believed they were hiring based purely on skill and experience. Then they realized they weren't hiring any native americans. And they figured that the best way to address that would be to hire some.
km3r 6y ago
I always thought the best way was to treat those recruiting events as a way to get a more diverse set of candidates on the resume pile. Once they are on the same pile as everyone else, the higher ratios of minorities on the piles will naturally lead to more minority hires (assuming your hiring process is non discriminatory).
op03 6y ago
You are wondering about the wrong thing. Companies/Orgs are not designed to pull this type of stuff off. And thats the end of the story right there. Society has developed other mechanisms precisely because orgs are dumb as shit at handling complexity. Its sort of like encouraging 2nd graders to think about 10th grade problems. They need a whole lot of help and time from someone else before they can. Thats why the East India Company runs to King or Goldman runs to the President or Jack Ma evaporates from the earth when things get too complex. Orgs are just dumb simple parts of society like the ribosome is a part of a cell. Expecting the ribosome to morph into something it is not just because every part of the ribosome has good intentions and feels it can be doing much more to influence the behavior of one cell, or a clump of them and therefore the whole body makes for a good Pixar movie and Google hiring material. But in real life that stuff happens on very different time scales and by very different institutions. If you want to change the world don't work in the corporate world. Work in places that supervise them.
smoe 6y ago
I think tech events focused on specific groups can be great, but from my perspective: - Better if it is not the corporation organizing it, but just sponsoring either trough financial contributions or things like providing space instead. - Have interesting topics beyond just talking about group X. - Don’t assume everyone within a group is the same. - Actual hiring/evaluation process should be same for everyone, do as much blindly as you can.
twalla 6y ago
> this time they have a Native American employee, you, that they can talk to about how to reach out to that group. I remember reading someone's opinion basically stating that things like that for underrepresented groups are unpaid emotional labor, which I kind of agree with - it's got to be a weird position to be in to be hired to write code and somehow end up as the defacto sounding board for questions regarding the company's interactions with people similar to you. Imagine having randos come up to you and ask you for your time to pitch new ideas for how to recruit white dudes or asking questions about how it was growing up a white dude or even just people making the assumption that since you're a white dude you care about hiring more white dudes. > what other process would we suggest? Personal opinion alert: I feel like a lot of (not all) tech's diversity problem is a pipeline problem so maybe identifying people that belong to underrepresented groups out there doing good work getting folks from the group interested in cs/tech and then giving them more resources?
- core-questions 6y ago
  > Imagine having randos come up to you and ask you for your time to pitch new ideas for how to recruit white dudes or asking questions about how it was growing up a white dude or even just people making the assumption that since you're a white dude you care about hiring more white dudes. I imagine this all the time, yet it never happens.
- munificent 6y ago
  > things like that for underrepresented groups are unpaid emotional labor Presumably if the person in question is salaried and it's understood that they are spending work time on this, then it's not unpaid emotional labor. But, sure, it's work that requires leaning on emotional and social sensitivies one might otherwise not have to bring to bear in their tech job. I don't think anyone should be obligated to do that kind of work because of their background. But my experience is that organizations and culture often progress only when some people do volunteer to do that work. And, fortunately, there are many people who choose to do that because the intangible rewards, for them, outweigh the costs.
caffeine 6y ago
Why would a Native American feel prospect feel more comfortable talking to a Native American employee? I think that's the cringey stuff parent comment is complaining about.
- munificent 6y ago
  Greater number of shared experiences and common ground? Why do any pair of humans feel more comfortable talking to each other than some other pairs?
ta988 6y ago
This is not how things happen, I have yet to see any large organization that let itself or its procedures changed by new hires. And telling someone that was mistreated by a company that they should have accepted and then tried to change the things from the inside is insensitivity at its best. Now if they hire you specifically for that purpose that's different, but it abaolutely doesnt sound like it here.

ipaddr 6y ago

Just hire based on skill / experience and don't not hire someone because they are a minority. Basic fair hiring goes a long way. If you want more diverse candidates advertise in more diverse places. To go through some cringe-inducing ordeal is not helpful. People want to be judged based on their skills not skin / gender.

kvetching 6y ago
You clearly don't understand Equity.
WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
Oh, I think initial guidelines had that. And then it was all tramped on by some insane incentive like a bonus being dependent on how many "diverse" people a particular person actually gets to hire. Or a stack ranking based on the same. All it takes is just one perverse component in the mix.
- malandrew 6y ago
  > it was all tramped on by some insane incentive like a bonus being dependent on how many "diverse" people a particular person actually gets to hire my company has done this and while it's not illegal to provide the incentives, I don't understand how they can expect it not to result in illegal hiring behavior (discrimination based on protected class) by those optimizing for those incentives.
  - teddyh 6y ago
    > I don't understand how they can expect it not to result in illegal hiring behavior Of course they expect it to result in illegal hiring behavior. They just also expect to always get away with it, because some technically illegal things are nonetheless tolerated by society.
conception 6y ago
How does that overcome systemic bias, eg prevalent poverty in many minority groups. The poor don’t have resources, wealth or contacts, to become a super coder/manager/whatever so they don’t make it into your applicant pool based on skill alone in the first place. The cycle continues. Breaking the cycle is hard. You could target low income children but that leaves everyone looking for jobs today in the cold, etc etc. It’s a tough nut to crack but trying to fix historical bias isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
- ipaddr 6y ago
  You need to fix that at the education level. Offering free top notch education can go a long way.
  - conception 6y ago
    I agree but that ignores people trying to make it today and doesn’t create any “heroes” or mentors for those in education today.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    Usually, you need to start super super early. Achievement gaps show up pretty early and only get wider. And I don’t think most companies have the stomach for broad-based improvements to education starting all the way from elementary school or even preschool, particularly when the payoff is going to be when the first wave of kids in preschool make it out of at least undergrad. Of course, the superlocal, balkanized property tax system used to fund schools really doesn’t help things.
  - malandrew 6y ago
    > Offering free top notch education can go a long way I find it strange that people think you can just magically provide a top notch school and things magically correct themselves. How can you completely discount the impact of the parents involvement with their children's educational life? Paraphasing JFK, "Ask not what your school can do for your kid's education, but what you can do for your kid's education". Parents play a huge part in imparting good values in their children and also holding their children accountable for their performance in school. Furthermore, when some kids do poorly that rubs off on all the other kids by lowering the bar and setting bad examples. The parents set bad examples for their kids and then those kids set bad examples for other kids. It's turtles all the way down. "If you want to see the poor remain poor, generation after generation, just keep the standards low in their schools and make excuses for their academic shortcomings and personal misbehavior. But please don't congratulate yourself on your compassion." – Thomas Sowell
bena 6y ago
Ideally, yes. But the problem is that our implicit biases affect how we view potential candidates. Certain groups need the chance to prove themselves. If certain groups aren't fairly represented, then it does pay to prefer to hire from those groups when everything else is roughly equal. I do find it hard to believe that "the best" candidate is more often than not a straight white man.
- betwixthewires 6y ago
  > I do find it hard to believe that "the best" candidate is more often than not a straight white man. So do I, which is why I find this diversity hire exercise entirely pointless.
UShouldBWorking 6y ago
But then mit would be only male asians and every it department would follow suit. There would be not female programmers at all.
johnfn 6y ago
I think the point is that IBM believed they were hiring based purely on skill and experience. Then they realized they weren't hiring any native americans. And they figured that the best way to address that would be to hire some.

km3r 6y ago

I always thought the best way was to treat those recruiting events as a way to get a more diverse set of candidates on the resume pile. Once they are on the same pile as everyone else, the higher ratios of minorities on the piles will naturally lead to more minority hires (assuming your hiring process is non discriminatory).

op03 6y ago

You are wondering about the wrong thing. Companies/Orgs are not designed to pull this type of stuff off. And thats the end of the story right there. Society has developed other mechanisms precisely because orgs are dumb as shit at handling complexity. Its sort of like encouraging 2nd graders to think about 10th grade problems. They need a whole lot of help and time from someone else before they can. Thats why the East India Company runs to King or Goldman runs to the President or Jack Ma evaporates from the earth when things get too complex. Orgs are just dumb simple parts of society like the ribosome is a part of a cell. Expecting the ribosome to morph into something it is not just because every part of the ribosome has good intentions and feels it can be doing much more to influence the behavior of one cell, or a clump of them and therefore the whole body makes for a good Pixar movie and Google hiring material. But in real life that stuff happens on very different time scales and by very different institutions. If you want to change the world don't work in the corporate world. Work in places that supervise them.

smoe 6y ago

I think tech events focused on specific groups can be great, but from my perspective: - Better if it is not the corporation organizing it, but just sponsoring either trough financial contributions or things like providing space instead. - Have interesting topics beyond just talking about group X. - Don’t assume everyone within a group is the same. - Actual hiring/evaluation process should be same for everyone, do as much blindly as you can.

twalla 6y ago

> this time they have a Native American employee, you, that they can talk to about how to reach out to that group. I remember reading someone's opinion basically stating that things like that for underrepresented groups are unpaid emotional labor, which I kind of agree with - it's got to be a weird position to be in to be hired to write code and somehow end up as the defacto sounding board for questions regarding the company's interactions with people similar to you. Imagine having randos come up to you and ask you for your time to pitch new ideas for how to recruit white dudes or asking questions about how it was growing up a white dude or even just people making the assumption that since you're a white dude you care about hiring more white dudes. > what other process would we suggest? Personal opinion alert: I feel like a lot of (not all) tech's diversity problem is a pipeline problem so maybe identifying people that belong to underrepresented groups out there doing good work getting folks from the group interested in cs/tech and then giving them more resources?

core-questions 6y ago
> Imagine having randos come up to you and ask you for your time to pitch new ideas for how to recruit white dudes or asking questions about how it was growing up a white dude or even just people making the assumption that since you're a white dude you care about hiring more white dudes. I imagine this all the time, yet it never happens.
munificent 6y ago
> things like that for underrepresented groups are unpaid emotional labor Presumably if the person in question is salaried and it's understood that they are spending work time on this, then it's not unpaid emotional labor. But, sure, it's work that requires leaning on emotional and social sensitivies one might otherwise not have to bring to bear in their tech job. I don't think anyone should be obligated to do that kind of work because of their background. But my experience is that organizations and culture often progress only when some people do volunteer to do that work. And, fortunately, there are many people who choose to do that because the intangible rewards, for them, outweigh the costs.

caffeine 6y ago

Why would a Native American feel prospect feel more comfortable talking to a Native American employee? I think that's the cringey stuff parent comment is complaining about.

munificent 6y ago
Greater number of shared experiences and common ground? Why do any pair of humans feel more comfortable talking to each other than some other pairs?

ta988 6y ago

This is not how things happen, I have yet to see any large organization that let itself or its procedures changed by new hires. And telling someone that was mistreated by a company that they should have accepted and then tried to change the things from the inside is insensitivity at its best. Now if they hire you specifically for that purpose that's different, but it abaolutely doesnt sound like it here.