7 ms·

Yeah, the point taken from the study is really designed to stoke tension when it is not really reflective of anything meaningful when it comes to job applicant

by beaner 5y ago

Yeah, the point taken from the study is really designed to stoke tension when it is not really reflective of anything meaningful when it comes to job applicant filtering. It reminds me of a learning from one of Thomas Sowell's books. There were communities that thought that background checks for employees in certain industries were racially discriminating by their very nature. They moved to ban them. Race disparities in those industries consequently went up, not down. The reason? Without an impartial and indifferent scan of a person's background, employer's were left to use the signals they could pick up on in person, filtered through their own biases. The solution was to allow background checks again. It sounds like this study is basically saying that without the background check (in this case, actual interviews assessing qualifications), that people are more likely to filter through whatever biases they have at their disposal. Sounds like no surprise... That's the whole point of the interview, to be the impartial and indifferent filter that anyone would be judged by. The solution is to just apply the interview and not judge based on a few seconds of dialogue. Which nobody does anyway. So it's not testing for anything real. (Cue many knee-jerk anecdotal counterpoints to "nobody does that anyway." Please. You're not getting that software engineering job by being an artist with no prior experience who flashes high-class speech for 10 seconds.)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mavelikara 5y ago
> So it's not testing for anything real. You are too quick to dismiss the study, I think. What the study shows, I think, is that other things being equal the person who sounds to be from higher class is likely to get the job. The study simulates the other things being equal scenario by eliminating all other avenues for the hiring manager to judge. Here is the quote from the TFA, lightly edited for emphasis: The study, ... , demonstrates that: (a) people can accurately assess a stranger’s socioeconomic position — defined by their income, education, and occupation status — based on brief speech patterns and (b) shows that these snap perceptions influence hiring managers in ways that favor job applicants from higher social classes. > The solution is to just apply the interview and not judge based on a few seconds of dialogue. Agree, but ALSO be aware of such biases and try prevent those.
- jdgoesmarching 5y ago
  This is how research works, you isolate variables. By OP’s logic science is never testing for anything “real.” I’m not surprised that HN rushes to discredit the idea that hiring is not a perfect meritocracy, but this is kinda silly.
  - pedrosorio 5y ago
    Isolating this variable allows one to study how good hiring managers are at estimating base probabilities for education/competence given social class (news alert: they are not independent). It says nothing about what actually matters: do hiring managers with the ability to properly interview "equally qualified" candidates from different social backgrounds do so effectively (i.e. offer them similar compensation), or do they still rely on the base rates (i.e. bias), and how big is that effect?
  - jefftk 5y ago
    But this is also not how isolating variables works. If you give someone no information, and require them to make a decision based only on speech patterns, that does not actually tell you very much about how they would make a decision if they had lots of information including speech patterns. Compare: a) only speech b) lots of complex skills-based information that is (verified in a separate experiment) equivalent on balance, plus also speech It's quite possible that you could see a large difference in decisions in (a) without any detectable difference in (b). For example, imagine in this study hiring managers are (perhaps subconsciously) estimating education level from speech. If they already have lots of details about candidate's education, that "screens out" the rough proxy of their speech patterns.
  - splitstud 5y ago
    Questioning the validity of the isolation, and conclusions drawn from the result is how science works.
  - KMag 5y ago
    > I’m not surprised that HN rushes to discredit the idea that hiring is not a perfect meritocracy, but this is kinda silly. I think this is a straw man argument, unless you can point to more than one person here (now I see none) arguing hiring is a perfect meritocracy. I see lots of people questioning the methodology and conclusions drawn, but I don't see anyone claiming hiring is perfectly meritocratic. On the one hand, if we need to perfectly understand the problem before starting to solve it, we'll be forever stuck in analysis. On the other hand, if we are incorrect in our initial analysis, we risk wasting time and other resources on the wrong solutions, reducing resources available for other solutions further down the road. It's very important to distinguish constructive criticism from animosity.
renewiltord 5y ago
Ironically, HN frequently touts the benefits of "just talk to someone about their work" over the impartial whiteboard interview. I far prefer the Software Engineering industry's focus on design and coding interviews. Impartial. Unrealistic. But fair.
- Retric 5y ago
  Software coding interviews can be extremely subjective. I have seen someone rate similar responses vary differently based on their overall assessment of the candidate. It’s also extremely difficult to be equivalently helpful when answering questions. Even deciding what’s a fair assessment is difficult. Should you give someone more slack if they haven’t used a language in 2 years, but remember most things well enough?
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    Fair enough but "just talk to them" is clearly worse.
- shard 5y ago
  Unfortunately once you move past the lower working level software/engineering jobs, either vertically to team lead positions or horizontally to product management or marketing or sales, whiteboard interviews are not that helpful, as soft skills becomes as important if not more important than technical skills for success at work.
  - Gene_Parmesan 5y ago
    Not only that, but whiteboarding very rarely tests for skills actually needed at the job. As you progress in your career, things like "I have held down the following software development jobs for X years...." are going to be far better ways to judge technical capabilities that are actually relevant to the job than 30-60 minutes of whiteboarding. Many many different industries have jobs that require technical skills -- not tech as in technolgy -- and they get away just fine with managing to hire people. Nurses need to be able to nurse, a highly technical skillset; no one is having nurses give fake shots on test dummies during interviews. They use credentials and experience, and accept the risk that a hire might not pan out. The fact that we want senior level developers to have to refresh/cram before interviews on how to implement graph search algs and hash tables just so they can pass some artificial whiteboarding section is a bit crazy. Their actual job experience over the past N years should be what counts. Now, conversations about how one would solve technical problems of a sort actually faced on the job are totally on point, and really should be a part of any job interview in any field. edit: Really, what we want as engineering types is for there to exist a way to gauge ability in a purely objective way. But there isn't one; it doesn't exist. Furthermore, you are building a team of people. IMO the focus should really be on fit and soft skills regardless. Make sure they meet a minimum bar of technical ability, then work to verify whether they'll be a productive, beneficial teammate.
ingleswood 5y ago
> The solution was to allow background checks again. I'm not sure this learning shows what you think it does, nor that the 'solution' is really a solution. Employers don't want to hire black people because they fear they might be criminals, and background checks allay this fear, allowing them to hire a subset of black people they feel are ok? To me this confirms that both background checks and hiring managers have a tendency to be racially biased, and the 'solution' is simply accepting of that bias.
- KMag 5y ago
  Another perspective is that a lot of bias isn't "I don't like X people", but rather "I feel X people are disproportionately Y, and I don't like Y". Objective data that this X person isn't Y seems like a good way to (1) reduce the harm of the bias in the short term and (2) hopefully diminish the bias over time, given enough objective data to fix their biased priors via observation. If fixing people's biases via objective data isn't the solution, is the solution figuring out which people are unbiased and only hiring sufficiently unbiased people? What if evidence suggests that there aren't enough sufficiently unbiased people in the world? Is unsubstantiated rhetoric preferable to objective data in breaking down people's biases? Of course the ideal solution to bias is to just not be biased in the first place, but that's not an implementable solution.
  - ingleswood 5y ago
    > Another perspective is that a lot of bias isn't "I don't like X people", but rather "I feel X people are disproportionately Y, and I don't like Y" Of course. But the answer to this depends on: 1. the source of the belief that 'X people tend to be Y'. 2. The truth or otherwise of that belief. 3. The source of the dislike of Y. 4. Whether or not Y is a reasonable cause for dislike. Suppose that I tell you that the most important political issue for me is the welfare of animals, and in particular, that animals raised for meat should be stunned before they are slaughtered. There are definitely some people for which this is a genuinely held and rationally arrived at belief, consistent with their other beliefs and actions. There are others for which this is a device for attacking certain religious communities, through opposition to halal and shechita. Isn't it correct that we should try and understand which is taking place before responding to it? Presenting objective data to someone arguing an irrational position in bad faith does no good - the bad faith argument simply adapts.
crispyambulance 5y ago
> ... Please. You're not getting that software engineering job by being an artist with no prior experience who flashes high-class speech for 10 seconds... You make it sound like that kind of thing is impossible. It's NOT. Class signals, in many cases, are absolutely critical to landing a job. You give an example of "an artist with no experience" grifting into a SW engineering job-- that's a bit extreme. What is common, however, are corporate HR/hiring-managers and even entire professional networks that dismiss otherwise qualified people based on class signals. You people are thinking of software engineering, of course because this is HN. But keep in mind that for some people, that's just "the help". There's a whole world of business jobs and networks where even showing up with the wrong suit will get you instantly, silently, and permanently dismissed unless you have some incredibly strong connections to that group. I know this anecdotally because I grew up in my father's tailor shop! This isn't a shocking or unbelievable finding.
- pharke 5y ago
  It's been well known for a very long time that for some the education you receive at Yale or Harvard is more about how to be a member of that class, to learn the manners, speech, and dress, that will win you the job at companies playing by those rules. The "Gentleman's C" you earn is less consequential.

by beaner 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mavelikara 5y ago

> So it's not testing for anything real. You are too quick to dismiss the study, I think. What the study shows, I think, is that other things being equal the person who sounds to be from higher class is likely to get the job. The study simulates the other things being equal scenario by eliminating all other avenues for the hiring manager to judge. Here is the quote from the TFA, lightly edited for emphasis: The study, ... , demonstrates that: (a) people can accurately assess a stranger’s socioeconomic position — defined by their income, education, and occupation status — based on brief speech patterns and (b) shows that these snap perceptions influence hiring managers in ways that favor job applicants from higher social classes. > The solution is to just apply the interview and not judge based on a few seconds of dialogue. Agree, but ALSO be aware of such biases and try prevent those.

jdgoesmarching 5y ago
This is how research works, you isolate variables. By OP’s logic science is never testing for anything “real.” I’m not surprised that HN rushes to discredit the idea that hiring is not a perfect meritocracy, but this is kinda silly.
- pedrosorio 5y ago
  Isolating this variable allows one to study how good hiring managers are at estimating base probabilities for education/competence given social class (news alert: they are not independent). It says nothing about what actually matters: do hiring managers with the ability to properly interview "equally qualified" candidates from different social backgrounds do so effectively (i.e. offer them similar compensation), or do they still rely on the base rates (i.e. bias), and how big is that effect?
- jefftk 5y ago
  But this is also not how isolating variables works. If you give someone no information, and require them to make a decision based only on speech patterns, that does not actually tell you very much about how they would make a decision if they had lots of information including speech patterns. Compare: a) only speech b) lots of complex skills-based information that is (verified in a separate experiment) equivalent on balance, plus also speech It's quite possible that you could see a large difference in decisions in (a) without any detectable difference in (b). For example, imagine in this study hiring managers are (perhaps subconsciously) estimating education level from speech. If they already have lots of details about candidate's education, that "screens out" the rough proxy of their speech patterns.
- splitstud 5y ago
  Questioning the validity of the isolation, and conclusions drawn from the result is how science works.
- KMag 5y ago
  > I’m not surprised that HN rushes to discredit the idea that hiring is not a perfect meritocracy, but this is kinda silly. I think this is a straw man argument, unless you can point to more than one person here (now I see none) arguing hiring is a perfect meritocracy. I see lots of people questioning the methodology and conclusions drawn, but I don't see anyone claiming hiring is perfectly meritocratic. On the one hand, if we need to perfectly understand the problem before starting to solve it, we'll be forever stuck in analysis. On the other hand, if we are incorrect in our initial analysis, we risk wasting time and other resources on the wrong solutions, reducing resources available for other solutions further down the road. It's very important to distinguish constructive criticism from animosity.

renewiltord 5y ago

Ironically, HN frequently touts the benefits of "just talk to someone about their work" over the impartial whiteboard interview. I far prefer the Software Engineering industry's focus on design and coding interviews. Impartial. Unrealistic. But fair.

Retric 5y ago
Software coding interviews can be extremely subjective. I have seen someone rate similar responses vary differently based on their overall assessment of the candidate. It’s also extremely difficult to be equivalently helpful when answering questions. Even deciding what’s a fair assessment is difficult. Should you give someone more slack if they haven’t used a language in 2 years, but remember most things well enough?
- renewiltord 5y ago
  Fair enough but "just talk to them" is clearly worse.
shard 5y ago
Unfortunately once you move past the lower working level software/engineering jobs, either vertically to team lead positions or horizontally to product management or marketing or sales, whiteboard interviews are not that helpful, as soft skills becomes as important if not more important than technical skills for success at work.
- Gene_Parmesan 5y ago
  Not only that, but whiteboarding very rarely tests for skills actually needed at the job. As you progress in your career, things like "I have held down the following software development jobs for X years...." are going to be far better ways to judge technical capabilities that are actually relevant to the job than 30-60 minutes of whiteboarding. Many many different industries have jobs that require technical skills -- not tech as in technolgy -- and they get away just fine with managing to hire people. Nurses need to be able to nurse, a highly technical skillset; no one is having nurses give fake shots on test dummies during interviews. They use credentials and experience, and accept the risk that a hire might not pan out. The fact that we want senior level developers to have to refresh/cram before interviews on how to implement graph search algs and hash tables just so they can pass some artificial whiteboarding section is a bit crazy. Their actual job experience over the past N years should be what counts. Now, conversations about how one would solve technical problems of a sort actually faced on the job are totally on point, and really should be a part of any job interview in any field. edit: Really, what we want as engineering types is for there to exist a way to gauge ability in a purely objective way. But there isn't one; it doesn't exist. Furthermore, you are building a team of people. IMO the focus should really be on fit and soft skills regardless. Make sure they meet a minimum bar of technical ability, then work to verify whether they'll be a productive, beneficial teammate.

ingleswood 5y ago

> The solution was to allow background checks again. I'm not sure this learning shows what you think it does, nor that the 'solution' is really a solution. Employers don't want to hire black people because they fear they might be criminals, and background checks allay this fear, allowing them to hire a subset of black people they feel are ok? To me this confirms that both background checks and hiring managers have a tendency to be racially biased, and the 'solution' is simply accepting of that bias.

KMag 5y ago
Another perspective is that a lot of bias isn't "I don't like X people", but rather "I feel X people are disproportionately Y, and I don't like Y". Objective data that this X person isn't Y seems like a good way to (1) reduce the harm of the bias in the short term and (2) hopefully diminish the bias over time, given enough objective data to fix their biased priors via observation. If fixing people's biases via objective data isn't the solution, is the solution figuring out which people are unbiased and only hiring sufficiently unbiased people? What if evidence suggests that there aren't enough sufficiently unbiased people in the world? Is unsubstantiated rhetoric preferable to objective data in breaking down people's biases? Of course the ideal solution to bias is to just not be biased in the first place, but that's not an implementable solution.
- ingleswood 5y ago
  > Another perspective is that a lot of bias isn't "I don't like X people", but rather "I feel X people are disproportionately Y, and I don't like Y" Of course. But the answer to this depends on: 1. the source of the belief that 'X people tend to be Y'. 2. The truth or otherwise of that belief. 3. The source of the dislike of Y. 4. Whether or not Y is a reasonable cause for dislike. Suppose that I tell you that the most important political issue for me is the welfare of animals, and in particular, that animals raised for meat should be stunned before they are slaughtered. There are definitely some people for which this is a genuinely held and rationally arrived at belief, consistent with their other beliefs and actions. There are others for which this is a device for attacking certain religious communities, through opposition to halal and shechita. Isn't it correct that we should try and understand which is taking place before responding to it? Presenting objective data to someone arguing an irrational position in bad faith does no good - the bad faith argument simply adapts.

crispyambulance 5y ago

> ... Please. You're not getting that software engineering job by being an artist with no prior experience who flashes high-class speech for 10 seconds... You make it sound like that kind of thing is impossible. It's NOT. Class signals, in many cases, are absolutely critical to landing a job. You give an example of "an artist with no experience" grifting into a SW engineering job-- that's a bit extreme. What is common, however, are corporate HR/hiring-managers and even entire professional networks that dismiss otherwise qualified people based on class signals. You people are thinking of software engineering, of course because this is HN. But keep in mind that for some people, that's just "the help". There's a whole world of business jobs and networks where even showing up with the wrong suit will get you instantly, silently, and permanently dismissed unless you have some incredibly strong connections to that group. I know this anecdotally because I grew up in my father's tailor shop! This isn't a shocking or unbelievable finding.

pharke 5y ago
It's been well known for a very long time that for some the education you receive at Yale or Harvard is more about how to be a member of that class, to learn the manners, speech, and dress, that will win you the job at companies playing by those rules. The "Gentleman's C" you earn is less consequential.