9 ms·

I can sympathise with the men in this story. I have sat in on meetings where HR was telling Engineering that tech skills and experience did not matter; only the

I can sympathise with the men in this story. I have sat in on meetings where HR was telling Engineering that tech skills and experience did not matter; only the sex and race of the hired candidate. How did HR get so much power? Most of them are barely out of University and at least at my org are a homogenous group of white women.

KittenInABox 5y ago
Homogenous groups of white cishet women at HR departments are also a travesty IMO. I highly doubt there isn't something going on internally that make it unfriendly to diverse perspectives (whether from a person of color, an lgbtqia+ person, or a man) that is an HR nightmare waiting to happen.
- tillinghast 5y ago
  Please, do tell, how many intersectionality points do we need to win this game?
  - KittenInABox 5y ago
    I don't think its a point system. I just think if an entire department of any company beyond "small" is homogenously one demographic then there's likely a sign that something is going wonky with how that department is hiring/retaining staff. I'd be suspicious of an entire engineering department (of a company of any significant size) that all came from one school, if I was applying to that company and I wasn't from that school. It's simple group psychology that an extremely uniform group is likely heavily biasing itself for more of that extremely uniform demographic. If that extremely uniform group is of one specific race, gender, or sexuality, that might be a yellow (or red) flag.
fxtentacle 5y ago
Pretty simple, if you oppose them then you're an easy target to be branded enemy of women. So most people who need their job will just nod and not risk opposing HR.
ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
> How did HR get so much power? Mostly by citing requirements for legal compliance, followed by minimizing liability and'industry standards'. Technologists would be wise to use these tools with more skill.
- azangru 5y ago
  Are there any specific legal requirements for companies regarding the demographics of their workforce? That would help explain why companies are so eager to spearhead those changes.
  - djbebs 5y ago
    Yes. And there's plenty of laws coming requiring quotas
    - javagram 5y ago
      To be clear, that depends on the country. In the USA, racial quotas in hiring are illegal, so you won’t see a law requiring them explicitly. I know it’s different in other countries though.
      - username90 5y ago
        All you need is a supreme court redefining the interpretation such that now not using racial quotas is discriminatory. Then the laws stating that you can't discriminate based on race now work in favour of quotas.
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    Large companies have to report demographics of employees, and SF is always mandating something "progressive." An activist govt. official could use that report to initiate an investigation. But what drives the "spearhead for change" is largely fear at this point. Case in point is corporate America donating to the self-admitted Marxist BLM organization.
azangru 5y ago
> I have sat in on meetings where HR was telling Engineering that tech skills and experience did not matter; only the sex and race of the hired candidate. Fascinating! I have not yet had a chance to hear it admitted openly. Usually the implication is that the appropriate skills and experience can be found in any demographic (e.g.: https://twitter.com/seldo/status/1400665677501853696 https://twitter.com/seldo/status/1400665677501853696)
- BigBubbleButt 5y ago
  I recently interviewed for a job because my friend asked me to and put in the recommendation. They refused to interview me and just said they weren't interested. My friend got back to me and said "I'm pretty sure it's because you're a white male." It's speculation, but it probably happens more often than you think. I also used to be on several hiring committees and it was very obvious that HR essentially forced non-white-males to be hired in some instances. This is not some "white men have it hard" diatribe. Obviously as a white male I experience incredible privilege overall. But at least in tech they seem to have swung so far the other way that there is some discrimination against white males. I'm not mad, we all have to play the hands we're dealt and honestly being born a white male is about as good as it gets with regards to demographics. Just sharing my anecdotes.
  - golemiprague 5y ago
    If you experienced "incredible privilege" it is not because you are white male, it is because you were privileged in one way or another. There are many white males who are born into dire situations and got no incredible privilege overall. Each person in this world got their own situation in life.
    - JediWing 5y ago
      This right here is a demonstration that language around "white privilege" is too opaque, loaded, academic and at times outright hostile. It's failing at it's job of helping people to understand the problem. Privilege is a word loaded with connotations about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth. White privilege isn't about being upper class because you're white. It's about the advantages a white person has over non-white people of the same station. A white person in a poor neighborhood is on the whole more likely to be able to pull "themselves" out of poverty, because, the systems and power structures in place have white people in power, or have systems that are fair on their face, but still lead to higher white hire rates or social mobility. Nobody is disputing that some white people have it bad, they're simply pointing out that all else about your social status being equal, being white provides tremendous advantage over being non-white.
MikeUt 5y ago
> How did HR get so much power? HR only appears to have power because they are going along with the prevailing political trends [1,2,3]. If they tried to oppose them, or go in the opposite direction, you would quickly see how empty their power is. [1] White men must be stopped: The very future of mankind depends on it - https://www.salon.com/2015/12/22/white_men_must_be_stopped_the_very_future_of_the_planet_depends_on_it_partner/ https://www.salon.com/2015/12/22/white_men_must_be_stopped_t... [2] the diversity trainers led a “free association” exercise, asking the Lockheed employees to list connotations for the term “white men.” The trainers wrote down “old,” “racist,” “privileged,” “anti-women,” “angry,” “Aryan Nation,” “KKK,” “Founding fathers,” “guns,” “guilty,” and “can’t jump.” - https://www.city-journal.org/lockheed-martins-woke-industrial-complex https://www.city-journal.org/lockheed-martins-woke-industria... [3] Another slide suggests “try to be less white” with tips including “be less oppressive,” “listen,” “believe” and “break with white solidarity.” - https://nypost.com/2021/02/23/coca-cola-diversity-training-urged-workers-to-be-less-white/ https://nypost.com/2021/02/23/coca-cola-diversity-training-u...
- TylerLives 5y ago
  Who has the power then, if anyone?
  - phendrenad2 5y ago
    Roving gangs of activists on Twitter who call out companies for failing to meet a diversity quota?
jrsj 5y ago
I dunno probably because they can have you fired if you disagree with them, and worse since they often know each other across different companies cause problems for you getting jobs in the future too
hereforphone 5y ago
Why are there so few men in HR? And where can I complain to have these demographics changed?
Josteniok 5y ago
> How did HR get so much power? I've always wondered that, too. I thought "The Strength of a Weak State: The Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions" had some interesting inputs on this question (https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3322830/Dobbin_StrengthWeakState.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3322830/Dobbin_S...).
- swader999 5y ago
  In school back in the day HR was always the lowest rung on the ladder. The ones that couldn't make it in any other program could in HR.
jacob2484 5y ago
Please call out these companies by name
nly 5y ago
I have also heard of my TL say "maybe we can get budget for a new hire if we look for a woman, since we lack any women in the department"
illwrks 5y ago
My understanding is that some of the issues stem from external recruitment agencies. The agencies are pitching against eachother. They state they have a gender skew higher (6:4 Male to Female) than the market data (9:1 Male to Female) to win work. They never can deliver on their targets and will blame it on location/salary etc, and place male candidates anyway. But it sews the seed that the gender balance in industry is higher than it really is and creates these issues. They become more pronounced the bigger the employer because the reality gets lost in translation.
machinehermiter 5y ago
I would imagine statistically that having conversations about people's lives all day is more appealing to women than men in the ideal for the job. Once you are on the job though you quickly realize what a terrible job it is and after a time leverage it into something else. Black women in the US are what about 7% of the population? So most likely any random HR interview is with a younger white woman.
- names_are_hard 5y ago
  > I would imagine statistically that having conversations about people's lives all day is more appealing to women than men in the ideal for the job. Well, a similar line of reasoning is sometimes used to explain why there are more men in coding roles than women and it's widely criticized as inadequate at best.
908B64B197 5y ago
> How did HR get so much power? Non-technical leadership expects them to be in charge of hiring. If HR has the final say in hiring for technical position, your company has serious issues and I wouldn't hold onto it's stock.
xyzzy21 5y ago
At least in the US, this is NOT LEGAL and amounts to violations of law. HR in any companies does not get a pass on that. It is, however, a clear sign that your engineering-based company is NOT long for this world. Time to find a new employer.

KittenInABox 5y ago

Homogenous groups of white cishet women at HR departments are also a travesty IMO. I highly doubt there isn't something going on internally that make it unfriendly to diverse perspectives (whether from a person of color, an lgbtqia+ person, or a man) that is an HR nightmare waiting to happen.

tillinghast 5y ago
Please, do tell, how many intersectionality points do we need to win this game?
- KittenInABox 5y ago
  I don't think its a point system. I just think if an entire department of any company beyond "small" is homogenously one demographic then there's likely a sign that something is going wonky with how that department is hiring/retaining staff. I'd be suspicious of an entire engineering department (of a company of any significant size) that all came from one school, if I was applying to that company and I wasn't from that school. It's simple group psychology that an extremely uniform group is likely heavily biasing itself for more of that extremely uniform demographic. If that extremely uniform group is of one specific race, gender, or sexuality, that might be a yellow (or red) flag.

fxtentacle 5y ago

Pretty simple, if you oppose them then you're an easy target to be branded enemy of women. So most people who need their job will just nod and not risk opposing HR.

ravel-bar-foo 5y ago

> How did HR get so much power? Mostly by citing requirements for legal compliance, followed by minimizing liability and'industry standards'. Technologists would be wise to use these tools with more skill.

azangru 5y ago
Are there any specific legal requirements for companies regarding the demographics of their workforce? That would help explain why companies are so eager to spearhead those changes.
- djbebs 5y ago
  Yes. And there's plenty of laws coming requiring quotas
  - javagram 5y ago
    To be clear, that depends on the country. In the USA, racial quotas in hiring are illegal, so you won’t see a law requiring them explicitly. I know it’s different in other countries though.
    - username90 5y ago
      All you need is a supreme court redefining the interpretation such that now not using racial quotas is discriminatory. Then the laws stating that you can't discriminate based on race now work in favour of quotas.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  Large companies have to report demographics of employees, and SF is always mandating something "progressive." An activist govt. official could use that report to initiate an investigation. But what drives the "spearhead for change" is largely fear at this point. Case in point is corporate America donating to the self-admitted Marxist BLM organization.

azangru 5y ago

> I have sat in on meetings where HR was telling Engineering that tech skills and experience did not matter; only the sex and race of the hired candidate. Fascinating! I have not yet had a chance to hear it admitted openly. Usually the implication is that the appropriate skills and experience can be found in any demographic (e.g.: https://twitter.com/seldo/status/1400665677501853696 https://twitter.com/seldo/status/1400665677501853696)

BigBubbleButt 5y ago
I recently interviewed for a job because my friend asked me to and put in the recommendation. They refused to interview me and just said they weren't interested. My friend got back to me and said "I'm pretty sure it's because you're a white male." It's speculation, but it probably happens more often than you think. I also used to be on several hiring committees and it was very obvious that HR essentially forced non-white-males to be hired in some instances. This is not some "white men have it hard" diatribe. Obviously as a white male I experience incredible privilege overall. But at least in tech they seem to have swung so far the other way that there is some discrimination against white males. I'm not mad, we all have to play the hands we're dealt and honestly being born a white male is about as good as it gets with regards to demographics. Just sharing my anecdotes.
- golemiprague 5y ago
  If you experienced "incredible privilege" it is not because you are white male, it is because you were privileged in one way or another. There are many white males who are born into dire situations and got no incredible privilege overall. Each person in this world got their own situation in life.
  - JediWing 5y ago
    This right here is a demonstration that language around "white privilege" is too opaque, loaded, academic and at times outright hostile. It's failing at it's job of helping people to understand the problem. Privilege is a word loaded with connotations about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth. White privilege isn't about being upper class because you're white. It's about the advantages a white person has over non-white people of the same station. A white person in a poor neighborhood is on the whole more likely to be able to pull "themselves" out of poverty, because, the systems and power structures in place have white people in power, or have systems that are fair on their face, but still lead to higher white hire rates or social mobility. Nobody is disputing that some white people have it bad, they're simply pointing out that all else about your social status being equal, being white provides tremendous advantage over being non-white.

MikeUt 5y ago

> How did HR get so much power? HR only appears to have power because they are going along with the prevailing political trends [1,2,3]. If they tried to oppose them, or go in the opposite direction, you would quickly see how empty their power is. [1] White men must be stopped: The very future of mankind depends on it - https://www.salon.com/2015/12/22/white_men_must_be_stopped_the_very_future_of_the_planet_depends_on_it_partner/ https://www.salon.com/2015/12/22/white_men_must_be_stopped_t... [2] the diversity trainers led a “free association” exercise, asking the Lockheed employees to list connotations for the term “white men.” The trainers wrote down “old,” “racist,” “privileged,” “anti-women,” “angry,” “Aryan Nation,” “KKK,” “Founding fathers,” “guns,” “guilty,” and “can’t jump.” - https://www.city-journal.org/lockheed-martins-woke-industrial-complex https://www.city-journal.org/lockheed-martins-woke-industria... [3] Another slide suggests “try to be less white” with tips including “be less oppressive,” “listen,” “believe” and “break with white solidarity.” - https://nypost.com/2021/02/23/coca-cola-diversity-training-urged-workers-to-be-less-white/ https://nypost.com/2021/02/23/coca-cola-diversity-training-u...

TylerLives 5y ago
Who has the power then, if anyone?
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  Roving gangs of activists on Twitter who call out companies for failing to meet a diversity quota?

jrsj 5y ago

I dunno probably because they can have you fired if you disagree with them, and worse since they often know each other across different companies cause problems for you getting jobs in the future too

hereforphone 5y ago

Why are there so few men in HR? And where can I complain to have these demographics changed?

Josteniok 5y ago

> How did HR get so much power? I've always wondered that, too. I thought "The Strength of a Weak State: The Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions" had some interesting inputs on this question (https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3322830/Dobbin_StrengthWeakState.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3322830/Dobbin_S...).

swader999 5y ago
In school back in the day HR was always the lowest rung on the ladder. The ones that couldn't make it in any other program could in HR.

jacob2484 5y ago

Please call out these companies by name

nly 5y ago

I have also heard of my TL say "maybe we can get budget for a new hire if we look for a woman, since we lack any women in the department"

illwrks 5y ago

My understanding is that some of the issues stem from external recruitment agencies. The agencies are pitching against eachother. They state they have a gender skew higher (6:4 Male to Female) than the market data (9:1 Male to Female) to win work. They never can deliver on their targets and will blame it on location/salary etc, and place male candidates anyway. But it sews the seed that the gender balance in industry is higher than it really is and creates these issues. They become more pronounced the bigger the employer because the reality gets lost in translation.

machinehermiter 5y ago

I would imagine statistically that having conversations about people's lives all day is more appealing to women than men in the ideal for the job. Once you are on the job though you quickly realize what a terrible job it is and after a time leverage it into something else. Black women in the US are what about 7% of the population? So most likely any random HR interview is with a younger white woman.

names_are_hard 5y ago
> I would imagine statistically that having conversations about people's lives all day is more appealing to women than men in the ideal for the job. Well, a similar line of reasoning is sometimes used to explain why there are more men in coding roles than women and it's widely criticized as inadequate at best.

908B64B197 5y ago

> How did HR get so much power? Non-technical leadership expects them to be in charge of hiring. If HR has the final say in hiring for technical position, your company has serious issues and I wouldn't hold onto it's stock.

xyzzy21 5y ago

At least in the US, this is NOT LEGAL and amounts to violations of law. HR in any companies does not get a pass on that. It is, however, a clear sign that your engineering-based company is NOT long for this world. Time to find a new employer.