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So if I'm hiring someone at what point am I allowed to use my own personal discretion? Am I allowed to dislike someone? Am I allowed to say I don't like them so

So if I'm hiring someone at what point am I allowed to use my own personal discretion? Am I allowed to dislike someone? Am I allowed to say I don't like them so please don't hire them?

nineplay 5y ago
Why don't you like them _and_ which of those reasons will affect their job performance? Do they dismiss any approaches besides their own? Do they think mentoring is a waste of time? Do they think that their code is so obvious that there's no point in documenting? Do they think their code is so perfect that unit tests are unnecessary? These are good reasons to dislike someone and not hire them. Do you dislike them because they seem kind of boring? Get over yourself.
- cronix 5y ago
  They made Steve Jobs work the graveyard shift at Atari because he stunk so bad (he'd go weeks without showering) no one wanted to work with him. That had nothing to do with his skills or job performance, but everything to do with disrupting the work environment to the point where others couldn't perform to the best of their ability.
- AOsborn 5y ago
  > Why don't you like them _and_ which of those reasons will affect their job performance? > Do they dismiss any approaches besides their own? Do they think mentoring is a waste of time? Do they think that their code is so obvious that there's no point in documenting? Do they think their code is so perfect that unit tests are unnecessary? These are good reasons to dislike someone and not hire them. > Do you dislike them because they seem kind of boring? Get over yourself. This is an interesting discussion that brings a lot of vitriolic comments. A counterpoint that you seem to be dismissing: building a successful team often requires a good cultural and team fit. Hiring just on 'merit' alone doesn't guarantee success. Consider the example of hiring a 'superstar' that the other team members do not like which would consequently impact the performance of the team as a whole because they don't work optimally. For the manager in charge of the team, culture fit is an important factor alongside others.
  - nineplay 5y ago
    You bring up the really interesting question - is discrimination justified? If it makes the team better, if it makes the product better, if it makes the company better, then maybe the right thing to do is hire the fun white guy instead of the boring brown girl. If people believe that, then I'll only ask that they acknowledge it. Next time someone talks about gender disparity or race disparity, stand up and say "Yep, hiring isn't fair, the disparity isn't related to innate skills" It would be a relief, frankly, if every one would just say that and agree on it. The problem is usually that when issues of race and gender disparity come up, a lot of posters then insist that hiring is perfectly fair and balanced and it must be the 'culture' of some races or the 'brain chemistry' of some genders that is the real problem.
    - dougmwne 5y ago
      I think there is a much more valid reason if people were being absolutely honest. Powerful and privileged people have spent generations spilling blood and other less violent measures to get on top and stay on top. Being on top only happens through threat of force and excercise of power. The people at the bottom will replace the people at the top if presented with the opportunity. Even if most people are content to live in equality, some will seek advantage and pull up their group. Otherwise kind and cooperative people rarely have any interest in lowering their status. Identity politics seek to treat symptoms but don't touch the root cause. The root cause is probably in our DNA and no social technology has yet proven able to tame the will to power. And just to make it clear, I don't believe any group has any natural advantage over another, just historical and geopolitical advantage.
      - nineplay 5y ago
        You make very good points - sometimes the best discussions are well down in the comments. Currently, while men hold the majority of the economic and political power in the US. From a purely Machiavellian viewpoint, why should they hire anyone besides other white men? They only stand to lose if business and politics become more egalitarian. What's changed in the past century or so is that it can no longer appear blatant - "we're better because we say so" isn't cutting it anymore. Still - maybe given a chance a lot of them will find a way to hire each other. "Team culture" is as good an excuse as any.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > Do you dislike them because they seem kind of boring? Get over yourself. Why’d I care about that? I only need them to write great code 8 hours a day. What they do outside of that is (mostly) irrelevant.
dougmwne 5y ago
No. You better be able to articulate what job-relevant reason is behind your dislike and be able to express it in those terms. If you go with your gut feel alone, you could be easily selecting for physical attractiveness, extroversion, a nice smile or some of the many less acceptable biases. Maybe you have perfectly diverse personal discretion, but most people choose copies of themselves or attractive members of the opposite sex.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > You better be able to articulate what job-relevant reason is behind your dislike I have to work with them? If they have a shitty personality that’s going to be hard. I’d much rather select for unconscious biases than hire terrible people just to satisfy some people’s idea of what is politically correct.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Being a poor communicator and bad team contributor is a thing you can pretty easily articulate without falling back on "doesn't fit the culture".
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    If you can't do better than "shitty personality," I guarantee I wouldn't hire you. On the other hand, "Unwilling to respect colleagues they wouldn't personally be friends with" is a valid reason to make a no-hire decision.
    - the_doctah 5y ago
      >On the other hand, "Unwilling to respect colleagues they wouldn't personally be friends with" is a valid reason to make a no-hire decision. And how would you come to that conclusion during an interview?
      - dougmwne 5y ago
        "Can you tell me about a time you didn't get along with a colleague and how you worked through that situation?" One of my go-to questions and often illuminating. A good answer I have heard somewhat often ends with, "Stupid Jerk was never my friend, but we figured out how to work together and produce value anyway."
cletus 5y ago
A lot of behaviour is obvious in aggregate but hard to identify in particular cases. If you make a job posting, get 5 applicants, interview 3 of them and hire 1 it's hard to point a finger and say you did (or didn't) do anything wrong. But let's say over the course of a year you receive 10,000 applications for various positions and 15% of those are African American. Now say that 10% of applicants get to the interview stage but none of the African American applicants made it to the interview stage then, in the very least, that looks bad. You would need to justify why that's the case. Discrimination can be subtle. A lot of people who are discriminatory but don't think they are. In the US, for example, you have what are called "second syllable names". These are names that are traditionally AFrican American (eg Lakisha). I vaguely recall reading a study where someone took a bunch of resumes for assistant positions and for a bunch with "first syllable names" they replaced just the name with "second syllable names" and there was a statistically significant decrease in response rate. So your personal discretion doesn't extend to unlawful hiring and firing practices.
- nineplay 5y ago
  I remember the study about "second syllable names" and I remember a lot of people justifying it. "A good candidate would use a 'professional' sounding name".
  - munk-a 5y ago
    And I'm sure none of those people justifying it in such a manner would similarly reject candidates that used a false name on their first pass for "acting in a dishonest manner". It's sort of a damned if you do damned if you don't situation unless you're cool going by Steve for the next few years.
- CobaltFire 5y ago
  Sidestepping the parent (and the mention of the studies; I have heard of but not read them) to ask you a question: Where did you find/learn the term "second syllable name" and "first syllable name"? I tried looking it up and struck out (aside from some requests for baby names like that), though it's quite descriptive and makes perfect sense. It did lead me to the wikipedia article [0] about African-American names, which enlightened me a bit on the origins of some of those. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_names

So if I'm hiring someone at what point am I allowed to use my own personal discretion? Am I allowed to dislike someone? Am I allowed to say I don't like them so please don't hire them?

nineplay 5y ago

Why don't you like them _and_ which of those reasons will affect their job performance? Do they dismiss any approaches besides their own? Do they think mentoring is a waste of time? Do they think that their code is so obvious that there's no point in documenting? Do they think their code is so perfect that unit tests are unnecessary? These are good reasons to dislike someone and not hire them. Do you dislike them because they seem kind of boring? Get over yourself.

cronix 5y ago
They made Steve Jobs work the graveyard shift at Atari because he stunk so bad (he'd go weeks without showering) no one wanted to work with him. That had nothing to do with his skills or job performance, but everything to do with disrupting the work environment to the point where others couldn't perform to the best of their ability.
AOsborn 5y ago
> Why don't you like them _and_ which of those reasons will affect their job performance? > Do they dismiss any approaches besides their own? Do they think mentoring is a waste of time? Do they think that their code is so obvious that there's no point in documenting? Do they think their code is so perfect that unit tests are unnecessary? These are good reasons to dislike someone and not hire them. > Do you dislike them because they seem kind of boring? Get over yourself. This is an interesting discussion that brings a lot of vitriolic comments. A counterpoint that you seem to be dismissing: building a successful team often requires a good cultural and team fit. Hiring just on 'merit' alone doesn't guarantee success. Consider the example of hiring a 'superstar' that the other team members do not like which would consequently impact the performance of the team as a whole because they don't work optimally. For the manager in charge of the team, culture fit is an important factor alongside others.
- nineplay 5y ago
  You bring up the really interesting question - is discrimination justified? If it makes the team better, if it makes the product better, if it makes the company better, then maybe the right thing to do is hire the fun white guy instead of the boring brown girl. If people believe that, then I'll only ask that they acknowledge it. Next time someone talks about gender disparity or race disparity, stand up and say "Yep, hiring isn't fair, the disparity isn't related to innate skills" It would be a relief, frankly, if every one would just say that and agree on it. The problem is usually that when issues of race and gender disparity come up, a lot of posters then insist that hiring is perfectly fair and balanced and it must be the 'culture' of some races or the 'brain chemistry' of some genders that is the real problem.
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    I think there is a much more valid reason if people were being absolutely honest. Powerful and privileged people have spent generations spilling blood and other less violent measures to get on top and stay on top. Being on top only happens through threat of force and excercise of power. The people at the bottom will replace the people at the top if presented with the opportunity. Even if most people are content to live in equality, some will seek advantage and pull up their group. Otherwise kind and cooperative people rarely have any interest in lowering their status. Identity politics seek to treat symptoms but don't touch the root cause. The root cause is probably in our DNA and no social technology has yet proven able to tame the will to power. And just to make it clear, I don't believe any group has any natural advantage over another, just historical and geopolitical advantage.
    - nineplay 5y ago
      You make very good points - sometimes the best discussions are well down in the comments. Currently, while men hold the majority of the economic and political power in the US. From a purely Machiavellian viewpoint, why should they hire anyone besides other white men? They only stand to lose if business and politics become more egalitarian. What's changed in the past century or so is that it can no longer appear blatant - "we're better because we say so" isn't cutting it anymore. Still - maybe given a chance a lot of them will find a way to hire each other. "Team culture" is as good an excuse as any.
Aeolun 5y ago
> Do you dislike them because they seem kind of boring? Get over yourself. Why’d I care about that? I only need them to write great code 8 hours a day. What they do outside of that is (mostly) irrelevant.

dougmwne 5y ago

No. You better be able to articulate what job-relevant reason is behind your dislike and be able to express it in those terms. If you go with your gut feel alone, you could be easily selecting for physical attractiveness, extroversion, a nice smile or some of the many less acceptable biases. Maybe you have perfectly diverse personal discretion, but most people choose copies of themselves or attractive members of the opposite sex.

Aeolun 5y ago
> You better be able to articulate what job-relevant reason is behind your dislike I have to work with them? If they have a shitty personality that’s going to be hard. I’d much rather select for unconscious biases than hire terrible people just to satisfy some people’s idea of what is politically correct.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Being a poor communicator and bad team contributor is a thing you can pretty easily articulate without falling back on "doesn't fit the culture".
- dougmwne 5y ago
  If you can't do better than "shitty personality," I guarantee I wouldn't hire you. On the other hand, "Unwilling to respect colleagues they wouldn't personally be friends with" is a valid reason to make a no-hire decision.
  - the_doctah 5y ago
    >On the other hand, "Unwilling to respect colleagues they wouldn't personally be friends with" is a valid reason to make a no-hire decision. And how would you come to that conclusion during an interview?
    - dougmwne 5y ago
      "Can you tell me about a time you didn't get along with a colleague and how you worked through that situation?" One of my go-to questions and often illuminating. A good answer I have heard somewhat often ends with, "Stupid Jerk was never my friend, but we figured out how to work together and produce value anyway."

cletus 5y ago

A lot of behaviour is obvious in aggregate but hard to identify in particular cases. If you make a job posting, get 5 applicants, interview 3 of them and hire 1 it's hard to point a finger and say you did (or didn't) do anything wrong. But let's say over the course of a year you receive 10,000 applications for various positions and 15% of those are African American. Now say that 10% of applicants get to the interview stage but none of the African American applicants made it to the interview stage then, in the very least, that looks bad. You would need to justify why that's the case. Discrimination can be subtle. A lot of people who are discriminatory but don't think they are. In the US, for example, you have what are called "second syllable names". These are names that are traditionally AFrican American (eg Lakisha). I vaguely recall reading a study where someone took a bunch of resumes for assistant positions and for a bunch with "first syllable names" they replaced just the name with "second syllable names" and there was a statistically significant decrease in response rate. So your personal discretion doesn't extend to unlawful hiring and firing practices.

nineplay 5y ago
I remember the study about "second syllable names" and I remember a lot of people justifying it. "A good candidate would use a 'professional' sounding name".
- munk-a 5y ago
  And I'm sure none of those people justifying it in such a manner would similarly reject candidates that used a false name on their first pass for "acting in a dishonest manner". It's sort of a damned if you do damned if you don't situation unless you're cool going by Steve for the next few years.
CobaltFire 5y ago
Sidestepping the parent (and the mention of the studies; I have heard of but not read them) to ask you a question: Where did you find/learn the term "second syllable name" and "first syllable name"? I tried looking it up and struck out (aside from some requests for baby names like that), though it's quite descriptive and makes perfect sense. It did lead me to the wikipedia article [0] about African-American names, which enlightened me a bit on the origins of some of those. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_names