12 ms·

We have quotas we need to fill. Hiring a white male is basically a nonstarter without prostrating yourself before HR

skinkestek 5y ago
We happily take anyone qualified and I get my bonus. But as mentioned, percentage of female employees is a KPI and it makes my boss looks good and it makes the CEO happy in all hands meetings.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  My properties ensure that I won't face quotas that would be a barrier for emplyoment (well maybe my gender, I'm male), so, I'm just curious, so what if there's one position to fill, the male candidate scores 60%, and the female one scores 58% (using my hypothetical ranking system which actually works and is fair, etc, etc), so just slightly lower. Would your company pick the female candidate in this case? I guess answering this question "the wrong way" would get a lot of butthurt people showing up to this thread, so feel free to not answer.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    People need to realize is actual support for diversity means internalizing there is a benefit. So if you actually believe there is a benefit to having a team of men and women (I do), then it's not "wrong" to let that guide you to the woman when any score above a 50% indicates someone who will be able to actually do the work.
    - angry_octet 5y ago
      You're pushing shit uphill with that argument on HN. A lot of these guys have never worked on a team with anything resembling gender balance, and they have an irrational fear of women.
  - everforward 5y ago
    Not OP, but I've seen some of this (though not terribly often). I don't think I've ever seen it come to a head and be explicitly about an attribute like that. I think that would make a lot of people uncomfortable. Usually what I see is faster movement through the recruiting pipeline. In your case, the woman scores 58% a week before the man takes the test. There's no overt pressure to just accept her score and move on. She's just here, qualified, and ready to save us from having to do more interviews haha. I don't have a poignant take on whether that's a good or bad thing. It definitely feels better than how I imagine having to pick between the two would, thought it still feels discriminatory. Then again, diversity in some sectors is low, so perhaps it makes sense for the hiring pipeline to give them some form of advantage, and this might be the least bad option. The whole thing is a mess of moral ambiguity.
- shultays 5y ago
  I am an engineer that involves in hiring (technical interviews, assignment reading (we have a home assignment for candidates)) and I have a couple experiences in which I felt like my decision was overruled. One was a female applicant. I was reading her assignment and felt like it was subpar and my decision was a thumbs down. Later we went forward with the application to the technical interviews because it was a female and we "really needed to hire one" (to be clear, I didn't even know it was a female until my decision is overruled. We don't receive CVs or names while reviewing home assignments) The other was a minority from a different country. My decision was thumbs down because the applicant basically lied in his CV about his past experience. HR overruled that by saying something like "...in his culture it is hard for people to admit their weaknesses..." and to top it off "we don't have anyone in our company from country X!" and he got hired. So yea, positive reinforcement means you are not really looking for qualification and most things can be ignored to fill some quotas. And you won't be getting that bonus when someone else refers a minority that gets hired.
  - shultays 5y ago
    And to add, when I was hired I was also "first employee from country Y". Still wondering if I was a diversity hire
  - jcun4128 5y ago
    It is crappy to think you got a job not because you deserved it/good at it but yeah... Well if you need the opportunity I guess that's nice. I have played the poverty card before regarding student loans.
- gladinovax 5y ago
  Disgusting. And you are okay with it.
tester34 5y ago
>Hiring a white male is basically a nonstarter without prostrating yourself before HR I struggle to believe what I'm reading. I'm just curious what people of future will think about this.
- itronitron 5y ago
  In most companies hiring anyone requires some form of prostration to HR, so a little extra work to hire a white male is not going to slow anyone down. A friend of mine works in a large organization in which the head passed down a rule that only women would be hired for positions 'unless' the only available qualified candidate happened to be male. Can you guess what happened? It hasn't increased the relative number of women hired but now everyone thinks the men are extra special.
  - tester34 5y ago
    The thing kinda is, that it's not only male/female thing, but race's also involved. Biases biases and biases. I think we should try to reach equal opportunity by providing access to edu, mentors maybe, an ability to prove themselves, not this kind of "discrimination".
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      Exactly, it sets anyone up to failure that would only slightly be under suspicion to have profited from these decisions. Not only by judgement from others, it also undermines the faith of the candidates themselves.
Draiken 5y ago
This reads to me as it's okay to discriminate as long as it's for the "right group". I honestly feel a bit sick about all this. Maybe it's the only way, but it doesn't feel like it is from my perspective.
- najqh 5y ago
  It's not the only way. They want you to think it is. Don't let them break you.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    ha that's a hoot. What a horrible injustice for an HR team to try and bring some diversity to a company that mostly hired white males. If white males weren't so busy looking for drinking buddies under the guise of a "culture fit" for the last 2 decades this wouldn't be a thing. Diversity stats for our industry are a boondoggle, most of the diversity is concentrated in a few large companies, and it takes the bare minimum of exposure to tech to realize this.
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      You are just a racist and sexist. The problem is you, not other people.
      - BoorishBears 5y ago
        I'm racist and sexist (against myself) for accurately pointing out the trend where a white male dominated industry normalized drinking in the office and how that affected their definition of "culture"? https://tech.co/news/tech-workplace-drinking-culture-2019-02 https://tech.co/news/tech-workplace-drinking-culture-2019-02 Or are you just insecure about your own biases.
        Zababa 5y ago
        I don't have an opinion on either side of this debate, but your link is based on a "survey with more than 1000 responders" that seems to be about the current state of things. It also doesn't talk about volume, just drinking as if every drinking is the same. I don't think it supports your claims.
BoorishBears 5y ago
This isn't something to claim without elaborating. You're saying your company won't hire white males without extenuating circumstances? I'd love to see the incredibly diverse teams there then... or is this a case of your company used to not hire non-whites and now they're trying to play catch up so they can beat a drum about DNI, meanwhile the culture that lead to a lack of diversity marches on internally?
- ecf 5y ago
  > I’d love to see the incredibly diverse teams there then… This is exactly the line of thinking that causes the aforementioned reluctance to hire yet another white male.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    What on earth are you talking about? You think the reason they're so desperate they're willing to gaslight minorities over their abilities (according to this anonymous unelaborated source) is because they have diverse teams? Did you just stop reading after the ellipses or what?
baoluofu 5y ago
Depending on what country you are in, this is illegal no? Not hiring someone based on their ethnicity who is otherwise qualified/the best candidate is racial discrimination, regardless of what that ethnicity is.
- speeder 5y ago
  In Brazil this is illegal, but when I saw this happening and told the government about it, I got an e-mail from a female judge, saying that hiring only women is fine because it "corrects the distortions", despite it being against the constitution... This is anecdote but I can say from personal experience that companies can get away with it.
  - somedude895 5y ago
    I was horrified to find this [0] written in law for my country: > Appropriate measures aimed at achieving true equality are not regarded as discriminatory. [0] https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1996/1498_1498_1498/en#art_3 https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1996/1498_1498_1498/en#ar...
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
That sucks to hear as a white male but I still put the responsibility on myself. I should be so good at my job that they don't care that I'm a white male.
- gopher_space 5y ago
  The context here is that applicants are overwhelmingly white and male. Most of the time it won't matter because you're the only category in the pool.
StanislavPetrov 5y ago
I have a white male friend who works in academia in NYC. They had a staff meeting at the college about hiring for open positions in several departments and were explicitly told that they were looking only for "diverse" candidates and that white men would not be considered.

We happily take anyone qualified and I get my bonus. But as mentioned, percentage of female employees is a KPI and it makes my boss looks good and it makes the CEO happy in all hands meetings.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
My properties ensure that I won't face quotas that would be a barrier for emplyoment (well maybe my gender, I'm male), so, I'm just curious, so what if there's one position to fill, the male candidate scores 60%, and the female one scores 58% (using my hypothetical ranking system which actually works and is fair, etc, etc), so just slightly lower. Would your company pick the female candidate in this case? I guess answering this question "the wrong way" would get a lot of butthurt people showing up to this thread, so feel free to not answer.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  People need to realize is actual support for diversity means internalizing there is a benefit. So if you actually believe there is a benefit to having a team of men and women (I do), then it's not "wrong" to let that guide you to the woman when any score above a 50% indicates someone who will be able to actually do the work.
  - angry_octet 5y ago
    You're pushing shit uphill with that argument on HN. A lot of these guys have never worked on a team with anything resembling gender balance, and they have an irrational fear of women.
- everforward 5y ago
  Not OP, but I've seen some of this (though not terribly often). I don't think I've ever seen it come to a head and be explicitly about an attribute like that. I think that would make a lot of people uncomfortable. Usually what I see is faster movement through the recruiting pipeline. In your case, the woman scores 58% a week before the man takes the test. There's no overt pressure to just accept her score and move on. She's just here, qualified, and ready to save us from having to do more interviews haha. I don't have a poignant take on whether that's a good or bad thing. It definitely feels better than how I imagine having to pick between the two would, thought it still feels discriminatory. Then again, diversity in some sectors is low, so perhaps it makes sense for the hiring pipeline to give them some form of advantage, and this might be the least bad option. The whole thing is a mess of moral ambiguity.
shultays 5y ago
I am an engineer that involves in hiring (technical interviews, assignment reading (we have a home assignment for candidates)) and I have a couple experiences in which I felt like my decision was overruled. One was a female applicant. I was reading her assignment and felt like it was subpar and my decision was a thumbs down. Later we went forward with the application to the technical interviews because it was a female and we "really needed to hire one" (to be clear, I didn't even know it was a female until my decision is overruled. We don't receive CVs or names while reviewing home assignments) The other was a minority from a different country. My decision was thumbs down because the applicant basically lied in his CV about his past experience. HR overruled that by saying something like "...in his culture it is hard for people to admit their weaknesses..." and to top it off "we don't have anyone in our company from country X!" and he got hired. So yea, positive reinforcement means you are not really looking for qualification and most things can be ignored to fill some quotas. And you won't be getting that bonus when someone else refers a minority that gets hired.
- shultays 5y ago
  And to add, when I was hired I was also "first employee from country Y". Still wondering if I was a diversity hire
- jcun4128 5y ago
  It is crappy to think you got a job not because you deserved it/good at it but yeah... Well if you need the opportunity I guess that's nice. I have played the poverty card before regarding student loans.
gladinovax 5y ago
Disgusting. And you are okay with it.

tester34 5y ago

>Hiring a white male is basically a nonstarter without prostrating yourself before HR I struggle to believe what I'm reading. I'm just curious what people of future will think about this.

itronitron 5y ago
In most companies hiring anyone requires some form of prostration to HR, so a little extra work to hire a white male is not going to slow anyone down. A friend of mine works in a large organization in which the head passed down a rule that only women would be hired for positions 'unless' the only available qualified candidate happened to be male. Can you guess what happened? It hasn't increased the relative number of women hired but now everyone thinks the men are extra special.
- tester34 5y ago
  The thing kinda is, that it's not only male/female thing, but race's also involved. Biases biases and biases. I think we should try to reach equal opportunity by providing access to edu, mentors maybe, an ability to prove themselves, not this kind of "discrimination".
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Exactly, it sets anyone up to failure that would only slightly be under suspicion to have profited from these decisions. Not only by judgement from others, it also undermines the faith of the candidates themselves.

Draiken 5y ago

This reads to me as it's okay to discriminate as long as it's for the "right group". I honestly feel a bit sick about all this. Maybe it's the only way, but it doesn't feel like it is from my perspective.

najqh 5y ago
It's not the only way. They want you to think it is. Don't let them break you.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  ha that's a hoot. What a horrible injustice for an HR team to try and bring some diversity to a company that mostly hired white males. If white males weren't so busy looking for drinking buddies under the guise of a "culture fit" for the last 2 decades this wouldn't be a thing. Diversity stats for our industry are a boondoggle, most of the diversity is concentrated in a few large companies, and it takes the bare minimum of exposure to tech to realize this.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    You are just a racist and sexist. The problem is you, not other people.
    - BoorishBears 5y ago
      I'm racist and sexist (against myself) for accurately pointing out the trend where a white male dominated industry normalized drinking in the office and how that affected their definition of "culture"? https://tech.co/news/tech-workplace-drinking-culture-2019-02 https://tech.co/news/tech-workplace-drinking-culture-2019-02 Or are you just insecure about your own biases.
      - Zababa 5y ago
        I don't have an opinion on either side of this debate, but your link is based on a "survey with more than 1000 responders" that seems to be about the current state of things. It also doesn't talk about volume, just drinking as if every drinking is the same. I don't think it supports your claims.

BoorishBears 5y ago

This isn't something to claim without elaborating. You're saying your company won't hire white males without extenuating circumstances? I'd love to see the incredibly diverse teams there then... or is this a case of your company used to not hire non-whites and now they're trying to play catch up so they can beat a drum about DNI, meanwhile the culture that lead to a lack of diversity marches on internally?

ecf 5y ago
> I’d love to see the incredibly diverse teams there then… This is exactly the line of thinking that causes the aforementioned reluctance to hire yet another white male.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  What on earth are you talking about? You think the reason they're so desperate they're willing to gaslight minorities over their abilities (according to this anonymous unelaborated source) is because they have diverse teams? Did you just stop reading after the ellipses or what?

baoluofu 5y ago

Depending on what country you are in, this is illegal no? Not hiring someone based on their ethnicity who is otherwise qualified/the best candidate is racial discrimination, regardless of what that ethnicity is.

speeder 5y ago
In Brazil this is illegal, but when I saw this happening and told the government about it, I got an e-mail from a female judge, saying that hiring only women is fine because it "corrects the distortions", despite it being against the constitution... This is anecdote but I can say from personal experience that companies can get away with it.
- somedude895 5y ago
  I was horrified to find this [0] written in law for my country: > Appropriate measures aimed at achieving true equality are not regarded as discriminatory. [0] https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1996/1498_1498_1498/en#art_3 https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1996/1498_1498_1498/en#ar...

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

That sucks to hear as a white male but I still put the responsibility on myself. I should be so good at my job that they don't care that I'm a white male.

gopher_space 5y ago
The context here is that applicants are overwhelmingly white and male. Most of the time it won't matter because you're the only category in the pool.

StanislavPetrov 5y ago

I have a white male friend who works in academia in NYC. They had a staff meeting at the college about hiring for open positions in several departments and were explicitly told that they were looking only for "diverse" candidates and that white men would not be considered.