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Ah, but if someone doesn't have the secret sauce, are you then suggesting that person is doomed? Industry sanctioned nepotism doesn't feel like a good look for

Ah, but if someone doesn't have the secret sauce, are you then suggesting that person is doomed? Industry sanctioned nepotism doesn't feel like a good look for the SWE industry, especially given our diversity problems.

CoastalCoder 5y ago
I think the popular definition of "nepotism" is hiring one's family or close relations. I doubt anyone is advocating that.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  Closeness isn't a requisite for nepotistic behavior, only undue bias due to personal familiarity. I don't think it's any less bad to hire someone you don't know all that well because you share friends than it is to hire people because they're you're close friend or a family member. The point is that it's exclusionary to outsiders, and outsiders tend to be the exact people tech needs more of.
  - vanusa 5y ago
    Closeness isn't a requisite for nepotistic behavior, only undue bias due to personal familiarity. Actually it is; it's how the term is defined.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      Actually it is not; this is how the term is defined: > nep·o·tism - /ˈnepəˌtizəm/ - noun - the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs. [0] > Nepotism is a form of favoritism which is granted to relatives and friends in various fields, including business, politics, entertainment, sports, fitness, religion, and other activities. [1] [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Anepotism https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Anepotism [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepotism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepotism
      - vanusa 5y ago
        The practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, That's precisely the point - "close" relations. When we talk about business referrals, it by no means implied that the person being referred is a "friend" in the usual sense of the term (let alone relative). Usually it's just someone you vaguely know (by their work, and/or a chance encounter at a meetup or conference), but don't know too well personally. And just because they come in via a referral does not mean, ipso facto, that "favoritism" is happening and all objectivity is thrown out the window in the evaluation process.
        TameAntelope 5y ago
        We may be violently agreeing here; what is bad is the idea that someone can get a job because they know someone else, over a more qualified candidate who doesn't know that person already. We agree this is bad, yes? Our industry is uniquely, as in above-replacement-industry, plagued by a diversity problem, and I'm asserting the practice among those in power of favoring relatives, friends, or even friends of friends over other, more qualified candidates is a contributing factor to that diversity problem. It is not guaranteed that this always happens, but I am asserting it often is (as evinced by the "lack of interview" or "going by reputation only" as reputation is rife with bias), and that is a bad thing.
        vanusa 5y ago
        We may be violently agreeing here; Violence is completely counter to my way of being - so No. What is bad is the idea that someone can get a job because they know someone else, over a more qualified candidate who doesn't know that person already. We agree this is bad, yes? We keep going in circles - with this idea that person that someone in the company already "knows" (or who came in via a referral anyway) gets the job at the expense not just of a comparably qualified (but not known to the company) candidate, a hypothetical more qualified candidate. You just keep assuming that this what happens when companies act on referrals (and implicitly, that it happens a lot). That's now that I see happening, when referrals are made. But if it's what you want to believe, then it's what you want to believe - and there probably isn't anything I'll be able to say to dissuade you from this belief.
    - vintermann 5y ago
      I once had a former team leader tell me that "I warn you, I practice nepotism", and she did not refer to familiar relations, she just meant that she favored people she knew and liked when looking for people (it included me, I guess, since she "got me in" at a consultancy when I was looking for a job). So at least some people use the word that way.
  - l33t2328 5y ago
    Personal familiarity is a great tool though. If a hiring manager knows someone, the kind of worker and individual they are, they are in a great position to know if they should hire them.
  - andrewf 5y ago
    Family is nepotism, friends are cronyism.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      Cronyism is more in politics, nepotism is more in business.
  - CoastalCoder 5y ago
    I was just trying to state the popular (AFAIK) definition of nepotism.
vanusa 5y ago
It's not nepotism. That isn't even what "nepotism" means. People have always gone through their in-network to seek advice and find others to work with, since the beginning of time. It's how nearly anything really great or interesting gets done, actually.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  I don't think, "It's always been done this way." is as good of an argument as you think it is, especially considering the discrimination that takes place when you hire referrals over searching for the most qualified candidates. Maybe we should shoot for doing better than how it's been done in the past? I think we can as an industry do a lot better than where we are currently.
  - kritiko 5y ago
    Hiring for "culture fit" is problematic. Hiring known commodities is not. I'm interested in hearing how you think the search for the most qualified candidates can be improved. Interviewing is, necessarily, a messy process and full of uncertainty.
  - colmvp 5y ago
    A person who is referred (especially in SWE) doesn't automatically mean they'll get the job, they'll still have to pass checks from members who may have never even interacted with the referrer. The advantage lies in the fact that it means their resume/cover gets reviewed while the 200th applicant doesn't. The reality is companies get tons of applicants and on paper most of them might be qualified.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      When you have multiple people on this very thread saying they've hired or been hired as referrals without any interview at all, it's hard to say with a straight face that these people still had to pass any quality check whatsoever.
bboozzoo 5y ago
> Industry sanctioned nepotism doesn't feel like a good look for the SWE industry Is it nepotism though? Your friends are not your family. Unless I'm missing some fine details of what nepotism means as a non native English speaker. Besides, if you are a reliable employee, I doubt any reasonable company would miss out on an opportunity to consider a strong referral. Regardless of industry.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Your friends, family and people you don't like but do a favour for are all examples of nepotism because they got the job through a non professional relationship. Referrals are welcome. Filling the managers roles with these type of relationships makes the workers below feel they have no opportunity at those top jobs.
stronglikedan 5y ago
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    You make it seem like straight white men conspired to take over the industry and box everyone else out. Last few teams I have been on were very skin diverse. They all had privileged cushy backgrounds though...except for one of the white men who was self-made. The power base in the US is white middle class. It's not just software that is dominated by white men. Law, medicine, construction, management at corporations. Not just white men. Privileged white men and the few "diverse" people mostly come from a level of privilege that would make my white lucky ass sick to my stomach. Nice comment.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      Thanks, I appreciate it. It's not very important, when you focus on outcome, whether or not a group of people conspired to create that outcome, or if that outcome was simply a consequence of other factors. The impact here is that straight white men over-represent the software industry as a whole, and there are things we can do to fix or improve that. It's a super bad idea to hire anyone who is not qualified for a position, but I'm not going to pretend there's any kind of even remotely objective or precise way of determining who maximally fits into that position. Instead, it seems optimal to acknowledge that there will always be more qualified candidates than there are open positions, and once you've found each qualified candidate, selecting the candidate that brings the largest difference in perspective (regardless of representation group) will be the best candidate. Given the saturation of straight white men in the SWE field, the odds that another straight white male will give the largest new perspective is not super high (though it is not zero). The "action" here, if we need to walk away with one "thing" to do, is to saturate your pipeline with candidates from very diverse backgrounds, and then select the best candidate. It's a bullshit move to say, "only straight white men applied" if you did no work at all to reach out to other communities explicitly.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

CoastalCoder 5y ago

I think the popular definition of "nepotism" is hiring one's family or close relations. I doubt anyone is advocating that.

TameAntelope 5y ago
Closeness isn't a requisite for nepotistic behavior, only undue bias due to personal familiarity. I don't think it's any less bad to hire someone you don't know all that well because you share friends than it is to hire people because they're you're close friend or a family member. The point is that it's exclusionary to outsiders, and outsiders tend to be the exact people tech needs more of.
- vanusa 5y ago
  Closeness isn't a requisite for nepotistic behavior, only undue bias due to personal familiarity. Actually it is; it's how the term is defined.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    Actually it is not; this is how the term is defined: > nep·o·tism - /ˈnepəˌtizəm/ - noun - the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs. [0] > Nepotism is a form of favoritism which is granted to relatives and friends in various fields, including business, politics, entertainment, sports, fitness, religion, and other activities. [1] [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Anepotism https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Anepotism [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepotism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepotism
    - vanusa 5y ago
      The practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, That's precisely the point - "close" relations. When we talk about business referrals, it by no means implied that the person being referred is a "friend" in the usual sense of the term (let alone relative). Usually it's just someone you vaguely know (by their work, and/or a chance encounter at a meetup or conference), but don't know too well personally. And just because they come in via a referral does not mean, ipso facto, that "favoritism" is happening and all objectivity is thrown out the window in the evaluation process.
      - TameAntelope 5y ago
        We may be violently agreeing here; what is bad is the idea that someone can get a job because they know someone else, over a more qualified candidate who doesn't know that person already. We agree this is bad, yes? Our industry is uniquely, as in above-replacement-industry, plagued by a diversity problem, and I'm asserting the practice among those in power of favoring relatives, friends, or even friends of friends over other, more qualified candidates is a contributing factor to that diversity problem. It is not guaranteed that this always happens, but I am asserting it often is (as evinced by the "lack of interview" or "going by reputation only" as reputation is rife with bias), and that is a bad thing.
        vanusa 5y ago
        We may be violently agreeing here; Violence is completely counter to my way of being - so No. What is bad is the idea that someone can get a job because they know someone else, over a more qualified candidate who doesn't know that person already. We agree this is bad, yes? We keep going in circles - with this idea that person that someone in the company already "knows" (or who came in via a referral anyway) gets the job at the expense not just of a comparably qualified (but not known to the company) candidate, a hypothetical more qualified candidate. You just keep assuming that this what happens when companies act on referrals (and implicitly, that it happens a lot). That's now that I see happening, when referrals are made. But if it's what you want to believe, then it's what you want to believe - and there probably isn't anything I'll be able to say to dissuade you from this belief.
  - vintermann 5y ago
    I once had a former team leader tell me that "I warn you, I practice nepotism", and she did not refer to familiar relations, she just meant that she favored people she knew and liked when looking for people (it included me, I guess, since she "got me in" at a consultancy when I was looking for a job). So at least some people use the word that way.
- l33t2328 5y ago
  Personal familiarity is a great tool though. If a hiring manager knows someone, the kind of worker and individual they are, they are in a great position to know if they should hire them.
- andrewf 5y ago
  Family is nepotism, friends are cronyism.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    Cronyism is more in politics, nepotism is more in business.
- CoastalCoder 5y ago
  I was just trying to state the popular (AFAIK) definition of nepotism.

vanusa 5y ago

It's not nepotism. That isn't even what "nepotism" means. People have always gone through their in-network to seek advice and find others to work with, since the beginning of time. It's how nearly anything really great or interesting gets done, actually.

TameAntelope 5y ago
I don't think, "It's always been done this way." is as good of an argument as you think it is, especially considering the discrimination that takes place when you hire referrals over searching for the most qualified candidates. Maybe we should shoot for doing better than how it's been done in the past? I think we can as an industry do a lot better than where we are currently.
- kritiko 5y ago
  Hiring for "culture fit" is problematic. Hiring known commodities is not. I'm interested in hearing how you think the search for the most qualified candidates can be improved. Interviewing is, necessarily, a messy process and full of uncertainty.
- colmvp 5y ago
  A person who is referred (especially in SWE) doesn't automatically mean they'll get the job, they'll still have to pass checks from members who may have never even interacted with the referrer. The advantage lies in the fact that it means their resume/cover gets reviewed while the 200th applicant doesn't. The reality is companies get tons of applicants and on paper most of them might be qualified.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    When you have multiple people on this very thread saying they've hired or been hired as referrals without any interview at all, it's hard to say with a straight face that these people still had to pass any quality check whatsoever.

bboozzoo 5y ago

> Industry sanctioned nepotism doesn't feel like a good look for the SWE industry Is it nepotism though? Your friends are not your family. Unless I'm missing some fine details of what nepotism means as a non native English speaker. Besides, if you are a reliable employee, I doubt any reasonable company would miss out on an opportunity to consider a strong referral. Regardless of industry.

ipaddr 5y ago
Your friends, family and people you don't like but do a favour for are all examples of nepotism because they got the job through a non professional relationship. Referrals are welcome. Filling the managers roles with these type of relationships makes the workers below feel they have no opportunity at those top jobs.

stronglikedan 5y ago

TameAntelope 5y ago
- datavirtue 5y ago
  You make it seem like straight white men conspired to take over the industry and box everyone else out. Last few teams I have been on were very skin diverse. They all had privileged cushy backgrounds though...except for one of the white men who was self-made. The power base in the US is white middle class. It's not just software that is dominated by white men. Law, medicine, construction, management at corporations. Not just white men. Privileged white men and the few "diverse" people mostly come from a level of privilege that would make my white lucky ass sick to my stomach. Nice comment.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    Thanks, I appreciate it. It's not very important, when you focus on outcome, whether or not a group of people conspired to create that outcome, or if that outcome was simply a consequence of other factors. The impact here is that straight white men over-represent the software industry as a whole, and there are things we can do to fix or improve that. It's a super bad idea to hire anyone who is not qualified for a position, but I'm not going to pretend there's any kind of even remotely objective or precise way of determining who maximally fits into that position. Instead, it seems optimal to acknowledge that there will always be more qualified candidates than there are open positions, and once you've found each qualified candidate, selecting the candidate that brings the largest difference in perspective (regardless of representation group) will be the best candidate. Given the saturation of straight white men in the SWE field, the odds that another straight white male will give the largest new perspective is not super high (though it is not zero). The "action" here, if we need to walk away with one "thing" to do, is to saturate your pipeline with candidates from very diverse backgrounds, and then select the best candidate. It's a bullshit move to say, "only straight white men applied" if you did no work at all to reach out to other communities explicitly.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]