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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 outc

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.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
The reality at all the companies I've worked for is that you are handed resumes, one or two at a time, from HR or a recruiting partner. You interview those 1 or 2 until you find a good/great candidate. Then you stop interviewing, make an offer, and wait for reply. You don't interview 50 people then choose the best and most diverse candidate. Your "action" doesn't fit with the reality I've experienced.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  Did you know you can actually talk to the people who are handing you those resumes? You can a) ask for more resumes at a time and/or b) suggest they look at certain pools of candidates.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    Not true.
labcomputer 5y ago
> Instead, it seems optimal to acknowledge that there will always be more qualified candidates than there are open positions This is a wrong assumption, in my experience. As a rule of thumb, for not-principal/staff SWE roles, I would estimate that it takes: 1. 10+ resumes to find someone worth phone-screening 2. 10ish phone screens screens to find someone worth an in-person interview 3. 3ish in-persons to find someone worth an offer. In other words, a hiring manager has to look at 300+ resumes to find one qualified candidate. So... imagine you get a reference from someone you trust. You go from 1 in 300 odds of finding someone who is basically qualified to 1 in 3. This is after recruiters have pre-screened the resumes, btw. The candidate pool for Step #1 excludes all the people who apply to a senior SWE role with no Github portfolio, no relevant claimed skills, no degree and no work experience other than Burger King. I'm curious to hear other people's experience, but I've literally never been in the position of "Do we hire candidate A or candidate B for this tech role?" It's always "Do we think A is good enough, or should we keep looking?" > 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. Sure, defining who is "optimal" is challenging but that's a cop-out. The situation is usually: Person A can't finish FizzBuzz (literally FizzBuzz) in 45 minutes in any language in coderpad, while Person B can do FizzBuzz, some easy recursion problem and maybe some kind of stats brain teaser. There is no world in which both of those candidates are "approximately the same".
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  You really have to talk to the people in charge of your hiring pipelines if it takes 300 resumes to find one qualified candidate... Every single position I've ever hired for has had multiple people make it all the way through, often more like 3-5.
  - labcomputer 5y ago
    I thought you wanted companies to cast a broader net. Now you're saying that it's too broad? > Every single position I've ever hired for has had multiple people make it all the way through, often more like 3-5. Do you hire for tech roles? Software engineers, data scientists, analysts and the like? Also, having 3-5 people make it through your process isn't meaningful. You can always find n people make it all the way through if you wait long enough. The problem just that the (n-1)-th person will generally take another offer by the time you find the n-th person. Like I said, I have never been in the position of having two qualified candidates at the same time for one role and having to pick which one I like better. My experience, by the way, seems to match that of everyone I'd discussed this with in real life.
tomp 5y ago
Why would you assume that two straight white men agree more (in their perspective on things) then e.g. with a gay black woman? The world of ideas is so high-dimensional that sex & race impact very few of these dimensions. Most straight white men are not the same.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

The reality at all the companies I've worked for is that you are handed resumes, one or two at a time, from HR or a recruiting partner. You interview those 1 or 2 until you find a good/great candidate. Then you stop interviewing, make an offer, and wait for reply. You don't interview 50 people then choose the best and most diverse candidate. Your "action" doesn't fit with the reality I've experienced.

TameAntelope 5y ago
Did you know you can actually talk to the people who are handing you those resumes? You can a) ask for more resumes at a time and/or b) suggest they look at certain pools of candidates.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Not true.

labcomputer 5y ago

> Instead, it seems optimal to acknowledge that there will always be more qualified candidates than there are open positions This is a wrong assumption, in my experience. As a rule of thumb, for not-principal/staff SWE roles, I would estimate that it takes: 1. 10+ resumes to find someone worth phone-screening 2. 10ish phone screens screens to find someone worth an in-person interview 3. 3ish in-persons to find someone worth an offer. In other words, a hiring manager has to look at 300+ resumes to find one qualified candidate. So... imagine you get a reference from someone you trust. You go from 1 in 300 odds of finding someone who is basically qualified to 1 in 3. This is after recruiters have pre-screened the resumes, btw. The candidate pool for Step #1 excludes all the people who apply to a senior SWE role with no Github portfolio, no relevant claimed skills, no degree and no work experience other than Burger King. I'm curious to hear other people's experience, but I've literally never been in the position of "Do we hire candidate A or candidate B for this tech role?" It's always "Do we think A is good enough, or should we keep looking?" > 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. Sure, defining who is "optimal" is challenging but that's a cop-out. The situation is usually: Person A can't finish FizzBuzz (literally FizzBuzz) in 45 minutes in any language in coderpad, while Person B can do FizzBuzz, some easy recursion problem and maybe some kind of stats brain teaser. There is no world in which both of those candidates are "approximately the same".

TameAntelope 5y ago
You really have to talk to the people in charge of your hiring pipelines if it takes 300 resumes to find one qualified candidate... Every single position I've ever hired for has had multiple people make it all the way through, often more like 3-5.
- labcomputer 5y ago
  I thought you wanted companies to cast a broader net. Now you're saying that it's too broad? > Every single position I've ever hired for has had multiple people make it all the way through, often more like 3-5. Do you hire for tech roles? Software engineers, data scientists, analysts and the like? Also, having 3-5 people make it through your process isn't meaningful. You can always find n people make it all the way through if you wait long enough. The problem just that the (n-1)-th person will generally take another offer by the time you find the n-th person. Like I said, I have never been in the position of having two qualified candidates at the same time for one role and having to pick which one I like better. My experience, by the way, seems to match that of everyone I'd discussed this with in real life.

tomp 5y ago

Why would you assume that two straight white men agree more (in their perspective on things) then e.g. with a gay black woman? The world of ideas is so high-dimensional that sex & race impact very few of these dimensions. Most straight white men are not the same.