6 ms·

> While there is little you can do to hide your physical age, you might consider tweaks to your wardrobe or hairstyle to show that you are up to date on current

> While there is little you can do to hide your physical age, you might consider tweaks to your wardrobe or hairstyle to show that you are up to date on current styles and able to adapt. This might be good advice, but it’s absolutely terrible that it’s required. I’m really starting to think we should do voice only interviews, maybe even with voice changers (or maybe slack only interviews). Many orchestras switched to blind auditions, and it drastically increased the number of female musicians. https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impact-%E2%80%9Cblind%E2%80%9D-auditions-female-musicians https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impac...

rdl 5y ago
I try to do voice-only calls wherever possible, especially for hiring. (and text > voice!). Especially for initial screening; less annoying as the hiring manager, and also protects us somewhat from some discrimination claims (obviously only one element of that, and neither necessary nor sufficient on its own)
- sieabahlpark 5y ago
changoplatanero 5y ago
nowdays you have the new york times advocating to get rid of blind auditions because they don't produce enough diversity! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-audition...
- bumbledraven 5y ago
  https://archive.ph/b5f9s https://archive.ph/b5f9s To Make Orchestras More Diverse, End Blind Auditions If ensembles are to reflect the communities they serve, the audition process should take into account race, gender and other factors.
- jquery 5y ago
  Blind auditions only get rid of one aspect of discrimination. However, when the pipeline is starved because of too few role models in their communities due to historical prejudice, blind auditions become self-defeating and self-reinforcing. The top tier of musical talent is virtually identical in ability (equivalent to an Ivy League applicant pool being all straight-As), so maybe it's time to focus on other aspects like increasing diversity so that more kids have role models to look up to. Of course, you would know all this if you read the article instead of using it as some kind of "gotcha" that minorities aren't up to snuff musically.
  - bluescrn 5y ago
    There needs to be more focus on improving the inputs to the pipeline. But that could take generations, and people are looking for quick fixes right now.
  - photochemsyn 5y ago
    I think you're displaying an unconscious bias here by implying the 'top tier of musical talent is virtually identical in ability' and that this somehow excludes various groups from that pool. First, that claim is highly questionable, and second, you are implying that some groups are less talented than others based solely on their identity. This kind of bias is rather common, it's rather redolant of paternalistic attitudes towards 'naturally inferior groups' who need 'inclusive policies' because they just can't make the grade on their own. If you happen to be unfamiliar with this argument, I'd recommend this: https://tarahenley.substack.com/p/bad-news https://tarahenley.substack.com/p/bad-news
    - mlyle 5y ago
      I don't think that's quite what he said. I think he was saying that the top tier of current trained talent isn't equally diverse as the underlying population because of past biases in selection, and that making a blind selection from that pool likely perpetuates some of these biases. E.g. kids who grow up seeing symphonies that exclude people that look like them are less likely to pursue paths that lead toward them being in this pool. I'm not arguing in favor of affirmative action or a purposeful selection bias to fix this. It's a messy problem but it deserves thought and consideration.
bombcar 5y ago
This is the equivalent of saying “try looking sexy, women, maybe you’ll get hired.” It might work, it may be needed, but it’s embarrassing if so. The sad reality is that if you’re over 50 you need to be applying to positions that are “age appropriate” which usually implies management.
- JackFr 5y ago
  > This is the equivalent of saying “try looking sexy, women, maybe you’ll get hired.” That’s not really fair (and largely not true.) What it’s saying is that appearances matter - they’re an important non-verbal signaling channel, and to the extent to which one can control the way you present, you should, and secondly, dress for the job you want. For both men and women that does not mean dress like you’re going to a club. It is also an admission that even the best of us subconsciously treat attractive people as more competent. I’m old enough to have worked during an era when you wore a suit and a tie to an interview for any position. If I showed up for a senior role at a startup wearing a suit and tie I would be telling them from the get go that I’m either I’m out of touch with the culture of the org (not good) or I choose to differentiate myself (maybe I’m a lawyer or an accountant.) Finally, as an example in my case - I am over fifty and overweight, but I am tall. I know (from mirrors) that I look better standing than sitting, so when in person interviewing I try to be standing when people enter the room simply because I get the difference between “former football player” and “fat slob”. Does it bother me? Yes and no. Ultimately I need to be able to deliver the goods, it’s nice not to have to fight through preconceptions.
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    >even the best of us subconsciously treat attractive people as more competent. // People who clearly spend/spent a lot of time on their appearance suggests to me that they're trying to use some sort of "trick" to get ahead and that this probably means they're less competent than their peers. It's like charities that give you a pen, or small quantity of money (bear with me) ... Yes, I know that psychological trick and it strictly suggests to me that yours is a charity I should not donate to. The whole "dress for the job you want", for example, is really "use people's prejudices to trick them into unconsciously overestimating your competence". Sadly, marketing tricks (ie the hostile use of psychology) work on all of us, even sometimes when we know we're being tricked. Participating in that kind of thing is a red flag to me. The "former football player" vs "fat slob" part of your comment suggests you view [or are accommodating others that view] unrelated externalities as more important than intrinsic qualities related directly to the work. That's not uncommon, but it seems like something we need to mature beyond. >I’m out of touch with the culture of the org (not good) or I choose to differentiate myself // This seems really sad to me, like a person likes to wear a tie and that's so out there you'd consider you can't work with them? Like, what if they were actually different: came from a different place, spoke different languages, had different body parts? Especially if you're coding, what's it matter if you like to wear a formal thawb (Middle-eastern robe) and they wear Hawaiian shirts and board shorts? I'm not saying people won't judge you, just that it's wrong.
alar44 5y ago
Only in the tech sector do we think we should be able to show up with a T-shirt and greasy hair. Looks/hygiene/culture fit is important and there isn't a single field where it isn't. If you can be bothered to try to fit in a little bit, it goes a long way. Otherwise, feel free to be unemployed and bitch about it in your basement while the world moves on.
- mtrower 5y ago
  ??? Showing up not looking like this, can also cause you to not get hired. Discrimination on non-performance factors is real on all sides of the fence. Anyway this isn’t the point; the point was that it’s sad you need to hide your age using clothing.
  - alar44 5y ago
    It not hiding your age. It's showing that you are still in touch with new things and able to go with the flow. It's not even that hard. If you're 55, just don't show up with a baggy suit and fat tie you bought in the 80s. This is good advice for anyone - know how to dress for an interview.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  T-shirt and greasy hair are as much a uniform and a declaration of tribal orientation as a business suit is. Clothes are always a uniform and a social signal, whether or not they're formally labelled as such. It's also one of the covert reasons age is an issue. It's not about competence, it's about the fact that it's very difficult to have equal relationships with people who are the same age as your parents or kids. An age gap that wide goes with a generation gap in expected behaviours, cultural references, implied ethics - and more, including default problem solving habits. It would be good if this wasn't true, but it's hard to see how it can be avoided. It would take extremely unusual maturity and self-awareness not to be influenced by it in either direction. It's not that it can't be made to work, but I don't think it can be made to work easily. It's an extra level of friction, which is why it's an unpopular option when hiring teams. TBH I suspect that anyone over - say - 40 is probably best off hiring themselves out as a consultant rather than trying to find work as a full-timer on a relatively young team. Consultancy isn't just professionally distinct, it creates a different social dynamic which seems to be easier for everyone.
bluescrn 5y ago
As an obese person, a big advantage of the Zoom/WFH era is that people usually just see your head and shoulders, so won't judge you on the size of your belly (or the clothes that never fit us fatties well)
- ohyoutravel 5y ago
  This is true.
  - keats102 5y ago
    You sound like a lovely person. There are other factors in obesity other than personal choice. Judging a person solely by their weight and not their abilities is so short-sighted. What if you hire someone who looks great and spends all of their time at the gym, and are as dumb as dirt.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
kaycebasques 5y ago
Back when I was a hiring manager I also asked my recruiters to obscure the name of the candidate. E.g. always referring to them by their initials and blacking out their name on their resume. I was thinking about the experiment [1] where researchers found that the whiteness of your name affected how likely companies were to follow-up to your job application. +1 to the general idea that the interview process should remove as much unconscious bias as possible. [1] If I recall correctly the researchers submitted the exact same resume to many companies. The only variable was the name. E.g. "John Franklin" versus "Imani Jordan".
- rajin444 5y ago
  > unconscious bias When did this become an accepted term? I didn't know our science had advanced enough to explain how unconscious bias happens. AFAIK we can run some experiments and observe results, but can't explain the underlying biology as to why we observed those results.
  - l33t2328 5y ago
    If you asked the interviewers, they would generally say that they’re unaware of themselves being biased, thereby making their bias unconscious.
chernevik 5y ago
I'm over fifty and I call bullshit. Dress and appearance convey information about attitude and orientation. Who wants to hire someone who will constantly complain about the 80-character-per-line coding standard because they like 100 characters? Any team has all sorts of subtle norms, and wants someone who will adapt themselves to such things. If someone can't be bothered to dress properly, why would they bother to conform with any other workplace norm? I wouldn't try to be "current", I'd end up looking like an idiot. But I'd appear in a decent pair of pants and nice blue shirt and proper shoes. I'm very aware that much of my wardrobe would make me look out of touch and stubborn, and no, I don't think it unfair for an interviewer to notice such things. Really this is basic professionalism.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > If someone can't be bothered to dress properly, why would they bother to conform with any other workplace norm? > Really this is basic professionalism. Hmmmmmmmm. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000011.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000011.h... > My gym just fired the opening gun in a new skirmish, by posting dozens of signs reading "All lockers must be emptied of its contents by August 22 at 5:00 p.m." > Someone has learned, from the "singular their" fuss, a lesson that no one wanted to teach: Universally quantified ancedents should get singular pronouns. Or something like that. > This is clearly a case of hypercorrection. However, it's not clear which side has gained: the prescriptivists can claim (correctly?) that even their opponents surely agree that THIS is a mistake; the anti-prescriptivists can counter that pedantry is the root cause of the error. > It's interesting that everyone, prescriptivists and anti-prescriptivists alike, seems to think that hypercorrection is wrong, morally as well as logically. For the prescriptivists, any form that deviates from a postulated universal standard is wrong.. For (at least some of) their opponents, use makes right, as long as you conform to your own group's norms -- but it's a sin to imitate the norms of a more prestigious group, if you get it wrong. On this point, the prescriptivists seem to me to be fairer and more democratic in their attitudes, even if their particular prescriptions are often foolish. I once read an article breaking the hard-hitting (and outrageous!) news that the Dallas Cowboys provide their cheerleaders with a handbook on how to dress appropriately, groom appropriately, and maintain a standard of personal hygiene that is adequate for "polite company". I had a similar reaction to that as Mark Liberman had to the descriptivist attitude toward hypercorrection. Do you want to judge your candidates by how willing and able they are to conform to workplace dress norms? Then include an attachment when you invite them for an interview specifying how you want them to dress. Or is it more that you're uncomfortable with the idea of hiring someone who doesn't know -- as they obviously should -- what you feel is appropriate in your employees' dress?
ismaildonmez 5y ago
> Many orchestras switched to blind auditions, and it drastically increased the number of female musicians. This is incorrect, see https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/05/11/did-blind-orchestra-auditions-really-benefit-women/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/05/11/did-blind-...
- sarchertech 5y ago
  That blog post isn't nearly strong enough to support the statement that "this is incorrect". The conclusion of the unrefereed blog post is merely the much more equivocal: " What about that much-publicized “50 percent” claim, or for that matter the not-so-well-publicized but even more dramatic “increases by severalfold”? I have no idea. I’ll reserve judgment until someone can show me where that result appears in the published paper. It’s gotta be there somewhere."
  - ismaildonmez 5y ago
    You should have quoted the sentence just before: > I agree that blind auditions can make sense—even if they do not have the large effects claimed in that 2000 paper, or indeed even if they have no aggregate relative effects on men and women at all. so, what the OP said > Many orchestras switched to blind auditions, and it drastically increased the number of female musicians. is incorrect because quoting again from the article: > or indeed even if they have no aggregate relative effects on men and women at all.
    - lolinder 5y ago
      A clause that begins with "even if" is a hypothetical and should not be taken as declarative. The author is saying that they don't know whether the number in question is correct, they're not saying that they believe it to be incorrect. Hence "I’ll reserve judgment". The bit starting with "even if" is just saying that it doesn't matter to them: either way they're still in favor of blind auditions.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
"Read this source code and tell me the age of the person who wrote it, when it was written."
- joejerryronnie 5y ago
  The age of the coder is directly proportional to the number of comments included in the code.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> Many orchestras switched to blind auditions, and it drastically increased the number of female musicians. > https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impac https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impac... That study made a big splash with a lot of claims that were unconnected to the data. https://jsmp.dk/posts/2019-05-12-blindauditions/ https://jsmp.dk/posts/2019-05-12-blindauditions/ The number of female musicians in orchestras increased, but we can't actually attribute that to the audition process.
lr4444lr 5y ago
I disagree that it's terrible. If someone 23 years old came into a job interview wearing mid 20th century business attire and hair/glasses while everyone else was adopting modern dress, I think all else equal that should count against him. Old age is not excuse for knowing how to fit in with the things you have the power to change.
- itronitron 5y ago
  Mid 20th century business attire for men is very much out, but for women it would register as hip and fashionable.
agumonkey 5y ago
Voice can carry a fair amount of information about someone's mindset. Arrogance, uplifting spirit, bad mood.. that said most of it is irrelevant unless you're on the spot. Hiring processes should focus on that.
fortran77 5y ago
> Many orchestras switched to blind auditions, and it drastically increased the number of female musicians. Sadly, there's talk of going back to sighted auditions: See: https://americanorchestras.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rethinking-Blind-Auditions.pdf https://americanorchestras.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Re... and https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-audition...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
scarface74 5y ago
You okay the cards that you are dealt. I met a former manager for lunch one day and he told me how surprised he was that I was “over 35” at the time I was 45. I found out that most non-Blacks have no idea how old a Black guy is that is cleaned shaven. I don’t have any of the signs when I keep my hair cut off - no gray hair or receding hair line. It’s much more culturally acceptable for Black guys to shave their heads.

rdl 5y ago

I try to do voice-only calls wherever possible, especially for hiring. (and text > voice!). Especially for initial screening; less annoying as the hiring manager, and also protects us somewhat from some discrimination claims (obviously only one element of that, and neither necessary nor sufficient on its own)

sieabahlpark 5y ago

changoplatanero 5y ago

nowdays you have the new york times advocating to get rid of blind auditions because they don't produce enough diversity! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-audition...

bumbledraven 5y ago
https://archive.ph/b5f9s https://archive.ph/b5f9s To Make Orchestras More Diverse, End Blind Auditions If ensembles are to reflect the communities they serve, the audition process should take into account race, gender and other factors.
jquery 5y ago
Blind auditions only get rid of one aspect of discrimination. However, when the pipeline is starved because of too few role models in their communities due to historical prejudice, blind auditions become self-defeating and self-reinforcing. The top tier of musical talent is virtually identical in ability (equivalent to an Ivy League applicant pool being all straight-As), so maybe it's time to focus on other aspects like increasing diversity so that more kids have role models to look up to. Of course, you would know all this if you read the article instead of using it as some kind of "gotcha" that minorities aren't up to snuff musically.
- bluescrn 5y ago
  There needs to be more focus on improving the inputs to the pipeline. But that could take generations, and people are looking for quick fixes right now.
- photochemsyn 5y ago
  I think you're displaying an unconscious bias here by implying the 'top tier of musical talent is virtually identical in ability' and that this somehow excludes various groups from that pool. First, that claim is highly questionable, and second, you are implying that some groups are less talented than others based solely on their identity. This kind of bias is rather common, it's rather redolant of paternalistic attitudes towards 'naturally inferior groups' who need 'inclusive policies' because they just can't make the grade on their own. If you happen to be unfamiliar with this argument, I'd recommend this: https://tarahenley.substack.com/p/bad-news https://tarahenley.substack.com/p/bad-news
  - mlyle 5y ago
    I don't think that's quite what he said. I think he was saying that the top tier of current trained talent isn't equally diverse as the underlying population because of past biases in selection, and that making a blind selection from that pool likely perpetuates some of these biases. E.g. kids who grow up seeing symphonies that exclude people that look like them are less likely to pursue paths that lead toward them being in this pool. I'm not arguing in favor of affirmative action or a purposeful selection bias to fix this. It's a messy problem but it deserves thought and consideration.

bombcar 5y ago

This is the equivalent of saying “try looking sexy, women, maybe you’ll get hired.” It might work, it may be needed, but it’s embarrassing if so. The sad reality is that if you’re over 50 you need to be applying to positions that are “age appropriate” which usually implies management.

JackFr 5y ago
> This is the equivalent of saying “try looking sexy, women, maybe you’ll get hired.” That’s not really fair (and largely not true.) What it’s saying is that appearances matter - they’re an important non-verbal signaling channel, and to the extent to which one can control the way you present, you should, and secondly, dress for the job you want. For both men and women that does not mean dress like you’re going to a club. It is also an admission that even the best of us subconsciously treat attractive people as more competent. I’m old enough to have worked during an era when you wore a suit and a tie to an interview for any position. If I showed up for a senior role at a startup wearing a suit and tie I would be telling them from the get go that I’m either I’m out of touch with the culture of the org (not good) or I choose to differentiate myself (maybe I’m a lawyer or an accountant.) Finally, as an example in my case - I am over fifty and overweight, but I am tall. I know (from mirrors) that I look better standing than sitting, so when in person interviewing I try to be standing when people enter the room simply because I get the difference between “former football player” and “fat slob”. Does it bother me? Yes and no. Ultimately I need to be able to deliver the goods, it’s nice not to have to fight through preconceptions.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  >even the best of us subconsciously treat attractive people as more competent. // People who clearly spend/spent a lot of time on their appearance suggests to me that they're trying to use some sort of "trick" to get ahead and that this probably means they're less competent than their peers. It's like charities that give you a pen, or small quantity of money (bear with me) ... Yes, I know that psychological trick and it strictly suggests to me that yours is a charity I should not donate to. The whole "dress for the job you want", for example, is really "use people's prejudices to trick them into unconsciously overestimating your competence". Sadly, marketing tricks (ie the hostile use of psychology) work on all of us, even sometimes when we know we're being tricked. Participating in that kind of thing is a red flag to me. The "former football player" vs "fat slob" part of your comment suggests you view [or are accommodating others that view] unrelated externalities as more important than intrinsic qualities related directly to the work. That's not uncommon, but it seems like something we need to mature beyond. >I’m out of touch with the culture of the org (not good) or I choose to differentiate myself // This seems really sad to me, like a person likes to wear a tie and that's so out there you'd consider you can't work with them? Like, what if they were actually different: came from a different place, spoke different languages, had different body parts? Especially if you're coding, what's it matter if you like to wear a formal thawb (Middle-eastern robe) and they wear Hawaiian shirts and board shorts? I'm not saying people won't judge you, just that it's wrong.

alar44 5y ago

Only in the tech sector do we think we should be able to show up with a T-shirt and greasy hair. Looks/hygiene/culture fit is important and there isn't a single field where it isn't. If you can be bothered to try to fit in a little bit, it goes a long way. Otherwise, feel free to be unemployed and bitch about it in your basement while the world moves on.

mtrower 5y ago
??? Showing up not looking like this, can also cause you to not get hired. Discrimination on non-performance factors is real on all sides of the fence. Anyway this isn’t the point; the point was that it’s sad you need to hide your age using clothing.
- alar44 5y ago
  It not hiding your age. It's showing that you are still in touch with new things and able to go with the flow. It's not even that hard. If you're 55, just don't show up with a baggy suit and fat tie you bought in the 80s. This is good advice for anyone - know how to dress for an interview.
TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
T-shirt and greasy hair are as much a uniform and a declaration of tribal orientation as a business suit is. Clothes are always a uniform and a social signal, whether or not they're formally labelled as such. It's also one of the covert reasons age is an issue. It's not about competence, it's about the fact that it's very difficult to have equal relationships with people who are the same age as your parents or kids. An age gap that wide goes with a generation gap in expected behaviours, cultural references, implied ethics - and more, including default problem solving habits. It would be good if this wasn't true, but it's hard to see how it can be avoided. It would take extremely unusual maturity and self-awareness not to be influenced by it in either direction. It's not that it can't be made to work, but I don't think it can be made to work easily. It's an extra level of friction, which is why it's an unpopular option when hiring teams. TBH I suspect that anyone over - say - 40 is probably best off hiring themselves out as a consultant rather than trying to find work as a full-timer on a relatively young team. Consultancy isn't just professionally distinct, it creates a different social dynamic which seems to be easier for everyone.

bluescrn 5y ago

As an obese person, a big advantage of the Zoom/WFH era is that people usually just see your head and shoulders, so won't judge you on the size of your belly (or the clothes that never fit us fatties well)

ohyoutravel 5y ago
This is true.
- keats102 5y ago
  You sound like a lovely person. There are other factors in obesity other than personal choice. Judging a person solely by their weight and not their abilities is so short-sighted. What if you hire someone who looks great and spends all of their time at the gym, and are as dumb as dirt.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

kaycebasques 5y ago

Back when I was a hiring manager I also asked my recruiters to obscure the name of the candidate. E.g. always referring to them by their initials and blacking out their name on their resume. I was thinking about the experiment [1] where researchers found that the whiteness of your name affected how likely companies were to follow-up to your job application. +1 to the general idea that the interview process should remove as much unconscious bias as possible. [1] If I recall correctly the researchers submitted the exact same resume to many companies. The only variable was the name. E.g. "John Franklin" versus "Imani Jordan".

rajin444 5y ago
> unconscious bias When did this become an accepted term? I didn't know our science had advanced enough to explain how unconscious bias happens. AFAIK we can run some experiments and observe results, but can't explain the underlying biology as to why we observed those results.
- l33t2328 5y ago
  If you asked the interviewers, they would generally say that they’re unaware of themselves being biased, thereby making their bias unconscious.

chernevik 5y ago

I'm over fifty and I call bullshit. Dress and appearance convey information about attitude and orientation. Who wants to hire someone who will constantly complain about the 80-character-per-line coding standard because they like 100 characters? Any team has all sorts of subtle norms, and wants someone who will adapt themselves to such things. If someone can't be bothered to dress properly, why would they bother to conform with any other workplace norm? I wouldn't try to be "current", I'd end up looking like an idiot. But I'd appear in a decent pair of pants and nice blue shirt and proper shoes. I'm very aware that much of my wardrobe would make me look out of touch and stubborn, and no, I don't think it unfair for an interviewer to notice such things. Really this is basic professionalism.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> If someone can't be bothered to dress properly, why would they bother to conform with any other workplace norm? > Really this is basic professionalism. Hmmmmmmmm. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000011.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000011.h... > My gym just fired the opening gun in a new skirmish, by posting dozens of signs reading "All lockers must be emptied of its contents by August 22 at 5:00 p.m." > Someone has learned, from the "singular their" fuss, a lesson that no one wanted to teach: Universally quantified ancedents should get singular pronouns. Or something like that. > This is clearly a case of hypercorrection. However, it's not clear which side has gained: the prescriptivists can claim (correctly?) that even their opponents surely agree that THIS is a mistake; the anti-prescriptivists can counter that pedantry is the root cause of the error. > It's interesting that everyone, prescriptivists and anti-prescriptivists alike, seems to think that hypercorrection is wrong, morally as well as logically. For the prescriptivists, any form that deviates from a postulated universal standard is wrong.. For (at least some of) their opponents, use makes right, as long as you conform to your own group's norms -- but it's a sin to imitate the norms of a more prestigious group, if you get it wrong. On this point, the prescriptivists seem to me to be fairer and more democratic in their attitudes, even if their particular prescriptions are often foolish. I once read an article breaking the hard-hitting (and outrageous!) news that the Dallas Cowboys provide their cheerleaders with a handbook on how to dress appropriately, groom appropriately, and maintain a standard of personal hygiene that is adequate for "polite company". I had a similar reaction to that as Mark Liberman had to the descriptivist attitude toward hypercorrection. Do you want to judge your candidates by how willing and able they are to conform to workplace dress norms? Then include an attachment when you invite them for an interview specifying how you want them to dress. Or is it more that you're uncomfortable with the idea of hiring someone who doesn't know -- as they obviously should -- what you feel is appropriate in your employees' dress?

ismaildonmez 5y ago

> Many orchestras switched to blind auditions, and it drastically increased the number of female musicians. This is incorrect, see https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/05/11/did-blind-orchestra-auditions-really-benefit-women/ https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/05/11/did-blind-...

sarchertech 5y ago
That blog post isn't nearly strong enough to support the statement that "this is incorrect". The conclusion of the unrefereed blog post is merely the much more equivocal: " What about that much-publicized “50 percent” claim, or for that matter the not-so-well-publicized but even more dramatic “increases by severalfold”? I have no idea. I’ll reserve judgment until someone can show me where that result appears in the published paper. It’s gotta be there somewhere."
- ismaildonmez 5y ago
  You should have quoted the sentence just before: > I agree that blind auditions can make sense—even if they do not have the large effects claimed in that 2000 paper, or indeed even if they have no aggregate relative effects on men and women at all. so, what the OP said > Many orchestras switched to blind auditions, and it drastically increased the number of female musicians. is incorrect because quoting again from the article: > or indeed even if they have no aggregate relative effects on men and women at all.
  - lolinder 5y ago
    A clause that begins with "even if" is a hypothetical and should not be taken as declarative. The author is saying that they don't know whether the number in question is correct, they're not saying that they believe it to be incorrect. Hence "I’ll reserve judgment". The bit starting with "even if" is just saying that it doesn't matter to them: either way they're still in favor of blind auditions.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

"Read this source code and tell me the age of the person who wrote it, when it was written."

joejerryronnie 5y ago
The age of the coder is directly proportional to the number of comments included in the code.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> Many orchestras switched to blind auditions, and it drastically increased the number of female musicians. > https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impac https://gap.hks.harvard.edu/orchestrating-impartiality-impac... That study made a big splash with a lot of claims that were unconnected to the data. https://jsmp.dk/posts/2019-05-12-blindauditions/ https://jsmp.dk/posts/2019-05-12-blindauditions/ The number of female musicians in orchestras increased, but we can't actually attribute that to the audition process.

lr4444lr 5y ago

I disagree that it's terrible. If someone 23 years old came into a job interview wearing mid 20th century business attire and hair/glasses while everyone else was adopting modern dress, I think all else equal that should count against him. Old age is not excuse for knowing how to fit in with the things you have the power to change.

itronitron 5y ago
Mid 20th century business attire for men is very much out, but for women it would register as hip and fashionable.

agumonkey 5y ago

Voice can carry a fair amount of information about someone's mindset. Arrogance, uplifting spirit, bad mood.. that said most of it is irrelevant unless you're on the spot. Hiring processes should focus on that.

fortran77 5y ago

> Many orchestras switched to blind auditions, and it drastically increased the number of female musicians. Sadly, there's talk of going back to sighted auditions: See: https://americanorchestras.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Rethinking-Blind-Auditions.pdf https://americanorchestras.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Re... and https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-auditions-orchestras-race.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-audition...

deleted 5y ago

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scarface74 5y ago

You okay the cards that you are dealt. I met a former manager for lunch one day and he told me how surprised he was that I was “over 35” at the time I was 45. I found out that most non-Blacks have no idea how old a Black guy is that is cleaned shaven. I don’t have any of the signs when I keep my hair cut off - no gray hair or receding hair line. It’s much more culturally acceptable for Black guys to shave their heads.