7 ms·

1-in-6 managers told to deprioritize hiring white men, 48% diversity over merit

62 points by that 4y ago

that 4y ago
Striking headline and summary data, but I don't like that the surveyors seem cagey about releasing the full data. Why should you have to contact they to get it vs. just putting it out there for transparency? Surely the true number isn't 0 for each, but it may not be that high - or at least people may not be as willing to be upfront or see it that way. >Methodology >This survey was commissioned by ResumeBuilder.com and conducted online by the survey platform Pollfish on November 2, 2022. In total, 1,000 participants in the U.S. were surveyed. All participants had to pass through demographic filters to ensure they were age 18 or older, currently employed for wages or self-employed, and manage at least 25% of the hiring at their workplace. For full survey results, please contact pr@resumebuilder.com.
LatteLazy 4y ago
It took us 4 months to hire a woman to our team while we wasted the time of over a dozen qualified men interviewing people we knew we would not hire. I found this deeply distasteful.
- pylua 4y ago
  I am not a lawyer, but it sounds like a potential lawsuit. I do wonder what sort of whistle blower status you could be awarded in this circumstance if any at all.
  - altairprime 4y ago
    The lawsuit would flop if there’s more men than women in the group being hired for, since it’s absolutely permissible to correct diversity imbalances. (I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
    - windows2020 4y ago
      Just wondering when diversity is balanced. I guess the first part would be deciding how to measure diversity. Maybe put people into different buckets based on their skin color, sex, gender and disability status. Then, the next part would be deciding if we want an even split or counts representative of the field (unless that's incorrect too) or maybe based on demographics.
      - altairprime 4y ago
        The current precedent is that it’s fine to set short-term curative diversity targets and selectively hire towards them.
    - pylua 4y ago
      I am not a lawyer but I am curious as to this. Maybe it depends on your jurisdiction? What is the legal precedent for this? I am also curious -- if this is the case, then why not state explicitly in the job req that men need not apply -- if there is no fear of legal consequences? Seems like that would have saved everyone a lot of time.
    - amscanne 4y ago
      I’m pretty sure that the law doesn’t allow discrimination to correct diversity imbalances. DEI initiatives are about driving recruiting efforts and targeting towards underrepresented groups (e.g. having recruiters reaching out to qualified women, running recruiting drives at colleges with high minority populations, etc.) but the ultimate hiring decision cannot exclude anyone on the basis of a protected class.
      - altairprime 4y ago
        Selectivity is not necessarily discriminatory. For further reading, I recommend: - United Steelworkers of America v. Weber, 443 US 193 (1979) - Johnson v. VTA; 480 U.S. 616 (1987)
        amscanne 4y ago
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    But the people discriminated against don't know it.
    - pylua 4y ago
      I wonder if you can get whistle blower protection if you know your team is discriminating against a protected group, and who you can even report that to.
- Bud 4y ago
  Great. Now balance this against a century or so of injustice pointing the other direction, and just honestly consider whether it might be worth it.
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    Balance it against nothing. The beneficiaries are not the same people as the victims.
    - didibus 4y ago
      That's debatable. What was the impact of the biases against women towards them working STEM jobs? Could it still linger today in having created the cultural environment which is why few women pursue STEM and why it's still predominantly men? > Research has shown that women are no less capable than men in science and mathematics. But, according to the AAUW, external factors, like a lack of role models, cultures that tend to exclude women, and persistent stereotypes about women’s intellectual abilities, reinforce a wide gender gap. - https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/06/women-in-stem-need-more-than-a-law https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/06/women-in-stem... Now I'm not sure if trying to hire more women can really reverse this, but I do think there's at least an argument to be made. Factor in that there's also still resume bias against women: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/uncovering-hiring-bias/ https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/uncovering-hirin... Where it's shown that women need higher GPAs to be perceived as equaly qualified as lower GPA male equivalents. And you could also make an argument for needing to fight the still existent hiring bias against them.
      - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
        > What was the impact of the biases against women towards them working STEM jobs? I guess what OP is saying is that the beneficiaries are largely not people that actually suffered discrimination, they are just people that tick all the boxes. Otherwise it wouldn't take much to find them.
        4y ago
- random314 4y ago
  So your company was violating US Civil rights? Can you name the company? Does your company have an HR department?
- amscanne 4y ago
  Putting aside anything relating to the underlying goals, the questions of employment law are really interesting. In Canada (unless it’s changed since I was there), you are allowed to state that a position has a preference for four specific groups: women, people with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, and visible minorities. These are defined by the Employment Equity Act, and certain companies (those that are federally regulated) are required to implement proactive practices to increase the representation of those groups. So you’d think this would create clarity, right? Nope! The Canadian Human Rights Act is still in force and makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, race and other protected categories. So those companies must somehow balance proactive employment practices without any kind of discrimination. I’m pretty sure even though you could state that preference, a decision not to hire someone exclusively on the basis of one of the classes would still be illegal. (And to be clear, I also believe that stating such a preference would also be illegal unless it was specifically to further representation of those groups. This comes up in the context of e.g. a preference for female servers or retail workers.)
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  I assume you weren't hiring for a Hooter's server position?
random314 4y ago
Sounds like a crap survey. Literally, every company has been training staff to not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, national origin etc because it would run afoul of Civil rights law. Is this a new bogeyman like the evil Jews who were conniving against the majority Germans in the 1920s as per Nazi propaganda.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  Supposedly, it's all about don't discriminate. In practice, however, discrimination is measured by diversity. The safe path is to choose the diversity hire. It's pretty hard to get in trouble for not hiring the white male.
  - random314 4y ago
    > however, discrimination is measured by diversity No law measures discrimination by diversity. However, the law punishes actual discrimination by race and gender. This however does not ameliorate the victim complex/ mentality that a nations most powerful group experiences. Statistically speaking, in American society, this group is typically the white Christian male. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unraveling-the-mindset-of-victimhood/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unraveling-the-mi...
    - LorenPechtel 4y ago
      The law punishes "actual" discrimination--but determines discrimination by disparate results, not by observing actual discrimination. Thus the de-facto result is you're punished for not meeting quotas.
  - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
    > In practice, however, discrimination is measured by diversity. How? Doesn't make much sense to me. measuring diversity is the equivalent of filing the workers, which is illegal, at least in my country.
    - 4y ago
0xbadc0de5 4y ago
Several years ago, at a previous employer, a colleague whose technical ability I had deep respect for confided in me that he was only interviewing women until the representation on his team reached >50%. When I pointed out that was probably illegal and certainly unethical and lowers the chance of selecting the most qualified candidate, he said selecting the most qualified candidate was less important than "levelling the playing field." I don't think he ever considered the irony of his viewpoint that "women can only succeed if I enable it." I wish I could say this is a rare viewpoint, but this sort of overt discrimination appears to be rampant in certain tech circles.
- taolegal 4y ago
  > this sort of overt discrimination appears to be rampant in certain tech circles It's rampant in society, prevalent in most bureaucracies. It's minority essentialism, a subordination of entire minority groups to everyone else under the belief that these people, by virtue of their identity, cannot help themselves.
tharne 4y ago
My gut says it's worse than the numbers here suggest. I've been in more than one situation where no one outright said "Don't hire any more white men", but they made themselves clear nonetheless. The 'ole, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?".
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  > Don't hire any more white men Where/when are white men the majority? Everywhere I’ve ever worked has been overwhelmingly Indian.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

62 points by that 4y ago

that 4y ago

Striking headline and summary data, but I don't like that the surveyors seem cagey about releasing the full data. Why should you have to contact they to get it vs. just putting it out there for transparency? Surely the true number isn't 0 for each, but it may not be that high - or at least people may not be as willing to be upfront or see it that way. >Methodology >This survey was commissioned by ResumeBuilder.com and conducted online by the survey platform Pollfish on November 2, 2022. In total, 1,000 participants in the U.S. were surveyed. All participants had to pass through demographic filters to ensure they were age 18 or older, currently employed for wages or self-employed, and manage at least 25% of the hiring at their workplace. For full survey results, please contact pr@resumebuilder.com.

LatteLazy 4y ago

It took us 4 months to hire a woman to our team while we wasted the time of over a dozen qualified men interviewing people we knew we would not hire. I found this deeply distasteful.

pylua 4y ago
I am not a lawyer, but it sounds like a potential lawsuit. I do wonder what sort of whistle blower status you could be awarded in this circumstance if any at all.
- altairprime 4y ago
  The lawsuit would flop if there’s more men than women in the group being hired for, since it’s absolutely permissible to correct diversity imbalances. (I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
  - windows2020 4y ago
    Just wondering when diversity is balanced. I guess the first part would be deciding how to measure diversity. Maybe put people into different buckets based on their skin color, sex, gender and disability status. Then, the next part would be deciding if we want an even split or counts representative of the field (unless that's incorrect too) or maybe based on demographics.
    - altairprime 4y ago
      The current precedent is that it’s fine to set short-term curative diversity targets and selectively hire towards them.
  - pylua 4y ago
    I am not a lawyer but I am curious as to this. Maybe it depends on your jurisdiction? What is the legal precedent for this? I am also curious -- if this is the case, then why not state explicitly in the job req that men need not apply -- if there is no fear of legal consequences? Seems like that would have saved everyone a lot of time.
  - amscanne 4y ago
    I’m pretty sure that the law doesn’t allow discrimination to correct diversity imbalances. DEI initiatives are about driving recruiting efforts and targeting towards underrepresented groups (e.g. having recruiters reaching out to qualified women, running recruiting drives at colleges with high minority populations, etc.) but the ultimate hiring decision cannot exclude anyone on the basis of a protected class.
    - altairprime 4y ago
      Selectivity is not necessarily discriminatory. For further reading, I recommend: - United Steelworkers of America v. Weber, 443 US 193 (1979) - Johnson v. VTA; 480 U.S. 616 (1987)
      - amscanne 4y ago
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  But the people discriminated against don't know it.
  - pylua 4y ago
    I wonder if you can get whistle blower protection if you know your team is discriminating against a protected group, and who you can even report that to.
Bud 4y ago
Great. Now balance this against a century or so of injustice pointing the other direction, and just honestly consider whether it might be worth it.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  Balance it against nothing. The beneficiaries are not the same people as the victims.
  - didibus 4y ago
    That's debatable. What was the impact of the biases against women towards them working STEM jobs? Could it still linger today in having created the cultural environment which is why few women pursue STEM and why it's still predominantly men? > Research has shown that women are no less capable than men in science and mathematics. But, according to the AAUW, external factors, like a lack of role models, cultures that tend to exclude women, and persistent stereotypes about women’s intellectual abilities, reinforce a wide gender gap. - https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/06/women-in-stem-need-more-than-a-law https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/06/women-in-stem... Now I'm not sure if trying to hire more women can really reverse this, but I do think there's at least an argument to be made. Factor in that there's also still resume bias against women: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/uncovering-hiring-bias/ https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/uncovering-hirin... Where it's shown that women need higher GPAs to be perceived as equaly qualified as lower GPA male equivalents. And you could also make an argument for needing to fight the still existent hiring bias against them.
    - peoplefromibiza 4y ago
      > What was the impact of the biases against women towards them working STEM jobs? I guess what OP is saying is that the beneficiaries are largely not people that actually suffered discrimination, they are just people that tick all the boxes. Otherwise it wouldn't take much to find them.
      - 4y ago
random314 4y ago
So your company was violating US Civil rights? Can you name the company? Does your company have an HR department?
amscanne 4y ago
Putting aside anything relating to the underlying goals, the questions of employment law are really interesting. In Canada (unless it’s changed since I was there), you are allowed to state that a position has a preference for four specific groups: women, people with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, and visible minorities. These are defined by the Employment Equity Act, and certain companies (those that are federally regulated) are required to implement proactive practices to increase the representation of those groups. So you’d think this would create clarity, right? Nope! The Canadian Human Rights Act is still in force and makes it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, race and other protected categories. So those companies must somehow balance proactive employment practices without any kind of discrimination. I’m pretty sure even though you could state that preference, a decision not to hire someone exclusively on the basis of one of the classes would still be illegal. (And to be clear, I also believe that stating such a preference would also be illegal unless it was specifically to further representation of those groups. This comes up in the context of e.g. a preference for female servers or retail workers.)
hotpotamus 4y ago
I assume you weren't hiring for a Hooter's server position?

random314 4y ago

Sounds like a crap survey. Literally, every company has been training staff to not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, national origin etc because it would run afoul of Civil rights law. Is this a new bogeyman like the evil Jews who were conniving against the majority Germans in the 1920s as per Nazi propaganda.

LorenPechtel 4y ago
Supposedly, it's all about don't discriminate. In practice, however, discrimination is measured by diversity. The safe path is to choose the diversity hire. It's pretty hard to get in trouble for not hiring the white male.
- random314 4y ago
  > however, discrimination is measured by diversity No law measures discrimination by diversity. However, the law punishes actual discrimination by race and gender. This however does not ameliorate the victim complex/ mentality that a nations most powerful group experiences. Statistically speaking, in American society, this group is typically the white Christian male. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unraveling-the-mindset-of-victimhood/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unraveling-the-mi...
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    The law punishes "actual" discrimination--but determines discrimination by disparate results, not by observing actual discrimination. Thus the de-facto result is you're punished for not meeting quotas.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > In practice, however, discrimination is measured by diversity. How? Doesn't make much sense to me. measuring diversity is the equivalent of filing the workers, which is illegal, at least in my country.
  - 4y ago

0xbadc0de5 4y ago

Several years ago, at a previous employer, a colleague whose technical ability I had deep respect for confided in me that he was only interviewing women until the representation on his team reached >50%. When I pointed out that was probably illegal and certainly unethical and lowers the chance of selecting the most qualified candidate, he said selecting the most qualified candidate was less important than "levelling the playing field." I don't think he ever considered the irony of his viewpoint that "women can only succeed if I enable it." I wish I could say this is a rare viewpoint, but this sort of overt discrimination appears to be rampant in certain tech circles.

taolegal 4y ago
> this sort of overt discrimination appears to be rampant in certain tech circles It's rampant in society, prevalent in most bureaucracies. It's minority essentialism, a subordination of entire minority groups to everyone else under the belief that these people, by virtue of their identity, cannot help themselves.

tharne 4y ago

My gut says it's worse than the numbers here suggest. I've been in more than one situation where no one outright said "Don't hire any more white men", but they made themselves clear nonetheless. The 'ole, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?".

commandlinefan 4y ago
> Don't hire any more white men Where/when are white men the majority? Everywhere I’ve ever worked has been overwhelmingly Indian.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]