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I have. In April 2019, when I worked at Dropbox, we instituted what we called "Opportunistic Hiring". 20 heads were reserved to hire "opportunistically". What t

I have. In April 2019, when I worked at Dropbox, we instituted what we called "Opportunistic Hiring". 20 heads were reserved to hire "opportunistically". What this meant is that when a diverse candidate was hired, the headcount used for that hire didn't come from the team's headcount. It came from the pool of headcount for "opportunistic hires". Unless the "opportunistic hires" pool was already exhausted, then a diverse hire still counted against the team's headcount. The definition of a "diverse" candidate was a woman of any race, and URM men. If this sounds like an overly-complex way of saying "we're prohibiting Asian and white men from 20 headcount" it's because it is. I can provide the exact wording of the policy if you want. It's not "freezing out" all white males. One, it's also freezing out Asian males. And two, it's only freezing them out of a specific chunk of our headcount. But it still deeply affected me to see a company outright deny employment on the basis of race and gender, even if it was only for part of the headcount.

runako 2y ago
Reading your description of the policy, it looks like what it does is say a team can hire from the "Opportunistic" bucket for "free," but does not freeze out anybody else. Is that a correct read? > 20 heads were reserved I have not studied Dropbox extensively. In 2019, was 20 hires roughly equivalent to the total overall number of new hires? Or are we talking about a small percentage of overall new staffers? If the latter, how does this anecdote respond to my statements?
- Manuel_D 2y ago
  It's explicit denial of employment on the basis of race and gender. It's illegal no matter what proportion of the headcount this is. If I have 100 headcount and I say "20 of our headcount is off limits to white and Asian men" is that ok? If I have 80 headcount and I create 20 "opportunistic" headcount exclusive to women and URM is that acceptable? You're smart enough to understand that these are identical policies.
  - runako 2y ago
    I'm not reading anywhere in there where it says anybody is denied a job under any scenario. Perhaps if Dropbox had fixed hiring numbers like your hypothetical, but that was not data you submitted.
    - Manuel_D 2y ago
      It doesn't matter if they were hiring 50 people or 500 people. If your policy amounts to "we have N headcount candidates of any background, plus M headcount that's exclusive to X races and Y gender" then that's denial of employment on the basis of race and gender. Regardless of what the values of M and N are - well, unless M is zero. If a company institutes a hiring policy that amounts to saying, "99% of our headcount is off-limits to Asians" is it correct to say "no Asians are denied a job, under any scenario"? It's technically correct in that Asian applicants could vie for the 1% of headcount that's available to Asians. But how many Asians would have been hired absent this headcount restriction? Probably more than 1%! Okay, what if it wasn't 99% restricted to Asian, but just 50%? Can a company just say "half of our headcount is off limits to Asians"? Does that lower percentage make it okay? No, of course not. It's not okay if it's 99%, 50%, 1%, or 0.01%. It's denial of employment to wall-off any proportion of headcount on the basis of protected class. ------------------- In case you need an explicit scenario laid out to see how candidates are denied employment because of Dropbox's "opportunistic hiring" policy, here it is: The company has already exhausted its non-restricted headcount. An Asian male applied. He gets rejected automatically because the only remaining headcount is restricted to women and URM. A woman applies. She's allowed to interview because the company still has that "opportunistic" headcount, and unlike our Asian male applicant her gender makes her eligible for this set-aside headcount. If all headcount (including that "opportunistic headcount") were available to all races and genders, our Asian male would have been able to get hired.
      - runako 2y ago
        The scenario at the end really illustrates how important it is to not evaluate partial policies without accurate and full knowledge. In particular, we don't know how whether this hypothetical situation ever happened (and if so, what breakdown led to them hiring ~480 white & asian men before even hiring 20 women or URM, assuming a 500 annual hiring budget?). But that aside, we don't know how management would handle the hypothetical. If I need to hire someone today and all I have are the "opportunistic" headcount available, am I allowed to hire an Asian man or am I required to leave the job unfilled? The use of the word "opportunistic" does make it sound as if this is not a hard requirement in all situations. But again, we are on HN and do not have access to anything like the full guidelines presented to management at Dropbox.
rty32 2y ago
Thank you for your valuable input. This is one of the most convincing "evidence" I have seen so far regarding the "exclusion" during hiring. I wonder why we don't see such cases written out by people often in these discussions -- most of these are quite handwavy.

runako 2y ago

Reading your description of the policy, it looks like what it does is say a team can hire from the "Opportunistic" bucket for "free," but does not freeze out anybody else. Is that a correct read? > 20 heads were reserved I have not studied Dropbox extensively. In 2019, was 20 hires roughly equivalent to the total overall number of new hires? Or are we talking about a small percentage of overall new staffers? If the latter, how does this anecdote respond to my statements?

Manuel_D 2y ago
It's explicit denial of employment on the basis of race and gender. It's illegal no matter what proportion of the headcount this is. If I have 100 headcount and I say "20 of our headcount is off limits to white and Asian men" is that ok? If I have 80 headcount and I create 20 "opportunistic" headcount exclusive to women and URM is that acceptable? You're smart enough to understand that these are identical policies.
- runako 2y ago
  I'm not reading anywhere in there where it says anybody is denied a job under any scenario. Perhaps if Dropbox had fixed hiring numbers like your hypothetical, but that was not data you submitted.
  - Manuel_D 2y ago
    It doesn't matter if they were hiring 50 people or 500 people. If your policy amounts to "we have N headcount candidates of any background, plus M headcount that's exclusive to X races and Y gender" then that's denial of employment on the basis of race and gender. Regardless of what the values of M and N are - well, unless M is zero. If a company institutes a hiring policy that amounts to saying, "99% of our headcount is off-limits to Asians" is it correct to say "no Asians are denied a job, under any scenario"? It's technically correct in that Asian applicants could vie for the 1% of headcount that's available to Asians. But how many Asians would have been hired absent this headcount restriction? Probably more than 1%! Okay, what if it wasn't 99% restricted to Asian, but just 50%? Can a company just say "half of our headcount is off limits to Asians"? Does that lower percentage make it okay? No, of course not. It's not okay if it's 99%, 50%, 1%, or 0.01%. It's denial of employment to wall-off any proportion of headcount on the basis of protected class. ------------------- In case you need an explicit scenario laid out to see how candidates are denied employment because of Dropbox's "opportunistic hiring" policy, here it is: The company has already exhausted its non-restricted headcount. An Asian male applied. He gets rejected automatically because the only remaining headcount is restricted to women and URM. A woman applies. She's allowed to interview because the company still has that "opportunistic" headcount, and unlike our Asian male applicant her gender makes her eligible for this set-aside headcount. If all headcount (including that "opportunistic headcount") were available to all races and genders, our Asian male would have been able to get hired.
    - runako 2y ago
      The scenario at the end really illustrates how important it is to not evaluate partial policies without accurate and full knowledge. In particular, we don't know how whether this hypothetical situation ever happened (and if so, what breakdown led to them hiring ~480 white & asian men before even hiring 20 women or URM, assuming a 500 annual hiring budget?). But that aside, we don't know how management would handle the hypothetical. If I need to hire someone today and all I have are the "opportunistic" headcount available, am I allowed to hire an Asian man or am I required to leave the job unfilled? The use of the word "opportunistic" does make it sound as if this is not a hard requirement in all situations. But again, we are on HN and do not have access to anything like the full guidelines presented to management at Dropbox.

rty32 2y ago

Thank you for your valuable input. This is one of the most convincing "evidence" I have seen so far regarding the "exclusion" during hiring. I wonder why we don't see such cases written out by people often in these discussions -- most of these are quite handwavy.