4 ms·

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 an

by 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.
      - Manuel_D 2y ago
        Do I seriously have to spend three comments explaining how a policy of "white and Asian men are prohibited from X% of our headcount" is denial of employment, regardless of the value of X? > 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? You are prohibited from hiring an Asian or a while male. You can either leave the job unfilled, or hire a woman or URM candidate. The point is white and Asian males are denied that hiring opportunity. It's irrelevant what management would do in this scenario. Whether they'd hire a woman or just leave the position unfilled is irrelevant to the fact that white and Asian males cannot be hired, explicitly on account of their race and gender. Again, I really find it hard to believe that people are having trouble to understand that a policy of "X% of our headcount is off limits to $RACE and $GENDER" isn't discriminatory and denial of employment on the basis of race and gender. If you're of the opinion that this discrimination is justified on the basis of advancing equity, by all means you're entitled your own opinion. Just don't try and deny that this is discrimination and ultimately results in people denied work because of immutable characteristics. I'll post the full policy in a reply.
        Manuel_D 2y ago
        This is the text of the policy announcement: > The Problem Statement > Based on 177 like tech companies in Silicon Valley (market research and EOO-1 Diversity Statistics data), the percentage of diverse engineering talent is sparse. In short, 4.7% are latino, 2.1% are African American, and 19.2% are female. These candidates are being targeted with all of our top competitors with white gloves tactics, strategic outreach, and engagement strategies, while Dropbox has yet to systematically establish any of these practices to compete for this top talent and showcase our uniquely inclusive, dynamic, and thoughtful culture. > Opportunity to market DBX [Dropbox] more broadly: > Moreover, diverse engineers are the most sought after group of individuals on the market today. While the average response rate to engage is high (37%) the rate at which they are interested in moving forwards is quite low (11%). We interpret this in two ways: > First, due to the small pool and scarcity of diverse talent, companies are motivated to keep their diverse talent happy, well-compensated, and engaged; prospects are rarely on the market, and when they are, it is a highly calculated and careful search based on existing relationships. > Second, traditional sourcing engagement methods (email, LinkedIn) do not adequately showcase what makes Dropbox special, and because these candidates are so highly sought-after, it would serve us to highlight our culture early on, and to take a more long term approach to courting them. > Opportunistic Hiring > As the business needs shift and open roles become more narrow, it will become difficult to find a home for diverse candidates that we're able to engage and who pass our bar. We feel like it would be a disservice to use in the long-term if we miss out on hiring critical talent for Dropbox because of current headcount constraints. To this end, we propose that Eng VP's withhold 20 heads to hire opportunistically. > When a diverse/URM candidate is interested in interviewing, regardless of headcount, we will put them through the process. If they pass the TPS [technical phone screen] we will bring them onsite and evaluate based on their skillset. >If the candidate goes to HC [hiring committee], we will proactively find a sponsor/team home for the candidate, and that team would receive a preciously withheld headcount for that hire. As you can see, this really is a needlessly verbose way of saying "we're setting aside 20 headcount off-limits to white and Asian men". The fact that these set-aside headcount doesn't count towards the team's initial headcount does not change this fact: we had 20 headcount that were explicitly off-limits to white and Asian men. What's even more interesting is that as per the company's diversity report, our tech workforces was 23% female as compared to the 19% cited in the policy announcement. So we actually had an overrepresentation of women at the time, yet we still instituted explicitly discriminatory policies favoring them.

by runako 2y ago

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.
    - Manuel_D 2y ago
      Do I seriously have to spend three comments explaining how a policy of "white and Asian men are prohibited from X% of our headcount" is denial of employment, regardless of the value of X? > 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? You are prohibited from hiring an Asian or a while male. You can either leave the job unfilled, or hire a woman or URM candidate. The point is white and Asian males are denied that hiring opportunity. It's irrelevant what management would do in this scenario. Whether they'd hire a woman or just leave the position unfilled is irrelevant to the fact that white and Asian males cannot be hired, explicitly on account of their race and gender. Again, I really find it hard to believe that people are having trouble to understand that a policy of "X% of our headcount is off limits to $RACE and $GENDER" isn't discriminatory and denial of employment on the basis of race and gender. If you're of the opinion that this discrimination is justified on the basis of advancing equity, by all means you're entitled your own opinion. Just don't try and deny that this is discrimination and ultimately results in people denied work because of immutable characteristics. I'll post the full policy in a reply.
      - Manuel_D 2y ago
        This is the text of the policy announcement: > The Problem Statement > Based on 177 like tech companies in Silicon Valley (market research and EOO-1 Diversity Statistics data), the percentage of diverse engineering talent is sparse. In short, 4.7% are latino, 2.1% are African American, and 19.2% are female. These candidates are being targeted with all of our top competitors with white gloves tactics, strategic outreach, and engagement strategies, while Dropbox has yet to systematically establish any of these practices to compete for this top talent and showcase our uniquely inclusive, dynamic, and thoughtful culture. > Opportunity to market DBX [Dropbox] more broadly: > Moreover, diverse engineers are the most sought after group of individuals on the market today. While the average response rate to engage is high (37%) the rate at which they are interested in moving forwards is quite low (11%). We interpret this in two ways: > First, due to the small pool and scarcity of diverse talent, companies are motivated to keep their diverse talent happy, well-compensated, and engaged; prospects are rarely on the market, and when they are, it is a highly calculated and careful search based on existing relationships. > Second, traditional sourcing engagement methods (email, LinkedIn) do not adequately showcase what makes Dropbox special, and because these candidates are so highly sought-after, it would serve us to highlight our culture early on, and to take a more long term approach to courting them. > Opportunistic Hiring > As the business needs shift and open roles become more narrow, it will become difficult to find a home for diverse candidates that we're able to engage and who pass our bar. We feel like it would be a disservice to use in the long-term if we miss out on hiring critical talent for Dropbox because of current headcount constraints. To this end, we propose that Eng VP's withhold 20 heads to hire opportunistically. > When a diverse/URM candidate is interested in interviewing, regardless of headcount, we will put them through the process. If they pass the TPS [technical phone screen] we will bring them onsite and evaluate based on their skillset. >If the candidate goes to HC [hiring committee], we will proactively find a sponsor/team home for the candidate, and that team would receive a preciously withheld headcount for that hire. As you can see, this really is a needlessly verbose way of saying "we're setting aside 20 headcount off-limits to white and Asian men". The fact that these set-aside headcount doesn't count towards the team's initial headcount does not change this fact: we had 20 headcount that were explicitly off-limits to white and Asian men. What's even more interesting is that as per the company's diversity report, our tech workforces was 23% female as compared to the 19% cited in the policy announcement. So we actually had an overrepresentation of women at the time, yet we still instituted explicitly discriminatory policies favoring them.