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> that people hired via DEI initiatives are incompetent or cannot do their job I think this is a strawman. The argument would be that if you hire for diversity

> that people hired via DEI initiatives are incompetent or cannot do their job I think this is a strawman. The argument would be that if you hire for diversity, you are no longer hiring for capability first (which is much harder to refute than the straw-man "all DEI hires are incompetent"). You could make an argument for DEI-hiring being possibly helpful against nepotism, though. Personally, I think that DEI efforts (especially quota-driven hiring) just paper over underlying problems while being actively unethical on their own (discriminating against the majority, basically).

pyrale 2y ago
> The argument would be that if you hire for diversity, you are no longer hiring for capability first That claim is also hard to prove in the first place, but apparently people can just peddle it, and expect other people to do the hard work to debunk it. Usually, whenever you start asking people to justify that claim, you end up with an anecdote or two and, if you point out that anecdotal data don't make a point, personal attacks.
- throw3638 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Moomoomoo309 2y ago
    See, this is exactly what I was referring to. It's "obvious" that these things happen as a result of DEI, but you provide no evidence for it. Some anecdotes, sure, but I want to see how it plays out broadly - I'm sure there are cases where it's good and cases where it's bad if you just pick anecdotes from the data! I also think calling out censorship for this is lazy, to be honest. I really doubt a topic as contentious as DEI has no useful data to prove your point.
    - throw3638 2y ago
      You assume we are having some sort of discussion. Like I say sken rational argument, you say something back, than I refute it... Nobody gets cancelled, or death threats... > want to see how it plays out broadly - I'm sure there are cases where it's good Old promise for DEI was to improve efficiency by unlocking potential in groups that could not work. Are there some data to suggest it is working? All I see is move from "equality" to "equity" bcos some people are just lazy.
- sorasoraflora 2y ago
  That claim seems the more intuitive understanding - if candidates are judged entirely by capability and fit for a role, then background wouldn't factor in. If diversity tips the scales toward a candidate that would have been otherwise passed over then ability is no longer the highest priority. If this understanding is flawed, could you explain how?
  - pyrale 2y ago
    There are more parameters than just changing the evaluation method applied on a fixed pool of candidates.
    - sorasoraflora 2y ago
      Could you please go into more detail? I'm not sure what you mean by that. I'm not trying to argue, I just want to understand.
      - pyrale 2y ago
        I went more in depth in another reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41788460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41788460
        sorasoraflora 2y ago
        Thank you! That clears it up, makes sense. It sounds like a different thing than what the other person was talking about. I don't have personal experience either way - I see both of you saying the thing you're talking about exists and the thing the other doesn't. Is it possible both are happening? How would you know if the other isn't?
        pyrale 2y ago
        It's definitely possible some people do wrong stuff. I wouldn't trust people not to mess things up badly sometimes. But if you intend to criticize the whole discipline, you can't base your analysis only its failures.
- myrmidon 2y ago
  Maybe we are just talking past each other. What I mean by "hiring for diversity" is that the business has some DEI goals, like "more female software devs" and lets those influence its hiring decisions. As soon as you have gender/race distribution goals that deviate from your candidate stream, you have to make hiring decisions that discriminate against your otherwise "most capable candidate", or you're not gonna reach those goals. Just making sure that your hiring is not actively racist itself is not something I'm arguing against (and I would not call that "DEI hiring").
  - pyrale 2y ago
    > As soon as you have gender/race distribution goals that deviate from your candidate stream, you have to make hiring decisions that discriminate against your otherwise "most capable candidate" The issue with this logic is that you assume the candidate stream can't be changed/expanded. An example of a business decision that could be influenced by DEI hiring: rather than doing the usual outreach programs only to the usual universities, you could decide to turn stones that you wouldn't usually turn in order to find people you wouldn't usually find. This has zero impact on the quality of people you hire. Also, "We only hire the best" is a bullshit catchphrase designed to flatter the ego of fresh grads in order to soften them for comp discussion. What usually happens is that you hire whoever passes an arbitrary bar you've set, and you're content not to have and waste another month in a new interview round before you start your new project. > Just making sure that your hiring is not actively racist itself is not something I'm arguing against (and I would not call that "DEI hiring"). edit: Unfortunately, it is. e.g. someone created a throwaway account to peddle weird fantasies in answer to this message.
    - throw3638 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - myrmidon 2y ago
      > rather than doing the usual outreach programs only to the usual universities, you could decide to turn stones that you wouldn't usually turn in order to find people you wouldn't usually find. This reads to me "onesidedly relax hiring criteria to keep quota" and is exactly the kind of intervention into the hiring process that I expect to decrease average capability of new hires. Sure, if your criteria themselves are bad in the first place (you are basically rejecting a huge pool of candidates randomly), it does not matter. But plenty of companies don't have a somewhat infinite stream of candidates that would be willing to relocate from across the world, and expanding that candidate stream has a very real cost for the business, too.
hotspot_one 2y ago
> The argument would be that if you hire for diversity, you are no longer hiring for capability first And a counter-argument is to question the assumptions that: current hiring practices actually select for capability. See discussions on live coding tests for one example. In most work, where output requires a team, the output of the team is simply the sum of the capability of the members (i.e. team dynamics/composition/morale do not influence team output).

pyrale 2y ago

> The argument would be that if you hire for diversity, you are no longer hiring for capability first That claim is also hard to prove in the first place, but apparently people can just peddle it, and expect other people to do the hard work to debunk it. Usually, whenever you start asking people to justify that claim, you end up with an anecdote or two and, if you point out that anecdotal data don't make a point, personal attacks.

throw3638 2y ago
[flagged]
- Moomoomoo309 2y ago
  See, this is exactly what I was referring to. It's "obvious" that these things happen as a result of DEI, but you provide no evidence for it. Some anecdotes, sure, but I want to see how it plays out broadly - I'm sure there are cases where it's good and cases where it's bad if you just pick anecdotes from the data! I also think calling out censorship for this is lazy, to be honest. I really doubt a topic as contentious as DEI has no useful data to prove your point.
  - throw3638 2y ago
    You assume we are having some sort of discussion. Like I say sken rational argument, you say something back, than I refute it... Nobody gets cancelled, or death threats... > want to see how it plays out broadly - I'm sure there are cases where it's good Old promise for DEI was to improve efficiency by unlocking potential in groups that could not work. Are there some data to suggest it is working? All I see is move from "equality" to "equity" bcos some people are just lazy.
sorasoraflora 2y ago
That claim seems the more intuitive understanding - if candidates are judged entirely by capability and fit for a role, then background wouldn't factor in. If diversity tips the scales toward a candidate that would have been otherwise passed over then ability is no longer the highest priority. If this understanding is flawed, could you explain how?
- pyrale 2y ago
  There are more parameters than just changing the evaluation method applied on a fixed pool of candidates.
  - sorasoraflora 2y ago
    Could you please go into more detail? I'm not sure what you mean by that. I'm not trying to argue, I just want to understand.
    - pyrale 2y ago
      I went more in depth in another reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41788460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41788460
      - sorasoraflora 2y ago
        Thank you! That clears it up, makes sense. It sounds like a different thing than what the other person was talking about. I don't have personal experience either way - I see both of you saying the thing you're talking about exists and the thing the other doesn't. Is it possible both are happening? How would you know if the other isn't?
        pyrale 2y ago
        It's definitely possible some people do wrong stuff. I wouldn't trust people not to mess things up badly sometimes. But if you intend to criticize the whole discipline, you can't base your analysis only its failures.
myrmidon 2y ago
Maybe we are just talking past each other. What I mean by "hiring for diversity" is that the business has some DEI goals, like "more female software devs" and lets those influence its hiring decisions. As soon as you have gender/race distribution goals that deviate from your candidate stream, you have to make hiring decisions that discriminate against your otherwise "most capable candidate", or you're not gonna reach those goals. Just making sure that your hiring is not actively racist itself is not something I'm arguing against (and I would not call that "DEI hiring").
- pyrale 2y ago
  > As soon as you have gender/race distribution goals that deviate from your candidate stream, you have to make hiring decisions that discriminate against your otherwise "most capable candidate" The issue with this logic is that you assume the candidate stream can't be changed/expanded. An example of a business decision that could be influenced by DEI hiring: rather than doing the usual outreach programs only to the usual universities, you could decide to turn stones that you wouldn't usually turn in order to find people you wouldn't usually find. This has zero impact on the quality of people you hire. Also, "We only hire the best" is a bullshit catchphrase designed to flatter the ego of fresh grads in order to soften them for comp discussion. What usually happens is that you hire whoever passes an arbitrary bar you've set, and you're content not to have and waste another month in a new interview round before you start your new project. > Just making sure that your hiring is not actively racist itself is not something I'm arguing against (and I would not call that "DEI hiring"). edit: Unfortunately, it is. e.g. someone created a throwaway account to peddle weird fantasies in answer to this message.
  - throw3638 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - myrmidon 2y ago
    > rather than doing the usual outreach programs only to the usual universities, you could decide to turn stones that you wouldn't usually turn in order to find people you wouldn't usually find. This reads to me "onesidedly relax hiring criteria to keep quota" and is exactly the kind of intervention into the hiring process that I expect to decrease average capability of new hires. Sure, if your criteria themselves are bad in the first place (you are basically rejecting a huge pool of candidates randomly), it does not matter. But plenty of companies don't have a somewhat infinite stream of candidates that would be willing to relocate from across the world, and expanding that candidate stream has a very real cost for the business, too.

hotspot_one 2y ago

> The argument would be that if you hire for diversity, you are no longer hiring for capability first And a counter-argument is to question the assumptions that: current hiring practices actually select for capability. See discussions on live coding tests for one example. In most work, where output requires a team, the output of the team is simply the sum of the capability of the members (i.e. team dynamics/composition/morale do not influence team output).