3 ms·
Hiring will always have a subjective aspect to it, which is just the nature it. And I do agree that techniques like being conscious of bias and trying to inter
by geertj 2y ago
Hiring will always have a subjective aspect to it, which is just the nature it. And I do agree that techniques like being conscious of bias and trying to interrupt it are useful.
But yes, I do have an answer, which is that excluding factors that do not relate at all to job responsibilities is strictly better than including those, even if the result is still subjective.
- maxerickson 2y agoCategorizing factors as not related to job responsibilities is also subjective! Of course it can often be easy to identify the most salient factors, but that doesn't make it a concrete activity.
- slt2021 2y agoare you making a claim that sexual identity and race (two most common DEI factors) are part of the job ? how is being a black lesbian part to any job whatsoever ?
- maxerickson 2y agoNo, I'm making a claim that a sloppy argument was made. You are focusing on factors that you consider obvious, which is exactly my point, using your subjective judgement doesn't give you a framework that isn't subjective.
- slt2021 2y agoYou have constructed and debating a strawman. Everything involving human judgement will be subjective, yet we still can distinguish between good and bad decisions and discuss tradeoffs about being less wrong while being subjective
- maxerickson 2y agoI don't think it's a straw man. No one has actually solved hiring, "best" isn't defined. Like people are freaking out about any sort of DEI factor even getting considered and then actually hiring based on how Phil vibes with the candidate. Good stuff.
- geertj 2y agoCan I mathematically disprove that if I take the Lagrangian of the standard model and combine it with with Einstein's field equations, and chase down emergent complexity over many levels, that the properties that DEI selects for are actually what makes a great SDE (in my world)? No I cannot. But we're getting silly here. I will settle for the most salient factors if that sounds more precise to you. I will interpret that as a large number of sigmas, but we don't have to agree on the exact number of sigmas here!