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At the company I work for, we are forbidden to ask questions based on resume, as it introduces biases. Reduction of bias means "ask same questions of every cand

At the company I work for, we are forbidden to ask questions based on resume, as it introduces biases. Reduction of bias means "ask same questions of every candidate".

neilv 1y ago
Is that because * they don't trust their interviewers to be professional and objective, or * they're trying to have a EEOC CYA paper trail that says they make efforts to be unbiased, or * DEI motivated (e.g., not everyone has the advantage of good past experience as a starting point for conversations), or * some other HR theory?
- raincom 1y ago
  A combination of all three.
- xmprt 1y ago
  The problem with modern hiring practices is that they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Hiring based on past experience is biased and often can lead to either subpar candidates (lemons) or overpaying. You're either left with the people who didn't succeed at their previous job (but are good talkers) or people who have a brand name college/company but aren't really exceptional. On the other hand, trying to completely ignore past experience means you're left asking questions completely unrelated to real world work.
fma 1y ago
I had a conversation with someone from a well known startup. He was complaining how in the last year he has noticed the trend of unqualified individuals passing HR screens and some even passed technical interviews (they are uncovered when they can’t even commit code). Their whole background is a lie. They would also send connection requests to people at the companies listed so recruiters don’t question it. He proudly said they don’t ask questions based on resume, because they don’t care where you worked or where you went to school…as long as you know your stuff. In fact he only looks at the resume after the interview. I wonder how long they will stick to this stubbornness.
jgilias 1y ago
That’s mental. Why have a resume in the first place then? Any info in the resume introduces “bias”. Well, actually, even wanting to hire the best candidate for a job is already a bias of its own. So why not just have a lottery instead of a hiring process? /s But only slightly.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  From the candidate’s point of view, most companies’ hiring processes are indistinguishable from a lottery.
rsynnott 1y ago
Are you doing technical interviews, or manager-conversation-type interviews? This makes sense for the former (whether someone was a Senior Whatever in Googlebook or wrote CRUD apps for a bank is irrelevant if you're just seeing whether they can find a bug in a library or whatever, but it may influence the interviewer's _perception_ of their performance, thus it is strictly better than the interview doesn't know), but seems quite impractical for the latter.

At the company I work for, we are forbidden to ask questions based on resume, as it introduces biases. Reduction of bias means "ask same questions of every candidate".

neilv 1y ago

Is that because * they don't trust their interviewers to be professional and objective, or * they're trying to have a EEOC CYA paper trail that says they make efforts to be unbiased, or * DEI motivated (e.g., not everyone has the advantage of good past experience as a starting point for conversations), or * some other HR theory?

raincom 1y ago
A combination of all three.
xmprt 1y ago
The problem with modern hiring practices is that they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Hiring based on past experience is biased and often can lead to either subpar candidates (lemons) or overpaying. You're either left with the people who didn't succeed at their previous job (but are good talkers) or people who have a brand name college/company but aren't really exceptional. On the other hand, trying to completely ignore past experience means you're left asking questions completely unrelated to real world work.

fma 1y ago

I had a conversation with someone from a well known startup. He was complaining how in the last year he has noticed the trend of unqualified individuals passing HR screens and some even passed technical interviews (they are uncovered when they can’t even commit code). Their whole background is a lie. They would also send connection requests to people at the companies listed so recruiters don’t question it. He proudly said they don’t ask questions based on resume, because they don’t care where you worked or where you went to school…as long as you know your stuff. In fact he only looks at the resume after the interview. I wonder how long they will stick to this stubbornness.

jgilias 1y ago

That’s mental. Why have a resume in the first place then? Any info in the resume introduces “bias”. Well, actually, even wanting to hire the best candidate for a job is already a bias of its own. So why not just have a lottery instead of a hiring process? /s But only slightly.

ryandrake 1y ago
From the candidate’s point of view, most companies’ hiring processes are indistinguishable from a lottery.

rsynnott 1y ago

Are you doing technical interviews, or manager-conversation-type interviews? This makes sense for the former (whether someone was a Senior Whatever in Googlebook or wrote CRUD apps for a bank is irrelevant if you're just seeing whether they can find a bug in a library or whatever, but it may influence the interviewer's _perception_ of their performance, thus it is strictly better than the interview doesn't know), but seems quite impractical for the latter.