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I have no doubt that all sorts of stuff slips through the cracks in all sorts of ways. I've certainly had really problematic hires. My issue is I'm trying to sq

I have no doubt that all sorts of stuff slips through the cracks in all sorts of ways. I've certainly had really problematic hires. My issue is I'm trying to square "you have problematic female hires? I bet you just have bad hiring practices" with "our employees sometimes beat their wives". I'm not even saying you're wrong on the narrow point-- maybe the article's author is really bad at hiring women-- but I'm not sure you're in a great position to judge the effects of hiring process quality. Maybe figure that stuff out at hiring time is just hard, for both her and for you?

mediaman 12y ago
You're right, it is hard, at least for me it is. But I think how a manager reacts to errors made in the hiring process is important. I try to be introspective, and evaluate how we could have better identified that potential issue preemptively, and adapt our process for the future. But I don't think that banning some incredibly broad demographic that includes 51% of the applicant pool is a sign that someone is really taking time to think about and fine tune the hiring process. I mean, I accidentally hire some people with drama issues, so my conclusion is don't ever hire women? That's the best process change I can think of? Not asking about conflict resolution experiences, or maybe a teamwork test, but just ban an entire gender? I just don't see how a good hiring process can come out of that kind of thinking. What if then you hire some men who don't communicate as well as they should -- then do we ban all men as well? Basically, I think hiring is hard and so process based on simplistic rules of gender or skin color or whatever don't usually work well, and besides begin illegal in the US they're also usually a sign of a process that hasn't really been thought out. By the way -- I re-read your comment, and if I understand it correctly it seems that your stance is because I've made hiring mistakes (even if they are subsequently and promptly corrected) that I should have no credibility to comment on this blogger's hiring process of banning women. I guess it's your prerogative to have that standard -- only those who haven't made any mistakes have credibility -- but, if we assume that anyone who's done a lot of hiring has made mistakes, the only people with credibility in your eyes are those who have done little to no hiring. Personally I wouldn't find that approach useful.
- icambron 12y ago
  > it seems that your stance is because I've made hiring mistakes (even if they are subsequently and promptly corrected) that I should have no credibility to comment on this blogger's hiring process of banning women Not at all. I've certainly made significant hiring mistakes and yet I have all sorts of opinions on hiring process. I'm only saying it seems like you would be less inclined to believe the fault must all be hers if your hiring process (which I'm assuming you put real energy into optimizing) also ends up giving you actual criminals sometimes. I'm not criticizing your criticism of her ban; I'm criticizing your diagnosis of hiring as the source issue. I don't doubt that it's in at least some part her fault and I completely understand the impulse to write it all off as that (for example, it also does not jive at all with my experiences in working with women, who have always been super professional towards me), but it's hard to see how one could really come to that conclusions about her hiring process without knowing her, the nature of her business, how she treats women, the pool of candidates she has available, and--possibly most importantly--almost anything about her hiring process. Maybe she's an idiot, maybe she had bad luck, maybe she has jobs for which women, for unspecified reasons, aren't well suited for, maybe she has a terrible work environment, maybe her male hires are weird in a way that skews her view of things, or maybe she's even right, or whatever. I just don't see how you can conclude much about hiring practice from "Wow, I've had really bad female employees." I should also be clear that I'm not defending her decision to no longer hire women. That's also a poor conclusion to make from her observations. If the overall point here is, "she should be thinking harder about how to create an environment in which women can thrive", then I agree. Edit: it occurs to me that I may have misunderstood "I think this anonymous blogger should evaluate her hiring practices." I was taking that to mean, "you've ended up with bad women because you suck at hiring, and if you fix that, you'll have good female employees" But rereading your responses, it sounds like you might have just been saying, "you shouldn't be adding this ban on hiring women". If so, then probably this whole discussion has been a frustrating miscommunication.

mediaman 12y ago

You're right, it is hard, at least for me it is. But I think how a manager reacts to errors made in the hiring process is important. I try to be introspective, and evaluate how we could have better identified that potential issue preemptively, and adapt our process for the future. But I don't think that banning some incredibly broad demographic that includes 51% of the applicant pool is a sign that someone is really taking time to think about and fine tune the hiring process. I mean, I accidentally hire some people with drama issues, so my conclusion is don't ever hire women? That's the best process change I can think of? Not asking about conflict resolution experiences, or maybe a teamwork test, but just ban an entire gender? I just don't see how a good hiring process can come out of that kind of thinking. What if then you hire some men who don't communicate as well as they should -- then do we ban all men as well? Basically, I think hiring is hard and so process based on simplistic rules of gender or skin color or whatever don't usually work well, and besides begin illegal in the US they're also usually a sign of a process that hasn't really been thought out. By the way -- I re-read your comment, and if I understand it correctly it seems that your stance is because I've made hiring mistakes (even if they are subsequently and promptly corrected) that I should have no credibility to comment on this blogger's hiring process of banning women. I guess it's your prerogative to have that standard -- only those who haven't made any mistakes have credibility -- but, if we assume that anyone who's done a lot of hiring has made mistakes, the only people with credibility in your eyes are those who have done little to no hiring. Personally I wouldn't find that approach useful.

icambron 12y ago
> it seems that your stance is because I've made hiring mistakes (even if they are subsequently and promptly corrected) that I should have no credibility to comment on this blogger's hiring process of banning women Not at all. I've certainly made significant hiring mistakes and yet I have all sorts of opinions on hiring process. I'm only saying it seems like you would be less inclined to believe the fault must all be hers if your hiring process (which I'm assuming you put real energy into optimizing) also ends up giving you actual criminals sometimes. I'm not criticizing your criticism of her ban; I'm criticizing your diagnosis of hiring as the source issue. I don't doubt that it's in at least some part her fault and I completely understand the impulse to write it all off as that (for example, it also does not jive at all with my experiences in working with women, who have always been super professional towards me), but it's hard to see how one could really come to that conclusions about her hiring process without knowing her, the nature of her business, how she treats women, the pool of candidates she has available, and--possibly most importantly--almost anything about her hiring process. Maybe she's an idiot, maybe she had bad luck, maybe she has jobs for which women, for unspecified reasons, aren't well suited for, maybe she has a terrible work environment, maybe her male hires are weird in a way that skews her view of things, or maybe she's even right, or whatever. I just don't see how you can conclude much about hiring practice from "Wow, I've had really bad female employees." I should also be clear that I'm not defending her decision to no longer hire women. That's also a poor conclusion to make from her observations. If the overall point here is, "she should be thinking harder about how to create an environment in which women can thrive", then I agree. Edit: it occurs to me that I may have misunderstood "I think this anonymous blogger should evaluate her hiring practices." I was taking that to mean, "you've ended up with bad women because you suck at hiring, and if you fix that, you'll have good female employees" But rereading your responses, it sounds like you might have just been saying, "you shouldn't be adding this ban on hiring women". If so, then probably this whole discussion has been a frustrating miscommunication.