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I don't think kazinator is wrong about this. And yes I take the commenters point below that they take hiring very seriously. Study after study shows that peop

I don't think kazinator is wrong about this. And yes I take the commenters point below that they take hiring very seriously. Study after study shows that people are much less objective than they think. And that they have an impression that they rationalize. I have seen people be very strongly influenced negatively or positively by a word or phrase on the resume that in the scheme of things wasn't that important. I am sure I do the same thing, but I am not aware of it.

courtf 12y ago
Agree with this. No amount of formality and forced stoicism is going to eliminate the myriad biases that creep into every minute action and decision we all make every day. Hiring is a notorious minefield where believing in your own impartiality merely demonstrates a lack of self-awareness, or worse.
- yarou 12y ago
  I cannot upvote your comment ( and the parent ) enough. If the labor market in tech was a perfectly competitive market where all parties had perfect information, hiring would be a lot more straightforward. However, as you state, cognitive biases and lack of rationality on both the supply and demand side muddy the waters.
  - mc32 12y ago
    I agree to some extent that we all have biases and that the reason given for a turn down might be individual and idiosyncratic; however, if you're getting similar feedback from different interviews, then one might want to reassess things. So, yes, individually maybe they're not valuable, but in multiplicity they can become meaningful.
  - yaddayadda 12y ago
    Many orchestras have found a fairly simple solution to the problem - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22blind+auditions%22+hiring+musicians+bias https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22blind+auditions%22+hiring+music... I'd hope to have a similar 'audition' approach that included not only basic programming skills but also –and as a junior level programmer, more importantly– learning skills. For example, commenting or debugging internal framework code (something that all interviewees are experiencing for the first time). In regard to the linked article's approach - I couldn't afford to take three weeks off of my current job, to learn a new language, even if the training gave me a slim chance of a new job (I still have bills to pay). That said, I do think wish there were more apprenticeship type approaches for junior devs.
    - waylandsmithers 12y ago
      That would be pretty cool-- and although software development is meritocratic, it's not as meritocratic as those orchestras, right?. They simply want the best musicians PERIOD, whereas lots of software companies would probably hesitate to hire someone with a lot of talent but a toxic attitude.
      - yaddayadda 12y ago
        Unfortunately I'm in bind with first impressions. By nature, I'm a massive introvert, which has always caused me problems. But I'm also coming from a toxic workplace environment (our boss regularly berates employees in front of other employees, to include profanity and yelling loud enough to be clearly understood through multiple walls, and he's been know to literally rip doors off their hinges, just because he's mad at the world). In the handful of interviews I've been on, I've tried to focus on the positives of potential new jobs, instead of the negatives of my current job, but I always seem to slip up and mention something about the toxic nature of my current position. The combination of these two factors means I have a really hard time "making a good first impression". I recently completed a programming bootcamp and when I explained this to several of my classmates they made a point of highlighting what a great programmer I am (relatively to our peers) and that I'm a really great person to work with "once people get to know me". But, there's the crux of the matter for me - in an interview situation, if I'm ruled out in the first 30 seconds then nobody "gets to know me" or my programming potential. To add to the irony, about 2/3rds of my current co-workers know that I'm looking for a job and they regularly make comments to me about how much they don't want me to go, followed by comments about understanding my need to work in a less toxic environment.
        brianwawok 12y ago
        So get better at being a fake extrovert for 90 seconds. Programmers as a class of people are shy and awkward. Not hard to be not the shyest and awkwardest around.
        AnonJ 12y ago
  - davidgerard 12y ago
    And the fundamental game theory of the interview processes: all the incentives for both players are to lie, lie, lie.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
benihana 12y ago
They're not wrong in that people often rationalize their 'instinctual' choices, but to imply that nobody is cognizant of any of their thoughts or biases and that we're all slaves to our lizard brains is a bit of a stretch.
- UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
  There is a TON of data out there demonstrating we all have subconscious bias. Moreso than we believe. Even of our own groups! We are slaves to our brain! This is a good summary of some of the data: http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/26/us/ferguson-racism-or-racial-bias/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/26/us/ferguson-racism-or-racial-b... Professors at the University of Chicago and MIT sent 5,000 fictitious resumes in response to 1,300 help wanted ads. Each resume listed identical qualifications except for one variation -- some applicants had Anglo-sounding names such as "Brendan," while others had black-sounding names such as "Jamal." Applicants with Anglo-sounding names were 50% more likely to get calls for interviews than their black-sounding counterparts. Most of the people who didn't call "Jamal" were probably unaware that their decision was motivated by racial bias, says Daniel L. Ames, a UCLA researcher who has studied and written about bias. "If you ask someone on the hiring committee, none of them are going to say they're racially biased," Ames says. "They're not lying. They're just wrong."
  - orbitur 12y ago
    That's not a very relevant study, since you (and Ames) are just guessing at the motive. Many people are consciously racist, not in a "I want them all lynched" way, but in a "meh, I'd rather not meet with a black guy, probably a waste of time" way. Of course they aren't going to admit that sort of bias. And again, you're just guessing at what happened. There is indeed subconscious bias, and it rears its ugly head when we're observing people's mannerisms, their speech, their attractiveness, and yes, their skin color. But just looking at names on a resume, I'd argue the decision of calling someone back, based on the stereotypical application of their first name, is just a conscious bias.
    - UrMomReadsHN 12y ago

courtf 12y ago

Agree with this. No amount of formality and forced stoicism is going to eliminate the myriad biases that creep into every minute action and decision we all make every day. Hiring is a notorious minefield where believing in your own impartiality merely demonstrates a lack of self-awareness, or worse.

yarou 12y ago
I cannot upvote your comment ( and the parent ) enough. If the labor market in tech was a perfectly competitive market where all parties had perfect information, hiring would be a lot more straightforward. However, as you state, cognitive biases and lack of rationality on both the supply and demand side muddy the waters.
- mc32 12y ago
  I agree to some extent that we all have biases and that the reason given for a turn down might be individual and idiosyncratic; however, if you're getting similar feedback from different interviews, then one might want to reassess things. So, yes, individually maybe they're not valuable, but in multiplicity they can become meaningful.
- yaddayadda 12y ago
  Many orchestras have found a fairly simple solution to the problem - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22blind+auditions%22+hiring+musicians+bias https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22blind+auditions%22+hiring+music... I'd hope to have a similar 'audition' approach that included not only basic programming skills but also –and as a junior level programmer, more importantly– learning skills. For example, commenting or debugging internal framework code (something that all interviewees are experiencing for the first time). In regard to the linked article's approach - I couldn't afford to take three weeks off of my current job, to learn a new language, even if the training gave me a slim chance of a new job (I still have bills to pay). That said, I do think wish there were more apprenticeship type approaches for junior devs.
  - waylandsmithers 12y ago
    That would be pretty cool-- and although software development is meritocratic, it's not as meritocratic as those orchestras, right?. They simply want the best musicians PERIOD, whereas lots of software companies would probably hesitate to hire someone with a lot of talent but a toxic attitude.
    - yaddayadda 12y ago
      Unfortunately I'm in bind with first impressions. By nature, I'm a massive introvert, which has always caused me problems. But I'm also coming from a toxic workplace environment (our boss regularly berates employees in front of other employees, to include profanity and yelling loud enough to be clearly understood through multiple walls, and he's been know to literally rip doors off their hinges, just because he's mad at the world). In the handful of interviews I've been on, I've tried to focus on the positives of potential new jobs, instead of the negatives of my current job, but I always seem to slip up and mention something about the toxic nature of my current position. The combination of these two factors means I have a really hard time "making a good first impression". I recently completed a programming bootcamp and when I explained this to several of my classmates they made a point of highlighting what a great programmer I am (relatively to our peers) and that I'm a really great person to work with "once people get to know me". But, there's the crux of the matter for me - in an interview situation, if I'm ruled out in the first 30 seconds then nobody "gets to know me" or my programming potential. To add to the irony, about 2/3rds of my current co-workers know that I'm looking for a job and they regularly make comments to me about how much they don't want me to go, followed by comments about understanding my need to work in a less toxic environment.
      - brianwawok 12y ago
        So get better at being a fake extrovert for 90 seconds. Programmers as a class of people are shy and awkward. Not hard to be not the shyest and awkwardest around.
        AnonJ 12y ago
- davidgerard 12y ago
  And the fundamental game theory of the interview processes: all the incentives for both players are to lie, lie, lie.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

benihana 12y ago

They're not wrong in that people often rationalize their 'instinctual' choices, but to imply that nobody is cognizant of any of their thoughts or biases and that we're all slaves to our lizard brains is a bit of a stretch.

UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
There is a TON of data out there demonstrating we all have subconscious bias. Moreso than we believe. Even of our own groups! We are slaves to our brain! This is a good summary of some of the data: http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/26/us/ferguson-racism-or-racial-bias/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/26/us/ferguson-racism-or-racial-b... Professors at the University of Chicago and MIT sent 5,000 fictitious resumes in response to 1,300 help wanted ads. Each resume listed identical qualifications except for one variation -- some applicants had Anglo-sounding names such as "Brendan," while others had black-sounding names such as "Jamal." Applicants with Anglo-sounding names were 50% more likely to get calls for interviews than their black-sounding counterparts. Most of the people who didn't call "Jamal" were probably unaware that their decision was motivated by racial bias, says Daniel L. Ames, a UCLA researcher who has studied and written about bias. "If you ask someone on the hiring committee, none of them are going to say they're racially biased," Ames says. "They're not lying. They're just wrong."
- orbitur 12y ago
  That's not a very relevant study, since you (and Ames) are just guessing at the motive. Many people are consciously racist, not in a "I want them all lynched" way, but in a "meh, I'd rather not meet with a black guy, probably a waste of time" way. Of course they aren't going to admit that sort of bias. And again, you're just guessing at what happened. There is indeed subconscious bias, and it rears its ugly head when we're observing people's mannerisms, their speech, their attractiveness, and yes, their skin color. But just looking at names on a resume, I'd argue the decision of calling someone back, based on the stereotypical application of their first name, is just a conscious bias.
  - UrMomReadsHN 12y ago