9 ms·

Someone should build an job search/interview site that gives "blind" interviews: scrubs candidates (application materials, resumes, etc.) of gender, race, age,

Someone should build an job search/interview site that gives "blind" interviews: scrubs candidates (application materials, resumes, etc.) of gender, race, age, etc. You might not be able to blind the whole process, but you could blind the preliminary steps. Even that would probably effect the composition of the final selections, as it did here.

adamwong246 12y ago
I had a similar idea: "Meritaco- a double-blind git middleman that hides identifying information from pull requests."
picks_at_nits 12y ago
A similar thing has been done many times by submitting the same resumé with male and females names, or with names statistically more likely to be white and names statistically more likely to be a person of colour, with different ages, and so forth. Every time they run a test like that, they discover that who you appear to be matters more than your objective experience.
- swatow 12y ago
  I know these studies are common (probably because they are easy to conduct) but they don't measure the intrinsic bias of the interviewer. What they measure is a combination of the intrinsic bias of the interviewer, and the statistical inference that the interviewer does based on race/gender (statistical discrimination). Because a resume is a noisy signal, it is still possible that race/gender contains extra information even after you have seen the resume. For example, suppose people tend to exaggerate, and this exaggeration introduces some randomness. Given the signal "lead some impressive project", there is some probability that the person didn't really lead the project. Now if the probability of exaggerating is the same, but a Black person or woman was less likely to have lead the project a priori, then even after observing the resume that claims to have lead the project, the a posteriori probability of having lead the project is lower for the Black person or woman.
  - airza 12y ago
    how do you not understand that "statistical discrimination" is a subtype of "intrinsic bias"?
    - swatow 12y ago
      Many people, perhaps not you, are interested in distinguishing between discrimination based on Bayesian inference, and discrimination that isn't, and is instead, for example, based on incorrect views or inherent dislike of certain groups. You might say that both are equally bad. I suspect that if you were given the opportunity to argue that a particular form of discrimination is not justified by Bayesian inference, you would do so. It's only because I'm suggesting that it's possible discrimination is justified by Bayesian inference, that you are (rudely) objecting to the distinction.
  - domdip 12y ago
    You say Bayesian inference, I say bigotry.
    - drpgq 12y ago
      I think unfortunately Bayesian inference often does mean bigotry. And bigots aren't necessarily always wrong.
      - mercer 12y ago
        I think what would really help these kinds of discussions is to first agree on whether we're discussion a 'should' or an 'is'. In the latter case, there are many conclusions one can draw that are considered racist, misogynist, or discriminatory in any other way. And this knowledge can be valuable for study, or other ways. In the former case, however, all of that doesn't necessarily matter, partly because we assume the reasons for things being as they are, are a result of unfair processes, and partly because we prefer to give the individual the benefit of the doubt over trusting on the statistics that would put this individual in a group that he might not really be part of. I often feel that both types of discussions are significantly harmed by conflating the two.
- cottonseed 12y ago
  I'm aware of those experiments. I'm not talking about an experiment. I'm talking about an actual online job interview service ... I'm not sure if there is anything analogous now, basically the next step after a LinkedIn or monster.com, that blinds as much of the interview process as possible to minimize these biases.
phinkle 12y ago
One problem I have with this is that technical interviews are not as straightforward as orchestra auditions. Technical interviews are already argued about frequently and some important qualities in a candidate (culture fit, how easy they are to work with, how they handle pressure, etc) are hard to determine through a blind interview. As you said, there would have to be non-blind interviews anyway. I know many companies already have preliminary online coding problems, but once the candidate gets to the meaty in-person or phone interviews, we are right back where we started. Additionally, many of the standard algorithmic questions are similar to UIL and ICPC questions which are dominated by males for various reasons. Even if we could have completely blind interviews, I don't think that a significantly higher percentage of women would get the job because of larger problems in the tech industry like convincing minorities to join clubs like UIL and ICPC or enter the tech industry in the first place. That being said, I still think this is an interesting idea. I would definitely like to go through a blind phone interview to see if the interviewer treats me differently. Bring on the voice changer.
- DanBC 12y ago
  "Culture fit" is a bafflingly backward bit of bigotry hiding in plain site. "Culture fit" allows companies to discriminate against a wide range of characteristics. I'm amazed any company thinks it's acceptable to include culture fit as part of the recruitment process. (Although I'll grudgingly accept it might be part of non-retention).
  - learc83 12y ago
    It seems "Culture fit" often just means young and willing to put in extra hours in exchange for foosball, snacks, and team building at the local bar.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      Yes, and those exclude many people some of who have protected characteristics.
patio11 12y ago
Thomas, Erin, and I are working on it. (It's a collateral goal of Starfighter.)
aptwebapps 12y ago
I wonder if Starfighter can do something like that. At some point they're going to have to give real info to their clients but they could mask these details as long as possible.

adamwong246 12y ago

I had a similar idea: "Meritaco- a double-blind git middleman that hides identifying information from pull requests."

picks_at_nits 12y ago

A similar thing has been done many times by submitting the same resumé with male and females names, or with names statistically more likely to be white and names statistically more likely to be a person of colour, with different ages, and so forth. Every time they run a test like that, they discover that who you appear to be matters more than your objective experience.

swatow 12y ago
I know these studies are common (probably because they are easy to conduct) but they don't measure the intrinsic bias of the interviewer. What they measure is a combination of the intrinsic bias of the interviewer, and the statistical inference that the interviewer does based on race/gender (statistical discrimination). Because a resume is a noisy signal, it is still possible that race/gender contains extra information even after you have seen the resume. For example, suppose people tend to exaggerate, and this exaggeration introduces some randomness. Given the signal "lead some impressive project", there is some probability that the person didn't really lead the project. Now if the probability of exaggerating is the same, but a Black person or woman was less likely to have lead the project a priori, then even after observing the resume that claims to have lead the project, the a posteriori probability of having lead the project is lower for the Black person or woman.
- airza 12y ago
  how do you not understand that "statistical discrimination" is a subtype of "intrinsic bias"?
  - swatow 12y ago
    Many people, perhaps not you, are interested in distinguishing between discrimination based on Bayesian inference, and discrimination that isn't, and is instead, for example, based on incorrect views or inherent dislike of certain groups. You might say that both are equally bad. I suspect that if you were given the opportunity to argue that a particular form of discrimination is not justified by Bayesian inference, you would do so. It's only because I'm suggesting that it's possible discrimination is justified by Bayesian inference, that you are (rudely) objecting to the distinction.
- domdip 12y ago
  You say Bayesian inference, I say bigotry.
  - drpgq 12y ago
    I think unfortunately Bayesian inference often does mean bigotry. And bigots aren't necessarily always wrong.
    - mercer 12y ago
      I think what would really help these kinds of discussions is to first agree on whether we're discussion a 'should' or an 'is'. In the latter case, there are many conclusions one can draw that are considered racist, misogynist, or discriminatory in any other way. And this knowledge can be valuable for study, or other ways. In the former case, however, all of that doesn't necessarily matter, partly because we assume the reasons for things being as they are, are a result of unfair processes, and partly because we prefer to give the individual the benefit of the doubt over trusting on the statistics that would put this individual in a group that he might not really be part of. I often feel that both types of discussions are significantly harmed by conflating the two.
cottonseed 12y ago
I'm aware of those experiments. I'm not talking about an experiment. I'm talking about an actual online job interview service ... I'm not sure if there is anything analogous now, basically the next step after a LinkedIn or monster.com, that blinds as much of the interview process as possible to minimize these biases.

phinkle 12y ago

One problem I have with this is that technical interviews are not as straightforward as orchestra auditions. Technical interviews are already argued about frequently and some important qualities in a candidate (culture fit, how easy they are to work with, how they handle pressure, etc) are hard to determine through a blind interview. As you said, there would have to be non-blind interviews anyway. I know many companies already have preliminary online coding problems, but once the candidate gets to the meaty in-person or phone interviews, we are right back where we started. Additionally, many of the standard algorithmic questions are similar to UIL and ICPC questions which are dominated by males for various reasons. Even if we could have completely blind interviews, I don't think that a significantly higher percentage of women would get the job because of larger problems in the tech industry like convincing minorities to join clubs like UIL and ICPC or enter the tech industry in the first place. That being said, I still think this is an interesting idea. I would definitely like to go through a blind phone interview to see if the interviewer treats me differently. Bring on the voice changer.

DanBC 12y ago
"Culture fit" is a bafflingly backward bit of bigotry hiding in plain site. "Culture fit" allows companies to discriminate against a wide range of characteristics. I'm amazed any company thinks it's acceptable to include culture fit as part of the recruitment process. (Although I'll grudgingly accept it might be part of non-retention).
- learc83 12y ago
  It seems "Culture fit" often just means young and willing to put in extra hours in exchange for foosball, snacks, and team building at the local bar.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Yes, and those exclude many people some of who have protected characteristics.

patio11 12y ago

Thomas, Erin, and I are working on it. (It's a collateral goal of Starfighter.)

aptwebapps 12y ago

I wonder if Starfighter can do something like that. At some point they're going to have to give real info to their clients but they could mask these details as long as possible.