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> but making an assumption that someone does not have skills based on their race, gender, sexual preference, or credentials is where he takes issue. This is an

by nmrm2 11y ago

> but making an assumption that someone does not have skills based on their race, gender, sexual preference, or credentials is where he takes issue. This is answered entirely in my original post. Adequately testing for the presence of skills might take weeks or months of testing, which is a prohibitive cost. Fortunately, a huge portion of the potential employees I have to interview already took those tests throughout their coursework, and I can pretty well trust the quality of the tests they took based on the institution they went to (unlike SAT/credential/GRE-style tests, which are too easy to game). Why should I blow thousands of dollars in my time testing the others? How is that fair to me? And why would I assume someone who never took a math course after highschool is going to be able to work on my linear-algebra-heavy software library? Also, lopping university degrees and other credentials into a list of protected classes is insulting. A degree is something that is earned and requires time and effort on the part of the student. It's expensive sometimes, but it's also a lot of work (assuming it's a good university)

randomdata 11y ago
> Adequately testing for the presence of skills might take weeks or months of testing So it is not trivial to test for the presence of a CS degree? I'm left confused as this contradicts your earlier post. > A degree is something that is earned and requires time and effort on the part of the student. On the flip side, is it not insulting to someone who put in that time and effort via non-traditional means to be passed over because you metaphorically "didn't like the color of their skin"?
- nmrm2 11y ago
  > So it is not trivial to test for the presence of a CS degree? It is trivial to test for the presence of a CS degree. The bulk of a CS degree can be a necessary but not sufficient qualification for a job. Testing for just the extra stuff is far easier than testing for everything. This isn't rocket science. (And no, discriminating based on credentials is not tantamount to racism. I would have hopes the problems with this analogy were fairly obvious...)
  - randomdata 11y ago
    I'm sure I'm just misunderstanding you, but the logic doesn't seem to follow. If you can trivially test for a CS degree then you already have all the other testing that comes with a CS degree by association. Why would you take weeks or months to test everything in a CS degree when you already know a CS degree is present via your trivial test? > And no, discriminating based on credentials is not tantamount to racism. You are, however, judging someone's abilities on their outward appearance even though in our hypothetical situation the person is equally skilled as anyone else. It may not be racism exactly, but still morally wrong for many reasons. That should be fairly obvious.
    - nmrm2 11y ago
      @randomdata -- "trivial" isn't "free". The test I proposed adds an extra hour of in-person interview time per candidate, and also substantially increases the number of viable candidates. > It may not be racism exactly, but still morally wrong for many reasons. That should be fairly obvious. Comparing discriminating based upon whether someone did four years of audited work with racism is... a somewhat extreme position, to say the least. You may not think that college is "real work". You're welcome to your opinion. But I assure you that a university degree at many universities does require a lot of work, and that this work is difficult enough and audited well enough that it warrants consideration in hiring decisions. A degree is NOT something anyone is born with. It is something many people work very hard to earn. To put a finer point on it: is it OK to discriminate based upon prior industry experience? Because I consider a degree from a top uni better preparation "work" preparation for many jobs than X years writing web apps. Is it OK to discriminate against doctors who don't have MDs? Or am I supposed to give everyone who submits a job application the benefit of an interview, and sink my business in the process?
      - randomdata 11y ago
        > A degree is NOT something anyone is born with. It is something many people work very hard to earn. But, again, you are automatically discounting everyone who worked equally hard to acquire their skills just because they don't have the right piece of paper. That is exactly the same as rejecting a female candidate on the assumption that because she is female, she probably doesn't have the necessary skills – and statistically speaking, in this case you'd be right – the number of female CS graduates is significantly lower than men. So, if you're just playing the numbers game like you suggested at the beginning of your post, then why not reject all women?

by nmrm2 11y ago

randomdata 11y ago

> Adequately testing for the presence of skills might take weeks or months of testing So it is not trivial to test for the presence of a CS degree? I'm left confused as this contradicts your earlier post. > A degree is something that is earned and requires time and effort on the part of the student. On the flip side, is it not insulting to someone who put in that time and effort via non-traditional means to be passed over because you metaphorically "didn't like the color of their skin"?

nmrm2 11y ago
> So it is not trivial to test for the presence of a CS degree? It is trivial to test for the presence of a CS degree. The bulk of a CS degree can be a necessary but not sufficient qualification for a job. Testing for just the extra stuff is far easier than testing for everything. This isn't rocket science. (And no, discriminating based on credentials is not tantamount to racism. I would have hopes the problems with this analogy were fairly obvious...)
- randomdata 11y ago
  I'm sure I'm just misunderstanding you, but the logic doesn't seem to follow. If you can trivially test for a CS degree then you already have all the other testing that comes with a CS degree by association. Why would you take weeks or months to test everything in a CS degree when you already know a CS degree is present via your trivial test? > And no, discriminating based on credentials is not tantamount to racism. You are, however, judging someone's abilities on their outward appearance even though in our hypothetical situation the person is equally skilled as anyone else. It may not be racism exactly, but still morally wrong for many reasons. That should be fairly obvious.
  - nmrm2 11y ago
    @randomdata -- "trivial" isn't "free". The test I proposed adds an extra hour of in-person interview time per candidate, and also substantially increases the number of viable candidates. > It may not be racism exactly, but still morally wrong for many reasons. That should be fairly obvious. Comparing discriminating based upon whether someone did four years of audited work with racism is... a somewhat extreme position, to say the least. You may not think that college is "real work". You're welcome to your opinion. But I assure you that a university degree at many universities does require a lot of work, and that this work is difficult enough and audited well enough that it warrants consideration in hiring decisions. A degree is NOT something anyone is born with. It is something many people work very hard to earn. To put a finer point on it: is it OK to discriminate based upon prior industry experience? Because I consider a degree from a top uni better preparation "work" preparation for many jobs than X years writing web apps. Is it OK to discriminate against doctors who don't have MDs? Or am I supposed to give everyone who submits a job application the benefit of an interview, and sink my business in the process?
    - randomdata 11y ago
      > A degree is NOT something anyone is born with. It is something many people work very hard to earn. But, again, you are automatically discounting everyone who worked equally hard to acquire their skills just because they don't have the right piece of paper. That is exactly the same as rejecting a female candidate on the assumption that because she is female, she probably doesn't have the necessary skills – and statistically speaking, in this case you'd be right – the number of female CS graduates is significantly lower than men. So, if you're just playing the numbers game like you suggested at the beginning of your post, then why not reject all women?