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by alexbeloi 3408 days ago
People are known to have bias in favor of people that resemble themselves, so even if you tell them to just 'hire the best' they won't necessarily control for their biases and more so if that data isn't being collected and reviewed.

So if one wants to actually hire the best, they should measure these things, otherwise you can't correct for things like 'our Cal alum hiring manager keeps passing up a bunch of good Stanford grads' or more serious versions of that.

2 comments

Also, why NOT measure "diversity"? You don't have to act on it, but it sure would be nice to have the metrics for any later analysis. It's not hard and isn't something that takes many resources to compile.
Because if you aren't diverse enough by some arbitrary standard then you've just painted a target on your back.
It's not arbitrary. The gender and ethnic makeup of the tech industry are significantly divergent from the general population, and there is no job-performance reason for it.

It's not like it's the NBA, where you have to be a tall strong man to make the team. Anyone can program, market, manage, etc.

Fair point and spoils my enjoyment of the parent poster's provocativeness.