[blister]

Holy Moly! The author of this paper makes a very scary argument further shifting the burden of proof onto the employers.

The problem with hiring is that there is a hugely disproportionate supply/demand ratio. We might have 1 position to fill and 100+ applicants. How can any company correctly protect themselves against allegations of illegal hiring criteria in this type of environment? Right now the best protection is to say "we hired the most qualified candidate", but even that argument is shaky. What if the most "technically qualified" candidate performed the worst in the interview process?

Hiring is scary enough already without bringing the law into the picture. :/

[ghaff]

Well, the law is already in the picture; discrimination lawsuits aren't a new thing. And it's also true that, just because you encode certain things in an algorithm (or just let an algorithm learn from existing discriminatory practices), you can't absolve your own responsibility.

There are practices for employment advertising/recruiting that certainly highlight issues in a new way. Is doing on-campus recruiting or advertising in media that targets specific young demographics illegally discriminatory? Probably not. (IANAL) Is targeting young people using Facebook algorithms OK? Dunno.

[braythwayt]

> Hiring is scary enough already without bringing the law into the picture.

This is at the root of a lot of social issues lately.

One person, let's say it's a person of colour, is afraid of not being able to get a job at all.

Another person, who is doing the hiring, is afraid of someone holding them accountable for actually hiring qualified applicants.

This is a very asymmetrical pair of concerns. But if you're doing the hiring, it feels like the worst thing in the world to have someone second-guess your decisions.

You are so busy worrying about this that you don't even consider how scary it is to look for a job, and have robots tell you that you aren't getting an offer because your diction and facial expressions don't match those of people who the company has already hired.

[maxaf]

Hiring decisions can be made defensible by openly publishing a transparent process that reveals metrics at the end for all candidates.

[Konnstann]

If the hiring process is transparent, wouldn't job seekers just figure out how to game it? Unless the process is confidential, and only comes out in lawsuits, and isn't disclosed to the public, this would only serve to further obscure the candidates who can do the job as opposed to just get hired.

[maxaf]

At FANG-style companies the decidedly non-transparent process is already well known and is gamed on a regular basis.

[Konnstann]

AFAIK the only part that is gamed is the one that is fairly transparent, the leetcode problems.

[username90]

They aren't really trying to hide it, they send you an email with a page or two full of topics and links to help you prepare for the interview. The current state where people practice for their interview is exactly what they want.

[Enginerrrd]

Yes. But that's already the case and is usually a useful screening criteria anyway. i.e. I don't actually care if you smoke pot or not. But I care whether or not you are smart enough to lie about it during an interview or job screening process, and if you can quit long enough to pass a drug test. Because that's relevant.

If you are intelligent enough to game the system into looking like you meet all of my criteria, you can probably also "game the system" into actually meeting my criteria on the job too.

[uoaei]

That would seem to have a major chilling effect on hiring practices across the board. For what it's worth, the reduced friction for companies in the hiring process, i.e., not having to explain every decision, moves the process along fast enough to keep the economy churning. I'm not sure that would be the case if all that bureaucracy were installed into the process.

[SketchySeaBeast]

I can't wait to the see the objective breakdown explaining how I scored 5 out of a possible 7 in "how much they like me".

[maxaf]

The point of a transparent process would be to make the rubric as non-subjective as possible. A "how much they like me" criterion, if it were still part of the decision, would become very obvious if/when a company selected some candidate that was not in fact "the best" according to their transparent rubric.

[SketchySeaBeast]

But how do you put team fit into a rubric. It's absolutely an element - a team of 1Xers will be more productive than a team or 10Xers who all can't stand each other. I wouldn't want to be part of a team where everyone has an excellent objective mark, but is just a bunch of jerks. What part of the objective rubric accounts for "can't play well with others"?

[maxaf]

One way is to define a set of bullet points that are representative of the team’s culture. This isn’t always easy, but is a worthwhile exercise even outside the context of hiring. Think: a localized version of the Joel Test. These values can be objective (“we strive for 100% test coverage”) and subjective (“we value communication over process”). Every candidate can be ranked relative to these values. The most important factor here is to rank every single candidate against every single value. This will most likely lead to additional questions for some candidates, such as, “tell us about a time when you found communication or process more helpful than the other, and how it made you feel”.

[braythwayt]

It's easy to frame "team fit" as "a team of 1Xers will be more productive than a team or 10Xers who all can't stand each other," but I am going to put Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" album on and say "citation needed."

Also, "team fit" is very nice when used in good faith, but all-too-often, hiring for "culture fit" or "team fit" ends up being a euphemism for "valuing a monoculture over valuing competence."

Here's HN discussing this exact subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3868873

[SketchySeaBeast]

I may have exaggerated with the values, but if we can't both agree that people who work well with each other are more productive than those who don't, I don't know what to tell you.

While it may be used poorly, it does still have value, and that's why it exists at all. If judging someone's personality and attitude wasn't important, there'd be no need for in-person interviews at all.

[check-in]

The Disparate Impact Doctrine doesn't allow adverse effects on that could cause unintentional discriminatory impact for protected class minority groups. This law exists for decades before algorithmic decision making become a fad. In case of supply/demand ratio arguments, this doctrine takes into consideration the "outcomes" relative to the input. That is, if you are able to give a reasonable explanation for your outcomes - you wouldn't be labeled illegal.

[sokoloff]

If the most qualified candidate bombed the interview, they wouldn’t get an offer this time, but probably would in the next interview when their performance reverts to their average level of competence.

[rumanator]

Some companies place rejected candidates on de facto blacklists to avoid wasting time with a recruitment process that's likely to be rejected.

This is particularly common when the hiring process is delegated to third-party HR/recruitment services, where recruiters are averse to the possibility of appearing ineffective in the eyes of their client.

[sokoloff]

That’s that company’s choice of how to conduct recruiting. Other (perhaps more competitive) companies say “you can re-apply after N months.”

I have a hard time seeing that as improperly discriminatory any more than departed employees having an “eligible for re-hire” bit set to false.

“Plenty of other fish in the sea” works both ways.

Maybe turn the question around. If someone bombed the interview, is there some additional process a company should go through to ensure they aren’t in fact the best candidate? What form might that type of inquiry take and why wouldn’t we just use that instead of the interview process for the company’s purpose in selection?