[jmromer]

The "board game interview" is a spectacularly clueless display of net-negative cultural and gender bias. Not to mention just juvenile and unprofessional (my bias, sure).

> A relatively recent demographic survey that elicited 3,427 responses among a publisher’s subscribers that found 91.7 percent of respondents were male and 8.1 percent were female.18 Another 2016 table-top gamer demographic survey of 2,397 respondents that found 24 percent of board gamers were women, 1.1 percent non binary and 0.6 percent were trans, while the remainder—74.3 percent—identify as male.19 The overwhelming majority of survey respondents were also white, with survey reporting that 2.1 percent were Chinese, 2.7 percent were Latin American, 0.6 percent were Aboriginal and 0.7 percent were Filipino.

http://analoggamestudies.org/2018/12/assessing-gender-and-ra...

[Invictus0]

I don't disagree that the board games are stupid, but to call it gender biased is ridiculous. Women and minorities are just as capable of playing board games as everyone else, even if they don't do it as regularly as men.

[jmromer]

> but to call it gender biased is ridiculous

Unlikely.

> women and minorities are just as capable of playing board games

Quite beside the point. Even leaving aside the implicit claims here that

(1) the board-game filter measures capability of playing board games rather than fluency with the social scripts involved in board-game playing, and

(2) that it does so without introducing any behavioral artifacts such that this measure would be a reliable predictor of on-the-job behavior,

the question is: What are the outcomes generated by the board-game filter? (reeeee equality of outcome)

If an assessment produces an adverse impact on groups already underrepresented in tech, at a minimum it ought to generate scrutiny.

In the case of leetcode-type hiring filters, I can suspend judgment or reach some kind of nuanced position.

In the case of using Settlers of Catan as a hiring filter, all I can do is chuckle.

That said, heterogeneity in hiring practices is a good thing. Presumably in the long run people sort themselves out and some kind of equilibrium is reached.

I look forward to experimenting with feats of strength and athletic prowess as a hiring filter in order to gauge tenacity, equanimity in the face of adversity, and general team-spiritedness.