[nawitus]

>The premise of “We Only Hire The Best Candidates.” >The idea is not to hire women just because they're women. Hire women that are amazing at their jobs.

Okay, so should you pick a female candidate who is estimated to be 1% worse than a male candidate? That answer just sidesteps the whole question.

I think the best candidate should always be chosen, as that's fair.

EDIT: >"You need to be aiming for a 50/50 men-to-women ratio."

That's seems sexist. Since the majority of tech students and tech graduates still are male, the non-biased ratio shouldn't be 50/50.

[aristus]

Let's assume that the best candidate should always be chosen.

How certain are you that your interview process is so damned accurate that it can distinguish people within 1%? I would love to see a writeup of your methodology, and how you confirm those numbers.

[sejje]

It doesn't matter.

You choose the candidate that your process deems the best.

If it's inaccurate, so be it, it's the best measure you've (currently) got.

[flatline]

So, let's say we have a company full of awesome coders. They are all guys. This new guy would fit right in. This woman is also highly qualified. Based on our past process, by default we hire the man...I think it may warrant some adjustment to the hiring process. Many people perceive a risk in doing something different, and yet change is called for here.

There is evidence that women are less likely to blow smoke up your ass about how great they are during an interview process. Interviewing inherently favors people with certain traits that say little about their actual abilities or work ethic, and smart interviewers adjust their process based on this. Unfortunately many smaller groups do not dedicate the time or resources to squashing these biases and really hiring the best candidates.

I personally find the whole situation rather disheartening. When I started on this career path years ago I did not envision myself working solely with ego-maniacal, immature...boys, but that seems to be at the core of the developer culture in many places, and it's not just a gender thing. Don't get me wrong, in many ways I still fit this stereotype, but it's like there's nothing there as a counterweight. I've gone to a lot of interviews over the last year and at place after place, it's just dudes, dudes, and more dudes.

On the other hand, our company recently went through a hiring spree and we were actively trying to get more women candidates. There were not many that applied and none of them were even close to being marginally qualified for the position. I don't know if others have this problem too, it could be that female coders are actually in high demand by companies that appreciate some diversity, and the good ones are not on the market that often.

[dragonwriter]

If you have decent information on the reliability of your process, there is some argument that, if candidates are close enough in the results under that process that there is a very small probability that the differences are meaningful, a random selection among the candidates might be a better choice than consistently choosing the highest score -- this avoids privileging any systematic bias in the system when the differences are unlikely to be meaningful in what you are using the system as a proxy measure for.

Of course, most places don't actually have much meaningful insight into the reliability of their process so as to enable determining whether and when its outputs are actually meaningful in the first place, they adopt processes that subjectively seem right to the people adopting them, and don't do anything to validate them.

[aristus]

I was going to answer in kind. But if you truly believe there is not a problem, that everything is just fine, then I can't help you. "So be it" has led us to the situation we have now: dogmatic, unexamined assumptions and reverence for "the process".

[sejje]

I said "your process." You can make meaningful measures in whatever way suit your company. It's not some mandate handed down from the stone age.

You've taken "so be it" totally out of context, as well. My point was if your evaluations determine a best candidate, you should take that candidate.

If you are not hiring the best candidate, the evaluations need a revamping.

[KuraFire]

You operate your business like a sexist byproduct of a sexist society.

If it's a toxic misogynist culture that makes women feel unwelcome, so be it, it's the best measure you've (currently) got.

(Except for, y'know, all these suggestions, methods and proven approaches that are fantastic alternatives to being a dick.)

[sejje]

If you read my comment in context, nothing you're saying is relevant.

The context is a reply to this comment:

> Let's assume that the best candidate should always be chosen. > How certain are you that your interview process is so damned accurate...

[nawitus]

It's just a thought experiment. If the accuracy is -+n%, then lets say "2*n% worse".

[aristus]

Sure, hire the best. But first you have to recognize that N is probably larger (and less replicable!) than you think. Also, that there is more than one "N". Job interviewing is not a 100-yard dash with only one metric.

[nawitus]

The metric should be composed of several factors.

[bellerocky]

> I think the best candidate should always be chosen, as that's fair.

I'm not saying that companies shouldn't hire the "best" candidate, where "best" has some vague, unclear and subjective definition. But whatever best may mean, I doubt it is "fair" unless inherited wealth and traits also fits into your definition of "fair". Question of "fair" totally sidesteps the bigger problems. I think what this post states is that not having a monoculture may have a greater benefit than hiring a subjectively "best" engineer.

As an anecdote as an example of larger issues of fair being a weird thing to think about, I have an example. I have a 6 year old daughter in chess class. All last semester she's been too shy to raise her hand to answer chess questions from the male chess teacher. He's a great teacher, great with kids but I noticed he predominately encourages the boys to answer his questions, and sure enough when I finally convinced my daughter to raise her hand on the last day of class he totally never picked her.

She was raising her hand for almost every question and this teacher sometimes even ignores the hands up and asks the same boy he's been asking all day, even though that kid didn't have his hands up, and even though this kid sometimes yells out answers without raising his hands even when the teacher says not to do this. My daughter was so dejected by this experience, of raising her hand, finally being ready to answer a chess class and this guy totally doesn't even see her. She was crushed, and I was too. We're still going to go to this chess class, but if this teacher doesn't change I'm going to talk to him. This is an example of why "best" and "fair" are hard. A few generation of teacher tracking encouraging boys over girls makes me sceptical that the produced "best" was fair in the first place.

[doctorfoo]

I felt exactly the same as your daughter as a kid, and I'm a guy. The cause was the shyness, not gender.

>even though this kid sometimes yells out answers without raising his hands even when the teacher says not to do this

Seems like the problem there is extroversion vs introversion. Less sensitive vs sensitive. Something I can totally relate to.

[bellerocky]

Well I've suggested to my daughter to start yelling out answers too even though it's not allowed to start getting attention if she doesn't get picked and if she gets in trouble she should say she never gets picked.

[nawitus]

If you factor out all 'external factors', then everyone is equal and all hires should be random. I wouldn't personally go to a randomly chosen doctor, though.

[pervycreeper]

A child doesn't get picked once, and that's evidence of institutionalized bias?

[bellerocky]

As I said, it's simply an anecdote of teacher tracking, and you've mischaracterized what I've said. I've noticed all semester long he's been ignoring girls trying to participate, and on the last day my daughter raised her hand the entire class, not just once. Still, as I said, it's an anecdote, not statistically significant, but if you want statistical evidence, teacher tracking is a real and widely known problem with lots of studies and policy discussions.

[oddevan]

A child doesn't get picked for an entire class and loses out to a student that doesn't have his hand raised. Sounds like bias to me.

[sp332]

What bellerocky described is institutionalized bias. It only takes one incident like that to discourage someone.

[pervycreeper]

>What bellerocky described is institutionalized bias.

No, it's confirmation bias, not to mention sampling, and entitlement complexes.

[sp332]

Entitlement, sure. But the boy's entitlement was confirmed while the girl's wasn't.

[pervycreeper]

The parent's entitlement.