Ask HN: Encountering implicit and explicit bias during job hunt and interviews
This is a very sensitive topic (hence the throwaway) and one I wish I did not have any first hand experience with but here we are. I recently started looking for a new job and in the process started talking to an acquaintance that happens to be a very senior person at a well known company about possibly working for them. What transpired has me in awe and disgust. This person openly admitted to hiring only from their racial and cultural background (a background I share and undoubtedly why they felt comfortable sharing this nugget with me). I should admit that my anecdotal evidence may not amount to any real indication of widespread prevalence of such behavior but this led me to wonder, are there stories like this that should come to light so that people like this can be held to account and hiring anomalies and clusters of university (opposite of diversity?) flagged/monitored by their managers or hr departments?
What I am asking is, can you could share data regarding preferential or detrimental treatment of candidates based on racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, cultural or any other basis if you have first hand knowledge or have experienced this phenomenon as a candidate.
p.s. I should probably mention that I have severed all ties with this person.
4 comments
[ 43.7 ms ] story [ 536 ms ] threadThis might not be what you hoped for but after reading this I will ask you if you have done some introspection.
Since this is my sockpuppet account I'll feel free to point out that I'm a person who have stood up for the less privileged against dumb practices and I'm really proud of actually getting my boss to hire the girl who cleaned the floor but had an it degree from another country.
But severing ties with a person over this doesn't make sense to me at all. Also, since this is a sockpuppet account and since I can't cash in my Karma points here (and wouldn't anyway to prevent self-doxxing), let me steel man your former friend:
- are you sure he wasn't exaggerating?
- are you sure you didn't provoke him into saying this?
- maybe he tried to be funny and you have just discriminated against someone who just had a bad sense of humour, - or just as likely, you didn't catch the joke?
- working with people from other cultures often has significant issues. If someone has been burned a few times, can you see why they might be careful going forward?
- does he come from a very homogeneous background? Something HN really struggles to grasp is that there are people like me who grew up in places where we didn't meet anyone who had a different skin colour, spoke another language, had another religion (there were only the official religion or atheism). Should we judge people coming from such a background equally harshly?
Finally and most importantly: do you think you will have any chance of changing your friends ideas going forward or is there a chance that you have instead made him distrust all of us who could have tried to nudge him/her?
He was specific about several instances so I don't think this was an exaggeration.
- are you sure you didn't provoke him into saying this?
Oh I hope not. I only mentioned that I was looking and he went into this rabbithole all by himself leaving me practically speechless.
- maybe he tried to be funny and you have just discriminated against someone who just had a bad sense of humour, - or just as likely, you didn't catch the joke?
See above. And personally I don't consider this form of humor acceptable in personal or professional setting so even if this were a joke, I am not okay with this.
- working with people from other cultures often has significant issues. If someone has been burned a few times, can you see why they might be careful going forward?
I don't believe in collective punishment or stereotyping. Given the anecdote you shared about yourself, I don't think you do either. And being careful about a hiring decision is everyone's right but to base your scrutiny on demographics or other factors beyond one's control is not okay.
- does he come from a very homogeneous background? Something HN really struggles to grasp is that there are people like me who grew up in places where we didn't meet anyone who had a different skin colour, spoke another language, had another religion (there were only the official religion or atheism). Should we judge people coming from such a background equally harshly?
Yes he does (so do I). And yes, we must be fair in both how we treat others and how we hold people that are not fair accountable regardless of their cultural baggage.
> Given the anecdote you shared about yourself, I don't think you do either.
Thanks for trusting me, I've long since lost count of the number of people here who immediately dismiss me and disbelieve me when I say I actually care and try to make a difference even as I argue against some of them.
For me I haven't really intentionally severed ties with anyone and I believe we are better of keeping the communication going even if there were years were I only met a certain relative of me in formal settings such as funerals for common friends/relatives as he burned through his rage agains my group.
After a few years he realized he was part of the problem. At that point it was good that I (and we) hadn't done anything against him and while he isn't part of our group anymore and maybe won't be in the future either he now behaves like a relative again and I look forward to meeting him.