Ask HN: Does “diversity hiring” lower the bar for certain groups?
Hi HN,
Diversity seems to be a hot topic recently (e.g., see http://bit.ly/1n8Y8A9). Just curious, will companies have incentives to lower the bar of hiring for certain group of people to optimize their diversity statistics? If you are in hiring committee, what's your company's policy on this topic?
14 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 34.2 ms ] threadThere are complex social and psychological reasons why people choose to work in particular fields - I oppose the idea of using marketing to steer people into choosing careers which they have no natural interest in.
People spend most of their lives working - It's cruel for companies to manipulate them into lifelong commitments that they never really wanted.
The past dictates the present, exposures dictate the future. A kid from the slums might have a "natural" interest in what they see day in and day out. However, they could be gifted in other areas and don't find out until they're exposed to it.
Relying on "natural" interest is a way of instantly labeling people via statistics. Job incentives get people to learn about trades, money keeps them loyal to that trade/company. That's why university students change their majors so often - they grow, see better outcomes in other fields and follow the one that's more beneficial for the future they envision.
A natural deposition helps you excel but that's about it.
In total to think about Diversity:
Companies are living organisms and in order to ensure survival you must diversify. If you've lived in a vacuum your entire live and you encounter a common cold virus, you're going to go through hell to survive it. Your body has no experience dealing with it and it's thrown off course. Think natives and small pox from Europeans - Complete Die Off.
As companies diversify, they become immune to cultural shifts and are more prepared to grow and thrive in all situations. They don't make blunders in ignorance, they handle their customers better and they grow stronger because of support and loyalty cultivated in various groups or people - Think Coke. One group of people get mad, they have 50 more who support them.
This is an assumption on the part of the privileged group.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/10/12/silicon-valley...
No.
1. Candidates are not stupid neither are companies - trying to fill "quotas" is both wasteful and does not have a good ROI.
2. The assumption that the reason companies are not diverse is because one group of individuals is more skilled is wrong.
Diversity is not about hiring one group over another. It is about limiting and highlighting the explicit and implicit biases that exist in every organization and working to resolve them.
This can be done, for example, by making sure job ads have gender neutral language - so many do not, which turns off female candidates - which is why they are not very diverse.
When you run a job ad don't talk about how you all go to the beach every Wednesday and then say you're looking for a close cultural fit. This probably discriminates against people in wheelchairs (and probably several other groups).
When you run a job ad don't have a photo of your team (all male, all age 18 to 26) and then talk about cultural fit.
Mentioning "cultural fit" is sometimes a huge fucking flag that you're doing something wrong.
As an aside: "do we have to employ dumb people so our company has more black or female or disabled employees?" is a remarkably offensive thing to say. It's pretty close to what you're asking.
• Sex and gender identity; sexuality
• age
• race
• religion
• disability
• parenting status
and others.
You also asked about lowering the bar to employ these people - the clear implication being that a worker with a protected characteristic is of a lower standard than a worker without a protected characteristic. You might want to add a clarification if that's not what you meant.
I do agree with the cultural fit part though. It's subjective and easy to manipulate to what direction as convenient to the company.
Talk about "dumb", I don't think sane companies will ever hire anybody who they considered as "dumb", because it's counter-productive. However, it's possible that a certain group have a slightly lower bar. They are still good, but just not as selective as their counter part. As long as it's good for the company's public image, morale, etc, they might want to make this trade-off.
Does this policy not uncommon in the industry? -- Is essentially my question. Please note that this doesn't necessarily mean that certain group(s) are superior/inferior then the other group(s). This simply means the general public confused the population as general population, instead of number of candidates. So that companies might want to skew the graph a bit to make it composed more like general population to please general public, media, whatever.
Everythin you write makes me think that you're saying that diversity means a company has to lower the bar; and that they get other benefits for doing that - public image is one example you give.
The only possible conclusion to draw from that is that yu're saying people with a protected characteristic are not as "good" as the general population.
His question is regarding so-called "affirmative action" or quota-like initiatives in companies, where those with a protected status are given a preference in hiring purely based on their protected status. That's what he means by lowering the bar.
I don't know how many companies do this, but many people on HN (including myself) agree that such practices are unfair. I agree with sarahj's comment on the matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8431039
Creating a good environment for diversity is about noticing and eliminating biases, and trying to provide an equal playing field for all potential candidates. OP appears to be concerned that some companies will take things further than that to give "diverse" candidates an unequal advantage. That's all.
Virtually everyone has had the "bar lowered" for themselves in some way (noone is entirely self-made). So complaining when disadvantaged groups also gets it is silly.