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A comment on How my company is lowering the bar to increase diversity. Parent comment

Re:How my company is lowering the bar to increase diversity by ch4s3 on Wednesday May 04, 2016 @10:54PM (#11633700)
You're perhaps misreading me. I stated that the lack of side projects shouldn't be held against people. I think it's fine give positive weight to good, relevant side projects.

I would also argue that a person who is more deliberate about their use of fewer hours will do better than someone who is equally smart but practices less deliberately for more hours[1].

I think that imagining two fully equal candidates only differentiated by their volume of personal projects isn't a particularly useful exercise.

[1]http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...

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Re:How my company is lowering the bar to increase diversity by omonra on Friday May 06, 2016 @09:01PM (#11647819)
"I think that imagining two fully equal candidates only differentiated by their volume of personal projects isn't a particularly useful exercise."

But that's precisely the point - two candidates will not be equal if one spends 20 hours a week on personal coding projects and the other does other things (however interesting or beneficial for society at large they may be).

At the end of the day the world is not fair. The question is what outcome you (as a business owner) are looking to advance. If your primary goal is to make the best product - you will have to hire the best people. If your goal is to advance women's careers - you will have to optimize for a different set of objectives.

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