We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical interviews

Re:We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical int... by phasmantistes on Wednesday June 29, 2016 @05:53PM (#12005106)

Yes, you're absolutely right. But that's also a terrible excuse: "Oh, the problem is before the candidates reach me, so there's no need for me to do anything to fix the problem myself." Everyone at all stages -- from folks who bully nerds in primary school, to toymakers who promote scientific fields as 'for boys', to college admissions offices, to CS professors, to CS classmates, to hiring processes -- can work together to remove bias everywhere. Just because you think the problem is someone else's fault doesn't mean you can't help solve it.

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Re:We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical int... by hueving on Wednesday June 29, 2016 @07:30PM (#12005617)

There is nothing you can do that isn't blatant sexism if you want your ratio of female employees to be higher than the candidate pool ratio.

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Re:We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical int... by phasmantistes on Thursday June 30, 2016 @03:57PM (#12011211)

This is demonstrably not true. Suppose I have a pool of 100 candidates, 20% of whom are female. Suppose further that 10% of the pool (8 men, 2 women) meets my "bar", and are therefore people that I want to have in my company. But finally suppose that I only have budget for 2 people, not 10.

By your logic, I should hire 2 men, because dividing that candidate pool in half leaves the women at "less than half of a person". Equivalently, I should leave it up to a coin flip, which has an expected value of E(two men).

But why? Since we have already established that the candidates are in all other respects equal, why shouldn't I choose the candidates that I think will do my company the most good: bring in the most diverse perspectives, life experiences, and skill sets?

Of course it is a simplified example. And maybe you think that expressing an interest in diversity in this fashion is "reverse sexism". But I think it is a clear win for my company, a clear win for women everywhere, and I don't care if it isn't a clear win for men -- we win often enough anyway.

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Re:We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical int... by philh on Friday July 01, 2016 @05:47AM (#12014829)

> Since we have already established that the candidates are in all other respects equal

No we haven't. We've established that the candidates are all people you want to hire. That doesn't mean you have no preference between them. It would be really weird if ten candidates all seemed equally competent.

And if you can rank them, ~2% of the time there'll be two women at the top, ~36% of the time there'll be a man and a woman, and the rest of the time there'll be two men.

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Re:We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical int... by Tyr42 on Thursday June 30, 2016 @02:04AM (#12006876)

I agree, mostly. I do not condone lowering the bar for just one gender. But maybe it's possible to target some advertising for your opening to get a larger number of female applicants? If you're applicant pool is skewed towards male, perhaps there's something about how you advertise that biases it?

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Re:We built voice modulation to mask gender in technical int... by phasmantistes on Thursday June 30, 2016 @03:59PM (#12011219)

Because this is a thing I feel strongly about, I'd just like to say: As long as you have more qualified candidates than you have seats to fill, you don't have to lower the bar to increase diversity.

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