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Re:U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians by ChuckMcM on Monday September 26, 2016 @08:47PM (#12586822)
If that is the case, and the records show that, then the company is probably ok. But you have to show that all of the people you hired could pass FizzBuzz right? Google gave one of the best hiring training lectures I've ever attended on eliminating personal bias from interviewing questions. A lot of it was thinking about the question and the response and putting it in the context of someone you knew, what would you think then? Would you still consider it so highly? Or as such a deficit? They said, although I didn't experience it directly, that they did data analytics on interviewer write ups to identify bias. That could have been to sort of encourage due diligence but given how data driven that company was when I was there I would not put it past them to do exactly that.
Re:U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians by ng12 on Monday September 26, 2016 @09:43PM (#12586981)
How does personal bias factor in to FizzBuzz? It's literally what I'm hiring you for -- I should be able to describe some process to you, and you should be able to write it out in code. Communication is a huge part of software engineering, and I don't understand why anyone would be expected to hire employees they cannot communicate with.
Re:U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians by ChuckMcM on Monday September 26, 2016 @10:43PM (#12587156)
In addition to vidarh's excellent response, FizzBuzz is a great example that personal bias should not interfere. So if you did data analysis of your candidates and everyone you hired could do FizzBuzz and everyone you didn't hire could not do FizzBuzz then you could objectively state that failure to do FizzBuzz disqualified the candidates and it was blind to personal bias or discrimination factors. However if you hire whites who couldn't do FizzBuzz in the interview and you didn't hire asians who could, then you can't really say that "not being able to do fizzbuzz is a disqualifier" because it only disqualified some candidates.

Generally if you are hiring on work product skills (coding for software folks) and can show that your test is unbiased and you hire to the test, then you can avoid being found guilty of discrimination even if you hire a disproportionate number of a certain group. To be rock solid you also need to show that your applicant pool is highly diversified and has representation from all groups. Sometimes that means going out and seeking out candidates (like women or hispanics) who are self selecting to not apply. And why you really do better if you blind the resumes your HR staff sees before they sort them into phone screen and skip piles.

Re:U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians by morgante on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @03:30AM (#12587975)
> However if you hire whites who couldn't do FizzBuzz in the interview and you didn't hire asians who could, then you can't really say that "not being able to do fizzbuzz is a disqualifier" because it only disqualified some candidates.

This is a great point and it's why I always include FizzBuzz in any interview—no matter how they were referred, how impressive their resume is, or their confidence level.

Having consistent benchmarks helps give you legal cover, but it's also essential to running a solid interview process. If you're not applying the same tests to all candidates, it's impossible to detect problems in your filters and you can easily end up making biased decisions or hiring the wrong people.

Yes, I understand that it can be annoying to have to solve such a basic problem in an interview, but it only takes a few minutes—just get it over with, it's not meant as an insult.

Re:U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians by vidarh on Monday September 26, 2016 @10:11PM (#12587047)
Personal bias potentially factors in the moment your evaluation of the solution goes beyond "works" or "doesn't work" and into subjective evaluation of the code quality.

Personal bias also potentially factors into how you describe it (so consider presenting it written, in the same format for everyone). E.g. let's say the interviewer goes into extra detail or ask for confirmation of understanding from candidates they favour.

Re:U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians by kstenerud on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @04:07AM (#12588075)
Too bad it didn't stop the bias in my Google interview :/

Passed through all the on-site interview problems and then they silently dropped me. No "we're sorry, you're not a good match." No emails, no phone calls. Nothing.

Re:U.S. regulators accuse Palantir of bias against Asians by Chris2048 on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @09:54AM (#12589577)
What bias does this show?