> Does this mean the company has a bias towards B, and needs to take special action to search for more A candidates to bring the ratio closer to 40/60?

Without more information maths says you probably have a bias. I am assuming your company is big enough and the pool of candidates represents the 40/60.

I not sure I understood your point, can you explain it more?

Bringing it back to the manifesto: he used the gender difference as an argument against special programs to hire more women, but this should only apply if Google has already achieved the optimal ratio.

His argument is moot if Google still does need further optimization in its gender ratios. I don't know what the real-world ratio is for this problem, but it appears the author of the manifesto doesn't either?

His argument was that given A and B they were choosing B because is a woman, regardless of the skills for the position. Some people here also say the gender diversity programs in google are only for sourcing people, that the hiring process is the same (in which case the author of the doc is wrong in his assumptions).

Also another argument from him was that 50/50 is impossible to achieve and if you do you are being unfair and lowering the bar for one of the classes.

The real ratio in unknown, but some people here commented that you can get some approximation taking into account the graduates, the statistics about the applications etc. But for sure the ratio is not going to be 50/50 and positive discrimination is still discrimination.

So, as you said, if you don't know the real ratio why do you have positive discrimination policies? You might be doing it wrong. I think this is the discussion he wanted to bring, review the diversity programs because they can harm the company creating an artificial proportion far from the reality. Given that some other actions could be made like adding more "female skills" to the positions for example. Instead of starting a discussion of this issues based on his biological theory most people pointed at him as a sexits and other stuff. And Google shut him up firing him. So now noone will raise any concern because you can be fired.

To sum up: the big issue is that they are not having the conversation we are having here now, regardless of who is right or wrong.

The on-site Google interview process has 2 steps. The first is the usual, get grilled by 4/5 engineers on technical issue, that is broken up by a lunch with hiring manager in the middle. The feedback from interviews are submitted with candidate application to a hiring committee, whom makes a hire/no-hire decision.

Would the diversity program at Google encourage the committee members to looks for biases against female/minority candidates and compensate accordingly? In essence, giving the said candidate more benefit of the doubt than male/Asian candidates? All candidate passed the technical bar, but may be treated differently based on their ethnicity/gender at the hiring committee, with preference for minority/female candidates.

I know how is the process from the external point of view, but, what is the feedback they submit? Here is where the bias of the hiring process could be (like only considering skills more likely to be in men).

> Would the diversity program at Google encourage the committee members to looks for biases against female/minority candidates and compensate accordingly?

I don't know, and I would want to know how the really work. One girl here commented she was hired by one of this programs, so at least I know the candidate know he/she is in on of this programs when they apply. Other girl commented that she heard in one of her interviews (I don't know the company): "+1 point because you are a girl and diversity make us pay less taxes". I wouldn't be surprised if something like this also happens internally at Google. A googler also said the hiring process is the same for everybody, but giving the evidence of the document I don't think is exactly the same.

I cannot say more. I do not have more information. If you find it, let me know.

I would like to sit in one of those hiring committee meetings too, or read a transcription. Anyway, I believe Google gets so many qualified candidate that, just like Ivy League colleges, it has lots of leeway on who to hire/reject without affecting quality of their engineers in any measurable way.