You're fetishizing "demographics".

It's unfortunately that people don't get their fair chance period. That at times this is evidenced by things that are more visible (black versus white, female versus male) rather than more invisible (extroverted rather than introverted, smiling versus shifty-doesn't-look-you-in-the-eyes) is both unfortunate (there should be no racism!) but also symptomatic of which things we care about and which things we don't.

People discriminated for reasons we don't care about (introverted, can't make eye contact) are at the bottom of the pyramid then. We've decided they don't have "demographics" and don't matter.

You're probably getting downvoted for the first line in your comment, but I think you're making an excellent point here.

Of key importance here is that race, gender, etc. are federally protected classes, while introversion is not. Thus, businesses have way more incentives to curtail discrimination against the former than the latter.

I know you probably didn't mean to imply otherwise, but it's worth saying out loud: that it's not illegal to discriminate against people with poor social skills does not at all make it ok. The context was ethics, not law, as I read it.

Software development is a team activity, thus social skills are important. I don't know if companies are "discriminating" in this area so much as they are simply trying to find people with the right skills for the job.

There is several contradicting data points for what is an optimal hiring strategy for a company. We have the old strategy of making members of a team feel like then are kin, a.k.a band of brothers. The military use/used this a lot and the underlying biological theory is that people will sacrifice self-interest for individuals which is perceived as kin, or as the quote goes a person will sacrifice themselves for either two siblings or eight cousins.

The opposite strategy is diversity with the ability for better adaptation. A team with multiple perspectives is said to better anticipate the need of a diverse customer base.

A third strategy is to look at specific risk. If for example theft by employees are a high risk issue then rejecting applicants with correlating traits with high risk for theft would be beneficial, which would be low social economic status, but those correlate to race and ethnic class.

If we look at the issue from the perspective of what benefit a company the most we end up in many cases with massive discrimination. Thus for social reasons we address the issue as an ethical question.

It isn't illegal, but I wouldn't want to work with someone who has poor social skills. Programming within a team and business is a highly social activity. I would much rather work with someone who can read a room than one who is smart at programming but is completely dense socially or can't communicate well at all.

There's a lot to unpack there, but people in the autism spectrum who can't look at you in the eyes are not necessarily bad at workplace communication (they may fail to realize workplace flirting, but that's a plus, not a minus).

Then there's the whole "benefits of diversity stuff". My team currently has too many generalists/big picture/would-do-well-as-ethnologists-if-not-math-oriented thinkers. Narrower, more focused cognitive styles would do us some good.

But how do you even detect if big picture thinkers and hyperfocused specialists are getting fair chances? The whole interviewing process is stacked against people who can't demonstrate a "wide personality", even for non-leadership roles.

Well, there's this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Ac...

Demographic is a broad enough word to encompass both race and personality.

Communication skills are actually part of the job description. This analogy falls apart in light of that.

You assume too much.

People who can't look you in the eyes might be sufficiently adept at workplace technical communication. It's a skill that can be learned.

Maybe someone is less able to read moods like sadness because someone's cat's gone missing. But a colleague can always help with that. "Reasonable accommodations" is enshrined in disability law in every modern "welfare state" society.

I'll give you that someone with such limitations may not be the best leadership material. But then, people in wheelchairs are not the best astronaut material.

And that's okay. But in an ethical framework where discrimination is to be frowned upon, we need to give everyone the opportunity to live to their fullest potential. This is after all the promise of "diversity": those who are different may have something different to add.

You're judged on all the skills you have and show you could learn. This is the same for verbal and technical. It's really not equivalent to judging someone's skin color at all.

This is whataboutism. We have data showing that referrals disproportionately benefit white men [1]. But what about introverts, you say? Don't we care about them?

Sure? But what about introverts? Nothing about their unfair treatment entails that adopting a policy that disproportionately benefits white men is good for introverts or diversity.

[1] https://www.payscale.com/data/job-referrals

A survey of 53,000 employees.

> Referrals benefit white men more than any other demographic group. Our research shows that, holding all else constant, female and minority applicants are much less likely to receive referrals than their white male counterparts: white women are 12 percent less likely; men of color are 26 percent less likely and women of color are 35 percent less likely to receive a referral.

You can't dismiss claims that the structural problem is wider/you fail to see the forest for the trees with "whataboutism". Whataboutism is a magic trick -- look at the hand doing crazy stuff with a bowling pin while the other retrieves a card from the sleeve.

At any rate, it's ironic that you would try to disrupt a plea for those that are underprivileged for invisible or overlooked reasons with "what about black women". Yeah man, we know about black women - it's a core theme of progressive culture.

The data that looks at gender and race disparities will only give evidence about gender and race disparities. This is the proverbial drunkard looking for his keys near the lamppost because, well, you can't see elsewhere.

If there's an ethical program to fix discrimination - specially discrimination that happens as a systemic, involuntary kind like what the OP proposes, we have to look at discrimination itself.

---

A great success case is making orchestral auditions take place behind a curtain. If I remember the data correctly that vastly improved the participation of women, including in protagonist roles. But it's also an inclusive policy for the elderly, autistics, unattractive people (specially people with very awkward deformities like face muscle overgrowth), etc. People in that situation are judged for the music they make.

("But the mentally ill will need more time off." And women get pregnant. We have to give people the opportunity to prove themselves.)

--

Bonus "SJW" literature: https://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/invisible/

> If your trusted referrers are white and male, their networks will be overwhelmingly white and male

I don't think this makes sense.

People will recommend from their previous jobs, which will on average have the same demographics as the industry in general. The only way to avoid that is to recruit people from outside the industry.

I'm white and male, but like anyone else in Silicon Valley, most of my ex coworkers are not.

The percentage that is straight, white, male and US born in my personal ex coworker network is probably around 20%.

Yup. I'm tired of hearing that a) everybody in software looks like me, and b) what we look like is somehow important. Both of these statements are false.

>The percentage that is straight, white, male and US born in my personal ex coworker network is probably around 20%.

If true, you have to realize you're an outlier. Statistically the industry is still predominately white and male even in silicon valley.

Well, I've been around a long time and worked at a lot of places. Still far from a scientific sample, of course.

Do you have any statistics to show? Honest question!

You're of course right that the industry is predominately male. 80/20 is about what I've seen.

As for white, maybe, but the proportion is definitely lower than the ~75% white proportion of the US population, which I suppose makes whites underrepresented, unless I've misunderstood that concept? And many of those whites are, like myself, immigrants.

Well for starters you're using statistics on the US as a whole and not, say, urban or California statistics which is where most of the tech is represented.

I think you may have just moved the argument goalposts :)

But, yeah, the question of which population the SV workforce "should" be measured against is hopelessly confused.

The local population is in large part imported by SV, so that definition feels circular. US CS graduates? To some extent SV recruits from the whole planet, so world wide CS graduates?

I could go on. One thing is clear: There is a ton of possible definitions to choose from to cherry pick support for any point you may want to make.

To me, the important measure is if a competent person can get a good job and career in the industry. I'm not sure how to measure that, but I'm convinced we to better than most!

People keep replying to this post saying, "nah, that doesn't jibe with my personal experience/intuition," but there is solid data supporting the claim that referral programs disproportionately benefit white men.

For example, PayScale published a report last year surveying 53,000 employees. Here's what they found.

> Referrals benefit white men more than any other demographic group. Our research shows that, holding all else constant, female and minority applicants are much less likely to receive referrals than their white male counterparts: white women are 12 percent less likely; men of color are 26 percent less likely and women of color are 35 percent less likely to receive a referral.

https://www.payscale.com/data/job-referrals

Do you think that it would make sense to have that waiver for candidates who are part of a minority group in the current population, and include some test —possibly lighter— for other candidates?

I’ve had very convincing interviews with great (senior) candidates where the setup was: Here is our problem, what would you do with it? And have an hour-long planning session with them. Same for junior candidates around: this is what I was working on this morning, I’m stuck here because of that error message; what would you do?

That can easily be perceived as minority candidates being given preferential treatment, which is also bad.

This was my first reaction as well.

Granted, the author doesn't seem to consider this aspect, simply whether the process is efficient in the short term.

Tangentially, I'm not sure why everyone is trying to "solve" technical interviewing. It's a painful process, but so is any kind of hiring. In the long run people seem pretty good at sorting themselves irrespective of the process.

> More importantly, it will reinforce your organization's demographics. If your trusted referrers are white and male, their networks will be overwhelmingly white and male and it's just putting up another block toward those not already in the system.

I'm not entirely convinced of this in the general case. I'm white and male, but probably a minority of the people I would recommend (in the sense of personally vouching for their technical ability) are also white and male.

It is a widely and repeatedly observed fact in social sciences that one's friend group is on average biased towards demographics similar to their own. This is true along a wide array of protected demographics relevant to hiring including age, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. For some simple examples, a randomly selected gay person tends to have a significantly higher percentage of gay friends than a randomly selected straight person. Similarly, while 12% of the country is black, a randomly selected black person has way more than 12% black friends, whereas people of other ethnic groups on average have less than 12% black friends. It goes on and on.

People cluster by demographics. Good on you for being an exception, but the rule holds in general.

I'm not talking about friends, and the article isn't talking about friends, either. What's being discussed is people that a referrer has worked with and whose qualifications can be vouched for.

People tend to refer their friends. Even if you're not friends outside of work, you're more likely to refer people you were friendly with at work.

Sure. And most of that happens in the context of "refer anyone and we will vet them with our hiring process". If you change that to "only refer people whom you personally vouch for because we will trust your judgment to replace parts of the hiring process", there will (or can) be incentives to refer people who are really good, not just people you personally like and would like to help out. If you combine that with hiring people who've worked in diverse environments, that might counteract the natural referral biases.

That's a good point, the demographics of my coworkers are nothing like the demographics of my friends. Most people are probably more likely to refer people who are both friends and coworkers though.

But a monetary incentive based on performance might be able to change that.

Slightly unrelated, but I recently received a survey from my high school asking if I would recommend an African American high school graduate pursue college/university at an HBCU(Historically Black University or College) or a PWI(Predominately White Institution).

How would you answer this question?

(Not a loaded question by the way, I know tone is hard to convey on the internet but you seem informed on this subject and I’m genuinely curious as to your opinion, if you have one.)

Thanks!

I'm definitely not qualified to answer this question as I didn't go to an HBCU and I'm not black. Sorry.

On a related note, black enrollment at my alma mater is plummeting in recent years (in favor of HBCUs), so going to an HBCU is a decision increasingly being made by black college-goers. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/higher-...

Isn't that trend a bit worrying? I'm not an American but it reminded me of (the little I know about) the segregationist policies before the Civil rights movement.

Yes, it's very worrying. Racists are increasingly being emboldened in the current political climate, and minorities are withdrawing further into their own groups for protection in response.

Yes, I was thinking it also on the other side? Why are minorities withdrawing (pretty much the opposite attitude they took in the 60's no?)?

Gotcha. Thanks for the information. I also went to UMD and was not aware of this trend.

Yeah, it's bad for everyone involved.

How do you know this?

I would say you are a relatively rare case though. Most people I've seen primarity socialize with people of the same race. Not strictly, obviously, but in general. Like in tech circles in the Bay Area, you have the white, indian, east asian groups and they, in general, tend to hang out with the same races. And by this I mean most of the friend groups I see are typically mostly of one race.

It doesn't really matter who I socialize with--it matters who I've worked with and whose skills I can vouch for.

There is a tendency that this will lead the demographics of a field to pretty much stay the same over time. If you work in a field that is 90% men, only 10% of the people you have worked with are women, which means in the long run only 10% of people you'd end up referring would be women. This is definitely true in my case--the number of women whose technical skills I can vouch for went up considerably once I started working with more women.

That said, the Bay Area is weird and I've never lived there.

Also, admittedly, specifying "white males" was a misstep on ebiester's part. Whatever narrative there is about diversity in tech breaks down unless you stipulate that South and East Asians don't count as underrepresented minorities.

I guess you're getting downvoted because this is anecdotal evidence? But honestly this is my (admittedly anecdotal) experience as well.

Or perhaps those doing the voting simply don't share that experience?

Race is so strongly correlated among friends (in the US, anyway) that it's unbelievable that people won't have observed this.[0] Average demographics:

* White Americans: 91% of social network are white; 8% black.

* Black Americans: 83% of social network are black; 1% white.

[0] https://www.prri.org/research/poll-race-religion-politics-am...

Some of that is normal population percentages - expected with random friends. Self-reported 'black' citizens are around 1-in-10 across the US.

And in Silicon Valley its different - the mix of international people of high education and achievement make it a skewed sample.

The vast majority of programming jobs in the US are not in Silicon Valley, though. It's a lot more homogenous outside the major cosmopolitan cities.

Not everyone visiting HN is from the USA.

You're right I should have alluded to that as well. But my point was maybe it wasn't worthy of a downvote is all.