> The only problem with blind selection, is that, sooner or later, the race/gender/sexual orientation/religion/age becomes apparent.

Changing the emphasis of your statement slightly, I think one of the gaps of focusing on blind selection is that by attempting to work around assumed biases within the org, even if it works perfectly in the hiring process, it does nothing for employees once hired (when presumably several of the traits you listed are not going to remain hidden). Blinding part of the hiring process doesn't help employees have equal access to projects, growth opportunities, involvement in decision-making, etc.

Exactly.

I think that it is sort of "darwinian." If a corporation doesn't establish a culture of excellence (whatever the measure may be), then they will get not-excellent results.

"Cultural fit" is important, but, as a former manager that had to make many accommodations for highly-qualified and diverse employees, it's also important for a team/company to be prepared to adjust their culture to get that excellence.

> The only problem with blind selection, is that, sooner or later, the race/gender/sexual orientation/religion/fitness/attractiveness/age (I'm an old fart, so I can tell you a thing or two about ageism in tech) becomes apparent.

This too is a problem we can solve with technology:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqrvzb

Happened to me I aced everything and when the interview walked into the room I saw it on their face (too old). Thankfully that only happened once and the company wen under at some point thereafter so good thing I didn't get hired.

Oof that sucks and is scary, since we will all be older at some stage. Personally, I prefer having people older than me on my team (I'm 35) because they tend to have experience I and younger members don't have and that experience can save quite a lot of problems in the long run.

Sure, maybe older people aren't caught up on the latest fad tech, but most of that is BS anyway, so no biggy...

This is a really helpful framing of the same problem that hopefully everyone can relate to. You can be great at your job but still have fewer opportunities because of how you're perceived by the majority group.

Getting the hiring biases out of the way early makes sense to me. The downside is that this doesn't change the broader situation or challenge it in anyway. It just says: "go ahead and apply your biases if you have them". It think, in some ways, this practice could make things a lot worse overall. It allows companies to massage their diversity metrics in ways that are acceptable and not at all challenging to the notion of what "acceptable diversity" looks like.

This is absolutely one of my nightmares. I'm turning 40 soon and I know my opportunities of being paid to write software will become more and more limited.

I'm noticing it now. I'll also be 40 this year. Getting through to the offer stages of the process has become impossible for me today, despite how well the phone screens, zoom calls, take-home tests, and technical interviews have gone. To be fair, I'm not actively seeking employment but I have had about a dozen job opportunities land on my lap this year that I have not outright rejected. I'm in the process of interviewing for yet another company. Like many of the others, I was recommended for the position internally by a former colleague but I assume it will go the same as the others.

This is one of the worst case scenario, but there's any variation where it works better than the traditional method.

At first contact you could have been packed in the "meh" group, but by virtue of coming out of the recruiting process your peers won't stop at that first reaction and take time to make it work.

Even if you were to be dismissed at the first face to face with a manager, it seems to me it's still better than if it was by some random HR intern that would have had no impact on your day to day work.

Dismissing blind test/interviews because there can still be later discrimination would be throwing the baby with the bath water IMO.

I've been thinking of making sure that my age is clear on my LinkedIn/resume/etc., for just this reason. Even then, it's clear that quite a few interviews I've gone on have been "fake", in the sense of being useful for EEOC stats, but with no bona fide intention to hire. Which is frustrating, because at the end of the day, interviews are themselves unpaid work.

These days, I've "solved" the problem by just taking lower-paying jobs. No one I work with really understands what I do--they just know that when they bring me the harder problems, they generally get solved. It's kind of nice in a way to be king, even if it is in a puddle.

Fair or not, the market always wins. And if the market tells you that you're not wanted, best to go elsewhere.

Oh. It's you. YAWN... (BTW: That troll technique has not improved with age).

This is why I actually believe there should be hiring quotas. Tell departments that at least XX% of their hires are expected to be woman, or older than 50, or racial minorities, or whatever else. Set the percentage based on the pool of applicants, minus a bit to allow wiggle room. (And if there are legal blockers, let's change the law!)

It feels wrong to me too, I know it does! But if hiring happens based on gut, and if our gut is biased, then we need a way to systematically counteract our biases.

Well this might be taking it a step too far. The first, obvious step would be simply to compare the actual hires (workers) with the available pool... almost nobody actually does that. People keep claiming that e.g. Google is sexist because they hire so few women, without regard to the fact that their worker pool has about the same distribution as their hiring pool (CS graduates). The UK passed a law requiring companies to disclose average salaries by sex etc. with no regard on the actual job / education level / level of employment.

We can't even begin to talk about solutions if all the media / researchers / activists keep pushing misleading statistics.

> The first, obvious step would be simply to compare the actual hires (workers) with the available pool... almost nobody actually does that.

I absolutely agree! (And that's also why I said in my post that the percentage should be determined by the applicant pool.)

There's a separate conversation to be had about why the applicant pool is skewed, but IMO that's well outside a given company's purview.

Why do we need to systematically counteract our biases? Why is that right thing to do? And who decides what is right?

I was biased when I married, I’m biased when I pick people I’ll spend time with, I’m biased when I apply for a job, and wouldn’t like it to be any other way... Of course, unless it’s me deciding for everyone else what they should optimize for their decision making process.

Because people in power have said you must or face financial ruin, freedom of association be damned.

There is an alternative explanation to the biases people are seeing here, unfortunately, and it would render gender and age confounding variables.

It's known that Valley tech firms of the type studied in this paper have a large left wing contingent amongst employees. We know that being female with a degree correlates quite well with being left wing, as does being young. In contrast being an older white male correlates somewhat with being conservative.

If the actual discrimination here is against "people likely to be conservative" - which is absolutely likely to be happening given what's going on in these firms - then setting quotas for gender and age wouldn't be addressing the underlying problems, only symptoms.