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Comment by Talyen42 | Hacker News Reader

I hired about 10 junior dev/qa/pm positions over 3 years as a manager in a SaaS tech company of 50-100.

We posted on every job site and received 1,000+ resumes which I reviewed, in a city with ~30% african american population.

Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans, and none met most basic requirements for the position (either a relevant degree, or at least 1 year of related experience, or at least 1 relevant side project).

It's hard to think that I was part of the problem, or could possibly be part of any solution, as the hiring manager.

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That is better than what I have seen. Where it was possible to tell I have never seen a black applicant to a programming job. That is as a founder and in previous roles where I helped review resumes and do interviews. We also saw something like (estimating) 50 men to every 1 woman last time we advertised a job.

If there is a problem it is "upstream." I'd be happy to interview black candidates if they existed.

Same. I felt like I was racist and sexist while trying to hire people, based on the results (a team of 90% white males). But it was not a problem I could solve.

We did interview several strong female candidates. One we really wanted but she ended up taking a different job closer to her home. (We're in LA/OC and she would have been forced to take the 55. There is a "one does not simply 'take' the 55" meme about the 55.)

We did not seek any specific racial or gender outcome. We ended up with an all white male team by taking a small sample from a pool of ~75% white male candidates (with the remainder being largely asian males). The odds are strongly in favor of that outcome even if all else is equal.

The only point of me posting to this thread was to agree that this issue is not primarily the fault of hiring managers, or at least it isn't in most cases. Like most social issues I think this one is complex and has multiple causes. For blacks we have: multi-generational impoverishment due to past red-lining and similar policies sabotaging intergenerational wealth accumulation, poor schools in many black neighborhoods, and a culture in the black community that does not prize intellectualism. Obama helped the latter a bit by virtue of his mere existence in such a position.

> Maybe 3 out of 1,000+ resumes were submitted by african americans

How do you know? I'm curious because it seems like you'd have to have a spot on the job application for applicants to indicate their race and you'd need to exclude a "prefer not to answer" option in order to be confident about this.

No, but someone's name + linkedin profile (almost always included) tends to give it away 90% of the time. Sometimes you don't know, sure, but usually you do. Just like gender.

We didn't ask, of course.

> How do you know?

Fair point. But even if another of the 297 of 1,000 were in reality black, the OP didn't know and the OP's point about not being part of the problem still stands. Right?

How do you know whether someone was African American based on their resume?

People know. It's a collection of clues, starting by their name

Because every sane person hiring Googles people's names?

Someone's name + linkedin profile (almost always included) tends to give it away 90% of the time. Sometimes you don't know, sure, but usually you do. Just like gender.

We didn't ask, of course.

You looked up 1000+ people on LinkedIn?

Thats literally his job ...

If you look at my picture on Linkedin, you would be able to guess my race. Heck, if you looked at my profile on Github which I actively link to, you would instantly know my race.

You could have offered apprenticeships to the black population.

Not his job to do so.

His job is to fill a position, not create a new one and fill it.

Also, the applicants knew they were unqualified and didn't ask for an apprenticeship.

Um, he can offer input. He is the manager of hiring. Open your eyes and stop thinking "I was just doing my job". Get outside the box...

I'm not a teacher, and i'm not running a university, and I have a budget with requirements i've been hired to deliver for clients. How is this even a possibility for me to pursue? I'm not socrates.

I set the job requirements to the absolute minimum of having any relevant anything, including interest, of which there was zero.

He also could have handed out money for nothing, but that's missing the point.

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