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That's a really interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing it. Certainly it feels dystopian reduce everyone to their resumes and strip all shreds of their identity from themselves. "Entity 4571, I see that you have achieved primary qualifications and meet the requirement of 2 years of experience; we may now proceed to interrogatory verification of qualifications."

However, I pretty strongly disagree. When evaluating a resume, there's no legitimate reason to consider the name, age, address, or gender of a candidate. Contrariwise, there are significant problems with people considering that information anyway. Therefore, it seems like that information shouldn't be present.

You say "does it really seem healthy to ignore value of cross-generational achievements," but that's the same thing as saying "throw out the resumes of any young people who apply, we already have enough of them."

Now, if you're fine with the plan of explicitly deciding to hire only a man/woman/old/young/person-from-the-right-neighborhood/school, that's a different discussion, which I won't get into here, but if you're going to do that, it should at the least be done very intentionally and not in some sort of informal "eh, guessing based on their name, this is the wrong sort of candidate" way.

> However, I pretty strongly disagree. When evaluating a resume, there's no legitimate reason to consider the name, age, address, or gender of a candidate.

I mostly agreed, except with age. When I have two candidates who have roughly the same amount of experience or achievement, but one of them is far younger than the other, that tends to be more impressive.

Why?

Maybe the older candidate only recently started to do the work. And this just the first thing the young person did?

I always get weird when people make a big deal about things people do at some young age. Most of the time the age is not important for the things we praise young people for doing. Most of the time it was just something their parents pushed them into to doing that any of many kids could have done had they just had the right parents.

I don’t really see how you can hide (a rough idea of) age in an anonymous cv though. I’m guessing you still have the dates in front of the diplomas and previous jobs, or at the very least how long was spent at each previous job. It stands to reason that someone boasting 10+ years of experience is at least 30, and probably around 35.

That's pretty blatant age discrimination.

How so?

To the best of my understanding, not hiring somebody because of age would be age discrimination.

Inferences about learning speed or motivation based on achievements per years don't sound like age discrimination to me.

Because you're essentially saying: All other things equal, I'll choose the candidate based on their age.

No, GP is essentially saying: It's clear one accomplishes more in a smaller amount of time. That's far different from all else being equal. Granted, using age has less value than using time-in-field, but they are often proportional. Also, granted, you could argue that amount accomplished is a poor metric to use, especially when joined with speed.

That's exactly what age discrimination is.

What can you infer about learning speed based on age that you can't infer based on years of experience?

What if you replace age with "experience?" A candidate who has been working for 10 years as a software engineer but is worse at it than a candidate who has been working for 2 years is a worse candidate, if you're looking to hire someone who can grow. However, I don't think it should matter at what age those candidates' years of experience started.

Is it impressive that a 22 year old has 6 years of professional experience? Yes, certainly. Does it mean that they'll be better than a 40 year old with 6 years of equivalent experience? It's possible, but I suspect it'd be a weak signal at best.

   That's a really interesting perspective.

For what it's worth, that's a modern variant of Marx & Engels argument against equality (opportunity or outcome). They say equality is a bourgeois tool to deal with capitalism's shortcomings. They stipulated that there will be no equality (neither of opportunity nor of outcome) in a communist society, and that that was a great thing. Instead of equality (opportunity or outcome) they suggested "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" [1].

The idea behind this line of thought is that equality matters only if you don't have enough, but communist society will provide so much surplus that envy simply disappears, and equality withers. It is interesting to ponder the correctness of this line of thought, e.g. do the slim in the rich world envy the obese, despite the latter consuming more food? Traces of this argument go back to Aristotle.

Marx & Engels erred in that they assumed capitalist modes of production cannot produce vast amounts of surplus.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_abi...

The other error was assuming that envy ever goes away. People compete for status, attention and countless other intangibles even when their physical needs are met.

   when their physical needs

While all basic physical needs are certainly met in the developed world, it's questionable if most people's (or at least most men's) sexual needs (which could be classified as physical) are fully met.

It's difficult sometimes to shake off the feeling that some status competition is sexual competition that dare not speak its name.

>From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

Unmentioned is the judgment that you don't need that, I don't need this, buy they do need that other thing. I'm being overly generic, but what counts as a need and what needs are fulfilled is still a political issue of discrimination in communism. Do you need shelter if the weather isn't lethal? Do you need food that is anything above the bare minimum to survive? Do you need emotional support? All needs are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Not really, no. Then again, I'm assuming that this only applies to early screenings and in-person / live interviews will allow a person's subtler characteristics come through.

Personally, back when I was in positions that participated in hiring, I didn't give a damn about a person's name, gender, race, skin color, sexuality, gender identity, age, personal hobbies, political persuasion, religion, food preferences or any other characteristic that wasn't directly related to: Can this person do the job we're hiring them to.

If we needed further consideration to distinguish between equally competent candidates, then we'd look at how motivated they are to grow, aka contribute in other areas. Not because we wanted younger people with longer (cynically: cheaper) career paths, but because the needs of companies change over time, and a flexible outlook means they might keep pace with change, and that's something anyone can do.

Agreed. When hiring for a specific position you pick the first peg that fits the hole well enough. The hiring bias problem seems like more of a hiring pipeline bias problem (E.g. sending your recruiter to Harvard instead of a state school resulting in more applications from Harvard students).

Ironically, you are totally wrong in your choice of example. Starting in 2017, Harvard admissions became majority-minority, with whites making up just under 50%, and most or all minority race students (including black) being over-represented compared to the general population.

> Can this person do the job we're hiring them to.

Precisely. It's hard enough to find qualified people as it is, without disqualifying them for characteristics that don't even impact ability.

> "does not seem all that healthy to just dismiss and ignore and totally negate compounding value of cross-generational achievements and accomplishments"

There is no compounding value of cross-generational achievements. You are not your ancestors. You are not responsible for anything they did, good or bad.

Yes, I want a world where your "humanity means nothing" in that I don't judge a prospective hire based on who their parents are.

That's not even the point though, personal information is disclosed in the job interview. I certainly hope I don't see anyone listing their ancestors' accomplishments on a resume.

What are you suggesting we judge a resume on if not merits? Should we be declining people for being the wrong race or having names we don't like instead?

While it's true that you're not responsible for your ancestors' actions, you usually have similar nature and nurture to your ancestors, so it's useful to take them into account when attempting to predict your behavior.

No, that is wrong, and ironically enough considering the parent post I originally replied to, dehumanizing. It's important to treat an individual as an individual. No attempt should be made to discriminate based on someone's ancestors. Nepotism is also bad.

Edit: Changed "replied to" to "originally replied to".

I'm making a statement about predicting behavior; you're making a statement about ethics.

Since we've moved into philosophy, why is it important that everyone be treated this indiscriminately? Veil of ignorance? Couldn't it be valid to protect the community from the risk that the bad behavior is heritable (genetically or socially)?

>Does it really seem all that healthy to just dismiss and ignore and totally compounding value of cross-generational achievements and accomplishments

What exactly does this mean? Giving someone credit for their ancestors' achievements sounds like nepotism

>Giving someone credit for their ancestors' achievements sounds like nepotism

True, but we also punish groups for the actions of their ancestors as well as credit them.

And both are bad.

Which is another reason blind recruiting would be useful.

> cross-generational achievements and accomplishments

I think you're trying to say, "having an advantage due to your birth or family." You're really suggesting that someone's name, address, and gender should be part of the resume evaluation process? Your whole position seems like a thinly veiled endorsement of racism, sexism, and conferring advantages based on your family's accomplishments.

Glad I wasn't the only one to get that vibe. This is some James Damore ish

Yea, the bit about a mixed master race was kind of a give away there.

That's an interesting perspective! So you believe that one's race or gender or age should be a factor in predicting whether an applicant will be a good fit for a particular role?

I think this is a loaded statement. While there are, in fact, statistically proven differences for all three of those facets, the greater thrust that the OP was making seems to be that we are forced to dehumanize ourselves and others in service of an effort toward forced equalization, and that it feels very Orwellian.

I enjoy my (endangered) privacy, and therefore would prefer to keep my personal details obscured until an employer actually shows an interest.

It's a lack of privacy that sounds Orwellian to me.

There's nothing loaded about it; it's exactly what they're doing - removing specific bits of data from the person's CV.

I disagree with the whole premise that supports the first post; reducing someone to a short list of standard data points like age is the dehumanising action. It's exactly what is done when we wish to treat people as statistics.

Leaving them off is accepting that people's humanity can't be reduced to them.

I'll bite because I find this point of view fascinating. So you have 100 candidates of whom you know the name, date of birth, and gender as well as their first language. But unfortunately someone messed up and these 100 candidates have 0 qualifications listed. Under threat of being fired you have to pick the 10 best qualified for the job by the end of the day. How do you choose the candidates? You like the name John and people over the age of 42? Do you see now how none of it is really relevant?

The only winning move is to not play.

Not only does it not bother me, I want this outcome. I want to be judged by my work, the skills that I've developed, and other things that are actually relevant to the company. I hate interview questions about my hobbies, what I'm like outside of work, what I do with my free time... You're hiring me to do a job. Judge me by whether I can do that.

If you're not working by yourself though, the things that make you a human really matter. I work at a company full of talented, smart developers with no focus or priority on communication or people skills. As a result we really lose out on collaboration and fail to leverage good work done by any specific team. I don't need a name or age to assess these traits but i sure need to get to know the person behind the resume facts.

a team is greater than the sum of its parts. personality and background can and do make a big impact on team dynamics and performance. I like to look up candidates and get a broader picture of what they bring to the table (e.g. leadership, sense of humor, optimist, realist, etc.)

But what you describe is not at all what the article is about. This is about identifiable information, which has nothing to do with anyone’s humanity.

No. This is about judging people as individuals, on merits, character, and ability to do the job, while removing unchangeable physical characteristics that are meaningless and have been used far too often to ill-effect.

Why do you think we should continue to include those physical characteristics, especially if they have nothing to do with the actual job?

> hiring [...] without consideration for anything but merits

I would only be concerned about this if I lacked merits.

This sounds bad, but racism and sexism in hiring is probably worse.

Actually, commodification of human labor is not new. Have you seen factory worker, dock workers, manual labor. If you are able bodied then you do your work, get your pay and go home.

As for human bias, I don't sue how it eliminates the bias. I don't even get why biases makes us human. Ultimately you are hiring humans and statistically like to hire diverse set of humans.

Unfortunately parents response simply comes as rant with some intelligent sounding words rather than any thoughtful objections to the OP.

>It does not seem all that healthy to just dismiss and ignore and totally negate compounding value of cross-generational achievements and accomplishments ... that you are not better than the last widget you created compared to the next person you are compared in preparation for creation of the next widget.

Depends if you are helped or hurt by this view. There are people who are discriminated due to no fault of their own over factors they cannot control. And not every bias is called out or even something we are socially cognizant of. If one previously benefited from this it can be worrisome but for others this will be a boon.

>simply strip humans of their humanity

What is humanity? Not in ideal, in actuality? Do beautiful people have more humanity than ugly people? The Hale Effect says that they do. When called out on it we will say that is not the case, but in our every day actions that is how we work. Mechanized equalization will be a benefit for those who have already been assigned as having less humanity for no fault of their own.

In some countries, employment law has driven us to this, and it's widely seen as optimisation and culmination of what we know about employment best practice.

Some UK examples..

No longer does anyone bother getting letters from past employers as references, since none of the information in the reference can be verified as true or false employers cannot legally form a judgement based on this. Consequently all an employer is allowed to say is 'yes, they worked here, regards, x'.

Another example, every candidate at interview must be asked the same 'opening' questions, otherwise a failed candidate could bring legal action because they were not given the same opportunity as other interviewees. Candidates are also legally allowed to ask to see interviewer's notes (even during the interview) so interviewers should not be writing anything besides 'scores' for interviewee competancies, unless they want to get into legal trouble.

Sounds like you're thinking of isolated robotic workers.

An ideal worker in my mind has many human qualities that make them enjoyable and inspiring to be around. They make other employees happier to come to work and help them be more effective at work.

Granted, it's a lot easier to measure that Tom produces 15% more widgets per hour than it is to tell that Cindy's presence increased the entire factory's output by 5%. But still, the latter provides more value to a company so I expect improvements in evaluating that.

It bothers me a great deal. It seems that the only constructive ways that progressives have been able to come up with to equalize the unequal has been to flatten, to push down, to dehumanize and to remove the differentiation between people, by administrative fiat if necessary.

The thing is, if you decide that Applicant #42 is a good candidate, you're going to bring them in anyway. If you have a ton of biases, you still have just as much of an opportunity to enact them as you would have before, though you might have to be a bit more subtle. This doesn't solve the problem; it's a patch on top of it designed to feel good while accomplishing nothing.

> Does it really seem all that healthy to just dismiss and ignore and totally negate compounding value of cross-generational achievements and accomplishments

If by this you're referring to the heritability of traits, yes, it's a shame that things that are statistically and demographically visible have to be erased in the attempt to flatten everything.

> somehow you can inhumanely simply strip humans of their humanity in order to craft a perfect specimen of humans

I don't know if this is the ultimate goal; my instinct is that this is the projected goal, because it is at least somewhat defensible philosophically even if I dislike it. The actual behind-the-scenes goal might be as simple as reducing people to more-manageable consumers that cause less trouble and more reliably produce the quarterly numbers we need.

Progressives have to do that because employers continue to be racist and sexist and discriminate on age, purely based on a resume. So removing that first filter is a good thing.

If you bring them in at least they have a chance to impress you in person, no?

This is a red herring that I see a lot, especially in online discussions. Progressives (like myself) aren't "equalizing the unequal" as you put it. You're conflating our goals with those of socialists and communists from 100 years ago who were coopted by authoritarian dictatorships.

We're working to remove barriers that create inequality, such as discrimination by gender/race/creed etc. And I don't buy crocodile tears for the (generally white/male/older) people currently propped up by the status quo.

I do share your concern, however, that any policy can have ulterior motives. I see that more coming from knee-jerk and nanny state policies crafted by the far right today (that used to supposedly be a province of the far left). See: the military industrial complex growth in response to 9/11, the prison industrial complex growth in response to the war on drugs, etc.

These types of comments are generally shunned here, but I have to say, this is very well said and exactly how I feel about this.

Can you expand on which information you think should be included and might be being omitted under that scheme?

It does not seem all that healthy to just dismiss and ignore and totally negate compounding value of cross-generational achievements and accomplishments...

I think I agree with your post except for this part. What did you mean by that? Are you talking about a person’s pedigree?

> it doesn't matter that you are a Native Fin and your competitor

But for this fragment that makes it obvious, this post is a masterpiece of hiding its racism and sexism behind a veil of words the author knows HN will like. It’s almost impressive, in a way.

Can you please elaborate on how eliminating identifying info from a job resume is introducing the degenerate nature of communism. If I understand correctly Finland is trying this in an effort for the job searching process to be as fair as possible. What makes you think this is the first domino in going down that path?

Somewhere, Diana Moon Glampers is smiling.

What? Blind meritocracy, even ad absurdum, is exactly the opposite of the "perfect" equality Harrison Bergeron portrays.

Perhaps one has to have had grown up in a Communist state to see the parallels. This is something I would be very happy to be wrong about.

My point was that the "hyper-meritocracy" the parent comment referred to is antithetical to the dystopia that Diana Moon Glampers represents. There's no point in ruthlessly optimizing for the best candidates if you're going to cripple them to prevent them from outperforming the worst ones. If this is a step towards a dystopia, it's a very different dystopia than the one Harrison Bergeron depicts.

That aside, I'm less cynical about this than either you or the parent commenter. While I wouldn't want my professional skill set to be my sole defining characteristic as a person, I'm perfectly content to let it define me as an employee, keeping in mind that attributes like ambition, creativity, and passion are components of that skill set. But I acknowledge that this may be the start of a slippery slope, and you may be right to say that I underestimate that risk because I haven't lived in a Communist state.

Thank you for the friendly reply. I genuinely do appreciate it.

As for why I see things the way I do, all I'll add is that if things do go the way that all other characteristics are stripped away, leaving nothing but one's professional skill set... Ok. Who decides what qualifies for what box? You should keep a very close eye on who the final arbiters are that get to decide what, exactly, a professional skill set is, and what checks and balances are in place to prevent them from abusing their position.

You may find that suddenly characteristics that you thought had nothing to do with one's profession are added or removed as is convenient for the power structure at large, or that capabilities that you would consider core to the job at hand no longer considered worthy due to opaque political decisions. Again, I'd love to be wrong about this. We'll see, I suppose.

What's the alternative? Being more prone to ageism, racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry e.g. anti-LGBT? Sure hyper-focusing on merit has flaws, but it's a lot less susceptible to a "good old boys" network than the current status quo.

> it doesn't matter that you are a Native Fin and your competitor

I feel you're making my point for me.

It would feel that way, except that I’ve spent many years working in civil service.

> kind of hyper-meritocracy

Which is particularly ironic considering that most of these schemes are proposed to fight _against_ meritocracy.

But... I am puzzled. Honest question here.

What is wrong with meritocracy? Isn't it a system where your talent, effort and achievement are meaningful, and attributes like race, gender, wealth, sexual orientation etc. are irrelevant to your success? Isn't a meritocracy a platform that is equal to all?

Has someone redefined the terminology somehow?

I mean, I've always thought a meritocracy is a good thing. It does not matter "what" you are, it matters how good you are in what you do. And if you are not good at something, it is not due to your sex or race etc.

Well, I think so, but the diversity crowd usually pops up specifically against meritocracy: https://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-rug/

One thing that's "wrong" is all the systems which have claimed to be meritocracies but weren't.