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Comment by dangus | Hacker News Reader

I also see it as a huge vehicle for hiring discrimination.

Introverted? Neurodiverse? Ugly? Differently abled? Have a regional accent? Too bad, your video resume is disqualified for not being as “good” as the charismatic member of the cultural/ethnic majority.

I think it’s especially important for employers to make their evaluations as blind as they can be for as long as possible, including things like removing names from resumes before presenting them to hiring managers.

In my view this is an incredibly lazy way for TikTok to launch a new revenue stream while engaging in a bare minimum amount of product development. They see how LinkedIn can charge a hundred bucks a month to recruiters and they want in.

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> Introverted? Neurodiverse? Ugly? Differently abled? Have a regional accent? Too bad, your video resume is disqualified for not being as “good” as the charismatic member of the cultural/ethnic majority.

This already happens, in interviews. There are vanishingly few jobs that will hire you without meeting you, because there are some basic things that are difficult or impossible to convey without meeting. Most white-collar jobs don't have to spend much thought assessing whether a candidate is likely to show up to work everyday", or whether thy can handle workplace conflicts without screaming or violence, but this is unfortunately a legitimate concern that eg hiring for some McDonald's locations must consider. L

Every hiring is a discrimination in some way.

Discrimination towards being able to do the job is different.

You're not entirely wrong, but why make it even more obnoxious and entrenched?

I can see this kind of stuff useful for applying for jobs in the (traditionally) "creative" fields; a well crafted TikTok can show the recruiter a sense of the applicant's editing skills, taste in art/music, and general presentation skills, after all. For a cookie-cutter desk job? Not sure what gap this fills that isn't already occupied by the venerable Curriculum "Resume" Vitae.

Its not that discrimination doesnt exist, but it isnt TikToks job to solve it. If the amount of discrimination remains the same between traditional job seeking and Tiktok, then i dont see an issue.

It is our jobs to call out the discrimination this creates for minorities. Tiktok isn't being asked to end discrimination. Selling a product who's main feature is discrimination is unacceptable.

A normal jobs finds keywords on resumes, filters by experiece and education. Tiktok filters by looks and race and then calls people in for an interview.

My argument is that TikTok is making it worse, not better, not the same.

The status quo is that a paper/PDF resume is the initial screening method. An employer committed to removing hiring bias could have the recruitment department strip personal identifiers like the name before handing the resume to the hiring manager.

Now, instead of that, you have a video of the person. Now you’re subconsciously judging everything: how the person looks, speaks, dresses, and even the decorations in their house.

Obviously, there’s potential for bias as soon as you see a person in real life or hear them speak. That’s going to happen at most jobs at some point.

However, this TikTok service introduces new methods of bias to the initial screening process that didn’t exist previously.

I'm sure we have that, but it's the second filter, after the resumes have provided the first filter. Moving it to step one seems like it would exacerbate the problem.

That is, you'll get better results (in terms of hiring competent employees) if you find out whether the person is physically attractive after you've already anchored on whether they're qualified in a more objective manner. Resumes aren't great at giving you an accurate anchor, but better than nothing, imo.

I'm reminded of a recent study on speed dating that found that higher physical attractiveness increased people's perception of ones intelligence: https://psyarxiv.com/ewvny/

(Just to note, I'm not particularly opposed to TikTok's service as a new avenue to try, but I do agree with the OP that it could make various discriminatory biases worse, and we should be aware of that risk.)

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