That sounds nice and all but the distribution of engineers doesn’t match population distributions.
This leads to organizational pressure to hire based on population distribution. Doing so inevitably means hiring based on attributes other than skill.
This leads to organizational pressure to hire based on population distribution. Doing so inevitably means hiring based on attributes other than skill.
- The companies that make an effort get a lot closer to population baselines than the ones that just give up.
- Organizational pressures are something leadership and management should be steering. I'd rather have hiring practices be an explicit choice than something that "just happens"
If your goal is population distribution then you are inevitably hiring based on attributes other than skill.
For example, women don’t make up 50% of the engineering talent pool so if your goal is 50% women then you have to lower standards to achieve that.
You don't have to. But you'd remove them from the job market, making the pool smaller for other companies. IOW, a few companies can target 50% women, but that'll make it that much harder for other companies.
Let's say you are successful. Let's say a class of companies are successful at this strategy. Lets use the example of faangs which are desirable places in terms of salary/brand. If faangs were successful at this that would reduce the % of female developers in other industry and assuming faangs are taking the best candidates that leaves the worst ones. Which then creates this reality where male programmers outclass female developers in these other industries. That makes it harder for women in general and makes this false impression that females are not as good as males.
To help women you really need to treat them equally. Trying to reach a goal of unhealthy unnatural % industry wide means women will left holding the bag when the music stops.
But this also creates a positive feedback loop when more and more women decide to switch industries and pursue IT/Engineering jobs via bootcamps, college degrees, etc. I noticed the number of female candidates in UX/UI, fullstack, QA, Data Analytics - has increased in last several years.
Partly because the demand is still high for these professionals, partly because there is entire cottage industry of bootcamps churning out IT specialists en masse, partly these diversity hiring practices that opened up doors for women
They churn out ego inflated beginners who think they're experts.
The mentality peddled by bootcamps to sell their wares produces dangers "engineers" in my opinion.
I have no formal education, I'm not coming from educational elitism here.
I'm a bootcamp grad, and would not have gotten into the field if bootcamps did not exist. I'm about four years into my career now, currently working at a major well-reputed tech company, and haven't gotten an average-or-below annual performance review yet. (And one reason for that is that I tend to be cautious, critical, and thoughtful in my technical decisions.) There are a number of other people from my bootcamp class with similar results.
80%+ of the bootcampers were rubbish and shocked to be told their knowledge was way below where they thought it was.
A classic is a 6 week JavaScript bootcamp grad claiming to be an "expert in JavaScript" (their words) and couldn't explain the JS type system or basics of variable scope. That was the norm. That kind of rubbish.
I'm happy you're an exception and everyone gets a fair chance with me, regardless of background, but I am never shocked when I have to bin yet another bootcampers CV
If you mean "in my experience, bootcampers fail technical screens at much higher rates", then say that, instead of implying that you're stupid if you even consider hiring someone who went to a bootcamp.
If I could interview everyone I would, and I'd happily hire a bootcamper that seemed excellent.
The reality is that statistical likelihood of passing screening means those CVs often hit the bottom of the pile.
The two statements I made aren't contradictory
We're always hiring based on attributes other than skill. If we're lucky and purposeful, skill becomes a part of the hiring process.