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Comment by dookahku | Hacker News Reader

Canonical made me do a personality test.

From what I understand, Canonical culture isn't great, either. The whole process sounds a lot like what you are talking about -- just hoops to winnow out people for the sake of winnowing.

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After that personality test, they ask you to complete a timed IQ test. After that, you'll reach a behavioral interview after which you get assigned a "take home" technical assessment, which then after submitting you can schedule to have technical interviews (potentially multiple). You can fail at any step along the way.

It was one of the more laughably ridiculous interviewing processes I've seen, and thankfully the only one I've seen recently that was so egregious.

Having seen Canonical's personality test, while it's impossible to verify without their marking methodology, it feels explicitly classist (which in the US probably means it produces racist outcomes too)

> it feels explicitly classist (which in the US probably means it produces racist outcomes too)

Please elaborate...

You'll probably get better answers to questions about polo, golf, opera, and croquet on Martha's Vineyard than you will in South Compton.

There are wealthy and poor people all across the country that do or do not participate or relate to any of those named things.

You have identified a very specific type of economic class, which has nothing to do with "race" and/or ethnicity. I also doubt Canonical is only seeking people who "summer" in Martha's Vineyard, regardless of their skin color.

Nobody said they were. That was an example to explain how questions like these can be classist.

Exactly. That said, some standardized tests have been accused of class or race bias merely by the demographic distribution of outcomes, which requires a lot more explaining than asking whether "Does Buffy's Jaguar leak oil?" has a potential class bias.

> That was an example to explain how questions like these can be classist

The op asserted classist == racist in the US. Something I requested elaboration on, and has yet to be offered.

OP asserted "probably", so not ==.

In the U.S. class, income, and race are correlated for various historical reasons. Obviously "correlated" means "on average", not a rigid relationship. But discriminating based on class is very likely based on correlation to produce a disparate impact based on race.

How disparate, and how bad that is and even I suppose whether it's bad, are hotly contested ideological questions.

>You have identified a very specific type of economic class, which has nothing to do with "race" and/or ethnicity

Please elaborate...

Way too much emphasis on if you went to the "right" high school or college for something given to people with ten year's experience, interest in those that took a hyper competitive view to niche hobbies in their high school years, why they picked the third level institution they did (economic necessity did not seem likely to be an acceptable answer).

> Way too much emphasis on if you went to the "right" high school or college for something given to people with ten year's experience, interest in those that took a hyper competitive view to niche hobbies in their high school years, why they picked the third level institution they did (economic necessity did not seem likely to be an acceptable answer).

Do rich golf-playing Harvard graduates really apply for a remote 100k per-year positions at Canonical? Or what is the idea of such interview?

So, what does that have to do with racism?

In the US the two are intertwined because historical discrimination produced reduced chances for black people to make it into the middle and upper class, and this is a generational effect. Consequentially things that discriminate against the working class will also discriminate against historically discriminated minorities.

I don't think there is a way you can assert hiring practices that discern based on economic status are de facto racist in the modern US. That seems to be quite a stretch. In fact, many of the practices at large organizations are designed expressly to favor historically discriminated populations - and in other cases historically discriminated populations don't need an artificial advantage and have outpaced other populations on their own merit.

> I don't think there is a way you can assert hiring practices that discern based on economic status are de facto racist in the modern US. That seems to be quite a stretch.

It meets the "disparate impact" criterion, which is the legal bar for racism.

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