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Comment by scott_w | Hacker News Reader

Then maybe you should see how it’s done in other countries and companies. I’ve worked on hiring and we’ve never once lowered our standards just to get in a black candidate. What I’ve seen done is conscious outreach to increase diversity of applicants, changing language to increase applications from women, blind reviews where you can’t see the name or details of the applicant (to minimise subconscious bias).

All of these actually happen and, to a greater or lesser extent, do help without discriminating against white applicants. How do I know? I ended up only hiring two white men in that particular round!

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>conscious outreach to increase diversity of applicants

Which involved doingwhat exactly?

In our case, the recruitment team started by only headhunting target candidates. Once we exhausted that pool, they would headhunt any candidate.

Just for clarity, this was for a publicly posted job position, so non-target candidates were able to, and did, put in applications. They were assessed the same way target candidates were.

So you started out your hiring practices focused solely on one race...and you don't think it's racist?

Weird how I knew performative outrage would be the response, just as night follows day.

It's not performative outrage, it's a statement of fact. You didn't merely widen the net, you spearfished candidates of the right race and ignored those of the wrong ones. Regardless of your intentions, how is that not racist?

> Just for clarity, this was for a publicly posted job position, so non-target candidates were able to, and did, put in applications. They were assessed the same way target candidates were.

Try again.

> In our case, the recruitment team started by only headhunting target candidates. Once we exhausted that pool, they would headhunt any candidate.

"Target candidate" = those in minority groups, yes?

Before answering your question, I quickly checked your history to confirm my suspicion that you don't give a fuck about racism unless it's against white people and found this gem:

> You're assuming there is no genetic component whatsoever to human skills and interests, and the only reason women are not studying computer science/car repair/welding is sexism.

Your outrage against our hiring practice is 100% performative. So no, I'm not going to engage with you any further.

What do you expect the approach to be when your goal is to go out into the world and find qualified people in demographics you aren't getting naturally in your applicant pool? If you want to hire women software engineers you solicit applicants from "women in tech" events and groups.

The belief, whether you agree with it or not, is that diverse teams produce better results. If your natural applicant pool is all dudes then your job as a headhunter is to find a woman who you think can beat them on merit.

The other way you do it is you hire them on as juniors where everyone's resumes might as well be written on toilet paper and "most qualified applicant" is a bit of a joke and train them up.

Are the the two sources of resumes really treated the same?

If I'm contacted by a recruiter and encouraged to apply for a position, I would expect to at least get a phone screening if not a full interview. Are you really reaching out to minority candidates individually only to sometimes send back a message that you have decided not to proceed with them a few days later? I think that would leave a bad taste in my mouth and make me less inclined to apply or encourage anyone else to apply with your company.

Yes, I rejected a number of CVs/screening calls that didn’t fit the criteria. In practice, this was a small number because our recruiter tried to pre-screen before reaching out. She was good at her job and she didn’t want to waste mine or the candidate’s time on a poor fit that could be seen quickly.

Do the teams you're hiring for know that you're looking to avoid contacting whites, Asians or black people depending on the demographics you're missing until given no other option?

Do you try to get an approximation of society with that selective net you're casting? Of the field? Or is it more according to own preference with something like an equal amount of the subsections you can think of?

> Do the teams you're hiring for know that you're looking to avoid contacting whites, Asians or black people depending on the demographics you're missing until given no other option?

That’s a very strange reading of what I said. I need to remind you that the vast majority of applicants were white men. This headhunting merely added more minority (from a European perspective) candidates into our pipeline.

I was going to be their manager, so yes, I knew the process.

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