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Comment by vijayr | Hacker News Reader

This "forced quota" thing rarely works well - on large or small scale. Back in my college days, IBM came to campus - they announced their intention to hire more women than men, to have diversity in their workforce. While it was good for the girls who got hired (edging out guys who were more qualified), it annoyed a lot of guys who had better grades.

May be a better way is to create a nice atmosphere where women feel welcome and comfortable, having very strict code of conduct in conference and generally us (male engineers) being nice to them - this might take time, but the changes would stay.

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>May be a better way is to create a nice atmosphere where women feel welcome and comfortable, having very strict code of conduct in conference and generally us (male engineers) being nice to them - this might take time, but the changes would stay.

I agree wholeheartedly! I think that this is the sort of attitude which would be conducive to moving the state of affairs along. In these fights it's often lost that the problem at hand is that treating people in a way that makes them feel like they're not welcome and not respected is at the root of the issue.

While it was good for the girls who got hired (edging out guys who were more qualified), it annoyed a lot of guys who had better grades.

So what? It's not like those men are going to find all employment doors shut to them. They weren't guaranteed jobs at IBM, and the assumption that they should have a say in the firm's hiring criteria and strategic goals demonstrates an almost laughable sense of entitlement.

Of course. When women don't want to be discriminated against, it's an issue of rights and equality. When men don't want to be discriminated against, it's a laughable sense of entitlement.

By the way, are "grades" still considered as a worthy predictor of one's performance in the workplace?

Because it's kind of strange when I think of it. I've interviewed a lot of people in my life already and I can't remember a single time grades were brought forward or mattered. Is it an US thing?

What else do you have when you are going to a campus to recruit?

On top of that, even if the company didn't consider them, their classmates probably knew where everyone fell in relation to each other. They would know if they got passed over for someone who had better grades than themselves.

If person A came from a privileged background, and got straight As, and person B came from a much less privileged background, and had to overcome many hurdles just to get into school, and continued to fight to stay in school, and got Bs, which person would you want on your team?

I'm not saying that's definitely the case here, just that grades alone don't tell the whole story.

The one that will produce more value for my company. In many cases, that person is person A.

I don't care if you were pampered and that's why you got A's. If you have the necessary knowledge and are a hard worker, you have my vote.

Your comment is so thick in assumptions (students objectively know who is better at whatever metric you have in mind?) that you are proving the case that traditional metrics are untrustworthy for selecting meritorious candidates.

You're making assumptions. I am not saying anything about the objectivity of the grades given to anyone. I am simply saying that you know someone with a 'B' average was picked over you, when you know you have a 'A' average, you are probably going to be irritated over them picking someone who appears in your point of view to be inferior.

What I said was nothing but perception.

I am really good at math problems and I can't explain my ideas (or comprehend yours) to save my life. You got Bus in school but are able to effect a result as part of a group effort. I will resent you for getting a job that I don't. There is no problem here, my resentment doesn't matter.

This was an Indian university. Different companies had different strategies - some would "filter" the students based on grades alone, and then pick the best from interviews. Some had their own tests, and ignored the grades totally (even in this, some had programming problems only, while others had some weird puzzles etc). It was a while ago, I am not sure what the situation is these days. I do remember that it was a good mix of all kinds of strategies.

>>By the way, are "grades" still considered as a worthy predictor of one's performance in the workplace?

If you work hard to get good grades, you are likely to work hard at your work place too.

Though its true not every hard working student gets good grades.

On the contrary it almost always works. Force the quota of women, gays, blacks, Jews, poor etc. to zero and the privileged group will spend almost exactly no time considering the fact that there may have been someone more qualified that could have bumped them imperceptibly down the ranks if that quota wasn't enforced. They'll not even notice after decades of this.

Just make sure you don't do it to anyone, like straight, white males who have the political strength to resist it or you'll never hear the end of it.

genuine/serious questions:

would you be okay with quotas in sports? music? movies? something like "30% of olympic 100m finalists should be allocated to minorities" etc?

I've seen students with laughable grades (no, I am not making this up) get into medical schools, because they are from underprivileged group. Would you be okay with them performing surgery on you?

</questions>

Quota system is a very dangerous game to play - it usually goes downhill quickly, even if the intentions are good and even if people who run it are super competent. There are numerous other ways to help the under privileged.

They'll not even notice after decades of this.

History has lots of people from the privileged class who ended up working to improve society as a whole. Bill Gates is great living example.

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