I have seen people be very strongly influenced negatively or positively by a word or phrase on the resume that in the scheme of things wasn't that important. I am sure I do the same thing, but I am not aware of it.
So, yes, individually maybe they're not valuable, but in multiplicity they can become meaningful.
I'd hope to have a similar 'audition' approach that included not only basic programming skills but also –and as a junior level programmer, more importantly– learning skills. For example, commenting or debugging internal framework code (something that all interviewees are experiencing for the first time).
In regard to the linked article's approach - I couldn't afford to take three weeks off of my current job, to learn a new language, even if the training gave me a slim chance of a new job (I still have bills to pay). That said, I do think wish there were more apprenticeship type approaches for junior devs.
I recently completed a programming bootcamp and when I explained this to several of my classmates they made a point of highlighting what a great programmer I am (relatively to our peers) and that I'm a really great person to work with "once people get to know me". But, there's the crux of the matter for me - in an interview situation, if I'm ruled out in the first 30 seconds then nobody "gets to know me" or my programming potential. To add to the irony, about 2/3rds of my current co-workers know that I'm looking for a job and they regularly make comments to me about how much they don't want me to go, followed by comments about understanding my need to work in a less toxic environment.
But from a fellow introvert who has had success with interviews: an interview is a good example of a social situation that's fairly "hackable."
By hackable I mean an interview is something where, at least compared to an open-ended conversation with a stranger, there are certain... branching paths of conversation?... that you can practice ahead of time.
The inevitable questions about why you're leaving your current job are definitely a thing you can practice. I don't think it's necessarily bad to mention some negatives regarding your current position and why you want to get out of it. If it didn't suck in some way, why would you be looking for a new job?
I think a good answer to the "why are you looking to leave your current position?" question would involve:
1. What you like about the new company ("You guys seem to hire really good coders, you're growing as a company, and I like your approach to A, B, and C.")
2. What you want to achieve at the new company (ex: "I'm looking for an opportunity to do less support and more coding.")
3. Optionally, something about what's bad at your current company. Preferably in a positive context. (ex: "I'm really excited about building modern web applications, and I'm not able to achieve that at Company XYZ because we've committed to supporting IE6.0 until 2050 because it's what the owner's mom uses.")
Anyway, it's not easy, but it's.... hackable. Unless it's a really weird interview, most of the ground you'll cover is rehearseable. Good luck!!
In all of the interviews I've been to recently, the interviewers continue to press me if I focus on their company and don't say something about why I want to leave my current employer.
After a particularly bad interview, I did start practicing for these types of questions and I'm getting better, but that's still relative. Part of the problem is that I've been in the toxic workplace so long and I'm so desperate to get out of it, that thoughts of escaping push to the front of my brain while I'm in interviews and I either blurt out something I shouldn't [1] or I just freeze up (think deer in headlights), typically a combination of the two which is even worse.
[1] I don't blurt out anything quite as bad as "my current boss is an ass", rather things like "My boss doesn't believe in bug trackers and I think they're extremely important." So far so good, right? But then there's a pregnant pause and I catch myself blurting out, "At least a client threatened to take away our business if we didn't start keeping bug records, so now we have 3-ring binders and paper forms to record our bugs. But that doesn't do any good when the same bug is reported multiple times in every binder and the boss doesn't actually look at the bug reports or give anyone else access to the code." At which point the looks on the interviewers face tell me I've blown it again. (Very true scenarios about our bug reporting and my idiotic blurting out in an interview.)
Maybe it's how you're saying it, and not what you're saying? Is there somebody you could practice with? Somebody who could point out body language or tone of voice or other cues that could be giving interviewers the wrong impression about you?
One other possibility...
Maybe round out that story by mentioning how you (or the team you were a part of, even if you weren't the lead person on the effort) tried to solve that problem in a constructive way. "We gave our boss a presentation on three popular, low-cost issue trackers that we tried and liked... to no avail." Surely your next employer will make some decisions you don't agree with - they're wondering how you will handle them!
I have to admit, I never considered trying to recover after I get the "look" from interviewers. In fact, I had provided multiple recommendations on bug-tracking software, to include setting up demo servers for several different packages (because of those demos and related discussions, our interns started using both bug-tracking software and GitHub for their projects - so that was a definite win).
> I certainly think part of my problem is the how I'm saying it.
If you truly are coming off awkwardly, what's the real problem there? The problem is this: the interviewer is wondering, "How is this guy going to interface with the rest of the team here if he's this awkward? Does he even know he's awkward?"
So... you can address both of those unspoken questions head-on. Mention that you tend to get nervous in interviews and when meeting people for the first time and that it's something you overcome fairly quickly and that you tend to develop really good working relationships with coworkers. (Because that's certainly true from what you've said)
> I wish I had somebody who could do this for me!
> In fact, I had provided multiple recommendations on bug-tracking software,
> to include setting up demo servers for several different packages (because of
> those demos and related discussions, our interns started using both bug-tracking
> software and GitHub for their projects - so that was a definite win).
> ... you might not be coming across as awkwardly as you think you are ... I have no doubt that I am.
> ... you can address both of those unspoken questions head-on ... I honestly never considered this, but will in future interviews!
> If you live near Philadelphia... Unfortunately not.
> Is there anybody non-technical that might help you? Siblings, parents...?
Unfortunately I tend to have family and friends that are overly critical in a really bad way. The last time I asked my mother to look at my resume I was berated for 30 minutes for being so stupid, not using my god-given-skills, etc (i.e. nothing useful but lots of hurtful). I don't even bother asking the guys in my family, they're far worse than my mother. My friends really are great friends in many, many different ways, but tend to be truly lousy at giving constructive criticism. For example, I told one friend that I was going to be building an JavaScript application. She instantly went off on the evils of Java, how Apple won't run Java, and didn't let me get a word in. When she finally finished her anti-Java tirade, I tried to let her know some of the many differences between JavaScript and Java, but until a couple of other friends started quoting from wikipedia entries and intro tutorials, she wouldn't believe me that they really are two different languages. (I promise, she has been a really good friend in other ways!)
I do participate in a ton of meetups. Would it be appropriate to ask a peer from a meetup group to be a proxy for an interviewer?
Because you'll never convince me that no musicians have toxic attitudes. Even at the symphony orchestra level.
Software development IS NOT meritocratic and neither are orchestras. There is just as much politics, networking, and problems with "value" in orchestras as in software development.
Do you prefer the most skilled person, or a very skilled person who gets along well with your team, understands your industry, and cares about your mission?
> your team, understands your industry, and cares about your mission
When teams are largely made up of a certain kind of person, using this as criteria for hiring is a sure fire bet to make sure your team stays homogenous and never grows outside of its little comfort zone.
This is a good summary of some of the data:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/26/us/ferguson-racism-or-racial-b...
Professors at the University of Chicago and MIT sent 5,000 fictitious resumes in response to 1,300 help wanted ads. Each resume listed identical qualifications except for one variation -- some applicants had Anglo-sounding names such as "Brendan," while others had black-sounding names such as "Jamal." Applicants with Anglo-sounding names were 50% more likely to get calls for interviews than their black-sounding counterparts.
Most of the people who didn't call "Jamal" were probably unaware that their decision was motivated by racial bias, says Daniel L. Ames, a UCLA researcher who has studied and written about bias.
"If you ask someone on the hiring committee, none of them are going to say they're racially biased," Ames says. "They're not lying. They're just wrong."
Many people are consciously racist, not in a "I want them all lynched" way, but in a "meh, I'd rather not meet with a black guy, probably a waste of time" way.
Of course they aren't going to admit that sort of bias. And again, you're just guessing at what happened.
There is indeed subconscious bias, and it rears its ugly head when we're observing people's mannerisms, their speech, their attractiveness, and yes, their skin color. But just looking at names on a resume, I'd argue the decision of calling someone back, based on the stereotypical application of their first name, is just a conscious bias.
Huh? I never guessed that anything happened or guessing at any motives of anyone...?
The same resume experiment has been tested with male/female names as well.
Is that not guessing at motives (or the lack of a motive, I suppose)?
The point the above commenter made is that the CV example does not demonstrate subconscious bias. The researcher in question said they were "probably unaware", and said that "if you ask someone on the hiring committee", implying that they did not even try to measure whether or not this bias was conscious or not, but that they assume a lot of it was subconscious.
It's quite possible - even likely - they're right about that, but from the description it does not sound like that study is a good basis for demonstrating subconscious basis.
> The same resume experiment has been tested with male/female names as well.
Many people openly admit to biases against females in certain jobs, so that too is a bad example for establishing subconscious bias.
I agree with you that there is a lot of subconscious bias (and the article has much better examples, such as the knife example where there's no motive for people to pick the wrong person), but it's not clear that the CV example demonstrates subconscious bias. It certainly does demonstrate bias though.
The point is, "discrimination" is sometimes just applying statistics. Just because some statistical factors correlate with race doesn't mean one is being racist; they are just optimizing their selection process.
If your optimized selection process selects away from Black candidates it is by definition racist.
I don't think so. Correlation doesn't equal causation.
Edit: also, since more Asians and less blacks are accepted at good universities, if your company relies on the name of university when selecting candidates (e.g. a candidate from Harvard is more likely to have an interview than a candidate from an unknown state school), by your logic that's racist as well.
Racism is [dis]favouring a particular group based on race. If you choose the 10 highest scorers in a maths test in a group and the racial make-up doesn't match that of the group as a whole that's not racist.
One could manipulate your choice characteristics in order to achieve the racial profile that you want. That's serious conspiracy theory territory though.
> One study conducted by a Brigham Young University economics professor showed that white NBA referees call more fouls on black layers, and black referees call more fouls on white players. Another study that was published in the American Journal of Sociology showed that newly released white felons experience better job hunting success than young black men with no criminal record, Ross says.
>"The overwhelming number of people will actually experience the black man as having the knife because we're more open to the notion of the black man having a knife than a white man, " Ross says. "This is one of the most insidious things about bias. People may absorb these things without knowing them."
Anyways, this kinda stuff has been shown to happen with plenty of different groups. Attractive vs ugly, fat vs normal weight, woman vs man, old vs young, tall vs short. We aren't as rational as we'd like to believe.
...And what the hell does someone coming from a poor neighborhood have anything to do with anything? I grew up poor, I don't see how that is relevant to my job skills. I'd love to knkw why I'd be optimized out of a selection process. Furthermore, your resume usually has your address on it, you don't have to guess.
No, I was just commenting on the logic of the quote in the parent comment, which I find faulty. I'm not saying people aren't racist, or subconsciously racist; I'm just saying that you can't reduce any statistical effect down to racist, while other explanations are just as possible.
> And what the hell does someone coming from a poor neighborhood have anything to do with anything?
I'm pretty sure that if you run statistics, you would find out that people from poor neighborhoods are more likely to be criminals, violent, less educated, less intelligent. Is it their fault? No, obviously not - they were never given a chance to excel (or rather, they had to overcome many more obstacles). But I think it's the responsibility of the government (or charities) to help such people, while it's the responsibility of a business to, well, do business, with the best employees it can hire.
Btw, I'm not saying that you should take the above into account. I just oppose the logic that it's always "racism". Because then you could equally say, it's racist to prefer people from Harvard, because Harvard discriminates against people from bad neighborhoods, because they have lower SAT scores.
> Furthermore, your resume usually has your address on it, you don't have to guess.
Oh, I didn't know. Mine doesn't.
This only needs to be true for a higher percentage of the represented population to say that it is more likely. It doesn't make someone a bigot to talk about statistical measures. (i don't have the stats in front of me but i'm merely commenting on your accusation.)
I'd really encourage you to read it an other articles on implicit bias; they're really important issues that have disastrous impacts.
> I'm pretty sure that if you run statistics, you would find out that people from poor neighborhoods are more likely to be criminals, violent, less educated, less intelligent.
The problem I have with this is that it's a hunch that sounds reasonable, but there's no data to support the claim. I think we need to be especially careful in situations with implicit bias to vet all of our assumptions, because in aggregate, they have really negative impacts on large subgroups of people.
Here's a link to the source document for the linked article: http://www.povertyactionlab.org/publication/are-emily-and-gr...
That article references other journal articles that review exactly what you're talking about, varying only location. It appears that it helps, but helps whites more. I didn't read that article (I'm at work; only have time for so much research, which probably should be no time at all :P)
> I'm not from the US, but don't many American blacks have white-sounding names? And I assume those blacks are more likely to come from families that are wealthier and better educated.
The article says, "Each resume listed identical qualifications except for one variation... names"
I looked into the underlying source article and they list and control for the education of the applicants, which means there's no need to judge their education by their name, since you already have it.
I think the problem a lot of people have is that it feels a lot like we're saying everyone is racist, which feels a lot like an attack. To spin it a little differently, I'd personally say we're all biased. You could go through any long list of cognitive biases and implicit racial bias would just be one of the myriad everyone is subject to in some magnitude. It's a matter of being aware of it and really questioning your founding assumptions so you can reduce the bias where possible. The problem with racism is that it has real and lasting impacts right now on minorities, and is particularly insidious (if you ask me).
I really think it would be worth your time to read the article and follow some of the linked articles. It's really interesting information that's relevant.
And the article I linked to says that. Individuals don't MEAN to be racist (or sexist, etc.) but are, because culture gives us biases. Addressing unintended racism is hard, because it isn't visible. We aren't attacking individuals.
> The problem I have with this is that it's a hunch that sounds reasonable, but there's no data to support the claim.
I would bet that there is data to suggest that "people from poor neighborhoods are more likely to be criminals, violent, less educated, less intelligent", and even data to suggest the other inferences tomp brought up.
However, the vast majority of people are not "criminals", at least in the habitual sense, and the vast majority of people from the 'hood are also not "criminals".
"When the incidence, the proportion of those who [are criminals], is lower than the [proportion of people from the 'hood who are not criminals], even tests that have a very low chance of giving a false positive in an individual case will give more false than true positives overall."
The problem I have is with phrases like "I would bet there is" or "I assume those blacks [with white sounding names] are more likely to come from families that are wealthier and better educated."
It seems like an obvious correlation to make, but they're not based on data. I think it's in our best interest, intellectually, to take a few minutes and look for some information. The internet means it can take fifteen or twenty minutes to find a decent chunk of data to start working with. It won't make you an expert (and I'm by no means one either), but it can help highlight a lot of the nuance that exists in issues like this.
I'm pretty sure if you run statistics you would find that people from poor neighborhoods are more likely to have their activity be criminalized, cast as violent, denied access to education formally and informally, and have their intelligence devalued in comparison to a social norm that has implicit bias.
What you are describing is, specifically, racism.
> The point is, "discrimination" is sometimes just
> applying statistics. Just because some statistical
> factors correlate with race doesn't mean one is being
> racist; they are just optimizing their selection process.
Even if you could 100% accurately determine a candidate's background from looking at their resume, and even if you could be sure that people from their background were more likely to be "bad" people[1] then couldn't you also look at "Jamal's" resume and conclude: "Obviously, Jamal must be a talented guy to rise above his background and pursue a technical career?"
In the end, it's all guesswork anyway. Companies would be much better served by sticking to the facts on "Jamal's" resume and checking themselves whenever they catch themselves inventing fictional histories for people based on a candidate's name and their own racist prejudices and stereotypes. _____ [1] To be clear: I don't agree that either of these things are true.