back to article Does Big Tech hire white boys ahead of more skilled black people and/or women?

I've been watching with some amusement a little story about Pinterest noting that it's got a user base that leans heavily female. It's doing the rounds as the company thinks, well, it would be nice to be stuffing men full of ads as well (when it actually starts slinging ads) so, umm, why don't we go out and try and find some …

  1. Paddy

    The author is talking about the same industry that illegally held down wages with no poaching agreements - and then screw their mainly white middle class male employees about the amount of compensation. These corporations can make a difference to equality and should. As customers, if you don't like the status quo you should say so.

    1. James Micallef Silver badge
      Devil

      "the same industry that illegally held down wages with no poaching agreements"

      Yes, they are equal-opportunity employers in that they screw all their employees equally

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All very well...

    ...saying it works out in the end, and the big companies will get theirs... Doesn't help those that get "hired cheaply" now.

    1. L05ER

      Re: All very well...

      i believe the point was that the smart people running these companies know that it is in their best interest to do so. therefore those "hired cheaply" are done for legitimate reasons like skill or experience, or in the non-poaching pact... corporate profits. not whatever the -ism of the day is.

  3. Mark 85

    Just an observation....

    Tim makes valid points with his argument about hiring the best and company survival. The cultural issues are big problem and this beating the "discrimination issue" to death will serve no one except those who have a vested interest. And that interest isn't always financial, it's usually cultural.

    Because of the cultural problem, I can't lay the blame at the top or with the boards. While the guy at the top may only want top people, the middle management usually seems to let their own personal issues get in the way. They won't hire someone who's perhaps brighter than they are for fear of being outshined. They won't hire someone good-looking because their significant other will get jealous. They won't hire someone for a thousand reasons and many of which will have to do with personal preferences. Maybe the candidate didn't suck up enough or too much... etc. etc. etc. So the place gets filled with people who match the interviewer's preferences. I know of several places (I interviewed there back in the day) that would not hire Vietnam vets. Another place would hire a Vietnam vet but not former Marines. Was this the top guy's view? Or the interviewer's? From where I sat across the table, it was the interviewer's.

    I've also seen reverse discrimination being practiced because a company was trying to raise it's numbers and keep out of the government and media radar. Where it didn't matter how good you were, if you didn't meet the "goal" you were not hired. Some wanted race, some wanted vets, etc. A standing joke was that if you were "a black female and a veteran who lost a limb in the Spanish-American War, you were golden even if you couldn't write much less write code". Yeah.. it was that bad.

    The jist is... that if this situation heats up too much, the CongressCritters seeking votes will pass laws. And those laws will hurt not just the people looking for a job, but the companies seeking employees. In a perfect world, there would be no discrimination and the pool of potential employees would match the general population's make up.

    But sadly it's not a perfect world. I wish there was, however, a perfect answer.

  4. Andrew 59
    Thumb Up

    Simon made a similar point 10 years ago(!)

    The BOFH guide to equal opportunities

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There's the market and then there's psychology...

    The main issue with "the market" is that it's made by people, and people are far from always being rational beings. People psychology drives a lot of decision with are far from being fully rational.

    I believe people tend to hire people who are alike them - and I not talk about race or gender - but at the behavioural and lifestyle level. Having to spend a lot of time with the people you have to work for, you select those who will make you "feel well" working with - and they have a good chance to be somewhat alike you.

    You can observe it in all people group, and you can also observer it in work group. Look at PR/marketing - are those peole alike the IT groups? No. You're going to meet in the former group much more open people, leaning toward dressing classy (not always achieving it), and often selected also for their physical aspect (a nice young woman works better in PR than an ugly fat old man - because of the behavioural aspects of the intended audience). There's a good chance they will spend time with the same kind of people outside work.

    You see it in schools, where group forms based on behaviours, interests, and lifestyle. Children looks for other children somewhat alike them, and who make them "feel good".

    Thereby purely rational "market" rules may not apply fully, especially if there is no so big differences at the skills levels to prompt those who select people to clearly steer towards a candidate regardless of everything else.

    You can also observe this behaviour depending on who is in charge of selection. HR, management (without an IT background) and IT people could select very differend candidates from the same pool. Each group has different selection criteria, and many of them can be traced back to the behavioural level.

    The main issue is that gender and race in our society have a big impact on how people develop their own behaviour and lifestyle. People who are going to refuse some behaviours/lifestyle and prefer others, will have far big problems to be selected into a given social group, and adapt to it, even if they have achieved the same skills. Although it may be also hard to achieve some skills if you refuse some social group lifestyle and behaviours. Try to work as a lawyer if you believe the legal system shoud work like an algorithm (and hate to wear a tie) or in fashion if you think there are only three colors, R, G and B, and you don' really care what to wear each morning.

    1. James Micallef Silver badge

      Re: There's the market and then there's psychology...

      "purely rational "market" rules may not apply fully, especially if there is no so big differences at the skills levels"

      This is an extremely important point. At the very top end of super-coders and whizz-kid nerds, there's going to be a more public track record of success that the likes of Apple, Google etc are actively looking out for and will snap up. And obviously unqualified candidates can be weeded out. However for the vast majority of jobs in IT (and, I would guess, every other area), one competent person is more or less equivalent to another, and even a comprehensive CV and extensive interview often will not be enough to meaningfully distinguish between 2 candidates. I believe that it's at these instances with very fine margins where unconscious bias might determine what candidate is selected.

      In this case since the candidates are functionally equivalent for a company, the company incurs no penalty for (consciously or unconsciously) hiring a white male over a non-white-male.

      If the bias occurs systematically, one would expect that salaries for non-white-males would be lower and some equal-opportunity or affirmative-action company could take advantage, but then again is a 5% salary difference on, say, 10% of your employees* where your wage bill is 30-40% of your expenses (so, 1.5-2%) REALLY going to make that much difference in whether a company will sink or swim?

      So bottom line, just because an overwhelmingly or exclusively non-white-male IT company is not a significantly more profitable option compared to a typically-staffed one, that does not mean that bias does not exist. Rather, is is much more likely that there is very little, and mostly unconscious bias, which is not specifically linked to the tech industry.

      *Exactly because of the point Tim mentions that white males are the majority of the candidate pool anyway, one would expect that a decision between white male and non-white-male is only happening for a small percentage of available jobs.

      1. Tim Elphick

        Non-white-male?

        I think the term you're looking for is "male of colour".

        1. James Micallef Silver badge

          Re: Non-white-male?

          I think the term you're looking for is "male of colour"

          No, I meant someone who is not a white male, ie could be female, or non-caucasian, or both. Hence "non-white-male" rather than "non-white male"

    2. freedomfighter

      Re: There's the market and then there's psychology...

      So from your analogy, I guess that's it we can exclude Blacks and Hispanic from yet another lucrative industry because so far it is dominated by Asians, South Asians (Indians) and Caucasians. The insecurity and selfishness of people in this world never cease to amaze me!

  6. Buzzword

    Pinteresting employees aren't whiter than white

    According to some stats I dredged up, Pinterest's workforce are 50% white and 42% Asian (there's no further breakdown into Indian, Chinese, Filipino, etc.). Those figures are remarkably close to the figures for San Francisco as a whole. Assuming the company mostly hires local workers, where is the problem?

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Re: Pinteresting employees aren't whiter than white

      Actually, here's an surprisingly enlightening map, showing the ethnic plurality (i.e., who makes up the largest slice of the pie) for every county in the USA. Not so much a "melting pot" as a mixed grill, and it's an answer to why you don't often see black faces in the South Bay Area:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States#mediaviewer/File:Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries-by-County.svg

    2. BigFire

      Re: Pinteresting employees aren't whiter than white

      Asian are counted as white for SJW quota. We are over represented as it is.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pinteresting employees aren't whiter than white

        The stats I saw in one article, whites (and black) were under represented in the tech firms compared to the US population as a whole. Would importing tech workers on captive visas have any influence?

        I'll try to find the link.

  7. Joseph Eoff
    Thumb Up

    Upvote

    Quote:

    We here at the Register are a bit more sceptical about the existence of proper free markets in which all people act rationally than Tim is. We would say that a world in which Apple can make the largest quarterly profit in the history of capitalism largely off iPhone sales is not a world where people in the mass can be presumed to act rationally, even as an approximation.

    1. Graham Marsden

      Re: Upvote

      Hear hear!

      The fact of the matter is that virtually any "idealised" system, be it pure capitalism, communism, free market, democracy, (true) anarchy (as in no government) or any other such thing would work fine and be wonderful if it wasn't for those annoyingly bloody-minded and irrational human being who simply *won't* behave in the right way to make it work!

      Obviously the fault is with people, not the system...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Upvote

      Unfortunately, El Reg misattributes the blame on both counts. World markets are mostly free and people are entirely rational. Instead oversimplification of economic theory and bounded rationality are better targets for scorn.

      The problem with the economics is that the basic economic theories are based on simplified commodity markets: A magical place where all smartphones are equal, everyone can buy or sell as much as they want and branding means nothing; there's also no corporate profits to be had here. In a free market, producers will do everything they possibly can to not be in that type of commodity market. This is why we consistently have those hideous advertising stories; a company wants to differentiate its products from its competitors and make sure that any interested buyer knows about their product. In the case of Apple, they've managed to convince a lot of people that they don't compete in the "smartphone" market, they compete in the "iPhone" market--where they conveniently have a monopoly. Commodity theories are nice, since they're easy to work with, apply and make intuitive sense; but not terribly relevant to actual participants in the market. Fortunately, commodity markets are not the only type of market and they can exist within a free market or outside of one. Most of economic theory actually deals with why and how the basic commodity theories don't apply.

      A free market is only contrasted with one where production is controlled by the reigning government. Monopoly behavior, while quite similar, is actually an expected part of a free market. The modern markets are mostly free, since the quantity of a given item that is produced is determined indirectly by how much people consume. There's some subsidizing and taxation that takes place and distorts the costs of various items, but there aren't many cases (oil) where a country simply decides to produce a fixed quantity of a good regardless of how much is actually demanded.

      Yes, people really are rational. It often doesn't seem like it; we frequently see examples of things that don't make sense to us. Some people buy iPhones, some people get manicures for their poodles. There are two problems that people face when making decisions in a market though. First, people have a limited amount of information to apply to the decision. Second, there's often a limited amount of time to spend on the decision making process. These fall under the heading of bounded rationality, if you're interested in learning more. As far as observing rationality goes, there's also the additional problem that I don't have access to anyone else's reasoning processes, so it's hard to tell how someone came to a given conclusion.

      The first time a kid goes to buy laundry detergent for himself, he arrives at the store and is greeted with a huge array of choices: A dozen different brands all claiming to be 50% more efficient that the "leading brand," various naming strategies and scents. Chances are, this kid doesn't know anything about how well any of the individual brands work and ends up choosing the one that mom always used. Now, he could have bought some of each, taken them home and tested each one on his clothes to find out which one worked best, was the cheapest or the most effective for the cost. But, that would have required buying several bottles of detergent--money that he'd probably rather spend on beer or games--and a whole lot of time--that he'd probably rather spend partying or playing said games. Instead, he applies the rational that, this one worked well for Mom for as long as I can remember; that's good enough. The kid lacks all of the information to make the best possible decision about what to buy and either doesn't have or doesn't want to spend the time to gather all of that information.

      This problem can be even worse when you don't know how to evaluate a product effectively. How do you know whether you should buy your next phone from Apple or Samsung. While lots of us here can tell what all those hardware specs mean and have some understanding of how their respective UIs can make usage easier or harder, the average consumer won't. Instead, they apply whatever heuristics they have available to the task, and that may be limited to asking what do my friends use and do they like it.

      As far as hiring employees goes, my understanding is that most businesses try to ignore the race/sex of the person, but when faced with a huge pile of nearly identical resumes to sort, they tend to fall back on anything they can come up with that might make candidate A a better choice than candidate B. And that can be as useless as whether the name sounds white or African American.

  8. Sumpbuster

    Equality ?

    I just hope it doesn't descend into "equality through quota" <sigh>

    1. sabroni Silver badge

      Re: Equality ?

      So are you a white male? If so, maybe the fact you (and I) benefit from the status quo colours your opinion.

      Whatever, I don't see "equality through qutoa" as worse than "inequality". Neither is particularly desirable, but at least one of those is trying to do something positive, however misguided...

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Equality ?

        > I don't see "equality through qutoa" as worse

        You have been selected to get a Windows CE phone instead of an iPhone because we need all phones to be equal.

        1. sabroni Silver badge
          Unhappy

          Re: because we need all phones to be equal.

          What an idiotic post. Equality is about valuing people equally and making sure that disabilities or other differences don't negatively impact them. That doesn't mean treating everyone exactly the same, it means, for example, providing ramps for wheelchair users even though "normal" people don't need them. They get equal access, not an equal method of entry.

          Now see if you can think about how that idea applies to other cases of discrimination.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: because we need all phones to be equal.

            Ramps aren't about preventing discrimination, but allowing access.

            People don't start off with "I don't want to hire people in wheelchairs how can I avoid that" and end up with "I know I'll make sure there are stairs everywhere".

            People who don't want to hire disabled people have a problem in their head they just wont hire them, they might well still put ramps in and still just not hire them.

            The way to prevent discrimination is through recruitment processes that ensure no one person makes the decision and those that do must independently justify their personal decisions before the final decision.

            A good starting point is Joel's approach: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html

            Obviously this stuff varies on the size of the organisation a one man band cannot have multiple interviewers for instance.

      2. Sumpbuster

        Re: Equality ?

        Indeed - all that matters is ability. My concern is that positive discrimination can alienate the very people it is attempting to assist. Yes I am a white male - but artificially boosting the credibility of a person based on a "minority" concept seems a rather odd way of ensuring equal representation.

        1. sabroni Silver badge

          Re: artificially boosting the credibility of a person based on a "minority" concept

          Fine. Suggest something better. But leaving things alone and hoping that things will change for the better doesn't work.

          So how would you fix the problem?

          1. Sumpbuster

            Re: artificially boosting the credibility of a person based on a "minority" concept

            >Fine. Suggest something better. But leaving things alone and hoping that things will change for the better doesn't work.

            Sometimes, leaving a system alone may be the best solution.

            >So how would you fix the problem?

            As I originally asserted - by hiring the most able person.

            Discrimination, in people terms, is usually about fear.

            Prevention of this can be achieved by education, or at least, promoting awareness of such issues.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its true here,

    Not 1 black person, have heard a while back they did employ a coloured person, but no news of any others. Women are generally in sales / marketing / reception, there are no technical women.

    I saw a black fellow come in for an interview and was told on the side, Ha why did he bother turning up !

    Anon For my deep shame that i cling to this job, and this isn't something you should be posting publicly

    1. joeldillon

      Re: Its true here,

      'Coloured'? You're coming over a bit Benedict Cumberbatch there...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Its true here,

        When I were a lad it was considered preferable, I think the US influence in TV and t'internet from the '90s onward, where "coloured" has a more problematic history has changed the prevailing view.

        "Black" never seemed suitable in northern England in the '80s as those of a darker ethnicity were more light brown and if you wanted to be offensive there were plenty of more offensive words than "coloured".

        Language changes fast these days.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Its true here,

        'Coloured'? You're coming over a bit Benedict Cumberbatch there...

        Language is a fucked up thing, when I was a kid you got a thick ear if you said someone was "black".

        1. Spleen

          Re: Its true here,

          This is probably why it is so difficult for dark-skinned people to break into certain industries. Everyone is terrified that if they hire a black person they'll use the wrong word to describe their ethnicity on the wrong day of the week and invite a tribunal case or just the shame of being like a character in a Ricky Gervais sketch. So they solve this problem by only hiring whiteys.

          1. Captain DaFt

            Re: Its true here,

            From somewhere (can't remember):

            "So, um, to be blunt, what is your preference to be called, Black, colored, African American?"

            "How about George, it is my name."

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Its true here,

              Name's George. Chic....

              Ok, better not go there.

            2. Sooty

              Re: Its true here,

              "So, um, to be blunt, what is your preference to be called, Black, colored, African American?"

              Have you seen the video of a black british runner being interviewed in America after a race, can't remember who it was, but the interviewer kept asking what it was like to be an African American sports hero, and he kept saying I'm not African American, I'm British.

              They just couldn't bring themselves to say black and every time replaced it with "African American" and didn't understand why he was getting really annoyed.

          2. sabroni Silver badge
            Facepalm

            Re: Everyone is terrified that if they hire a black person they'll use the wrong word

            Yeah, that's right. It's political correctness gone mad that's to blame.

            For fuck's sake......

        2. JEDIDIAH
          Trollface

          Re: Its true here,

          America and England are two nations separated by a common language.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        better call the NAACP

        and let the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that they better change their name, if we're gonna get all heroic here.

        1. Tom 13

          Re: better call the NAACP

          They sort of already have. They're just NAACP these days, no words to go with the letters.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: better call the NAACP

            From their website:-

            "OUR MISSION

            The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination."

            and good on 'em.

            Maybe it's the "u" they object to?

          2. Mark 85

            Re: better call the NAACP

            Kind of like KFC, huh? Use to be Kentucky Fried Chicken also derisively known as Kentucky Fried Colonel.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: better call the NAACP

          What about the UNCF?

        3. P. Lee
          Paris Hilton

          Re: better call the NAACP

          Is that you, Undercover Brother?

          White She-Devel ---------------------->

  10. LucreLout

    20 years, near enough...

    ... that I've been working in the industry, and 30 that I've been coding. In all of that time, I've never seen a single case of racism or sexism relating to hiring other than a preference to hire non-whites and women because it plays to the diversity stats.

    What I have seen at a variety of companies, is barely disgused ageism, and several cases where the interviewers have remarked that a candidate is "too old to be current". Seemingly, the fact that the grey haired 40 something had been doing the job commercially longer than the fetus interviewing him had been alive counted for nothing. Experience is not a bar to learning or to staying up to date, but a lack of experience is likely to retard the pace said fetus can aquire and make appropriate use of new skills.

    SOLID is just the same in C# or Java as it was in C++. An observer pattern is the same basic construct in any language. Good GUI design principles are more or less identical now that they're called Ux than they were when they were called HCI. Once you've a couple of decades coding, picking up a different toolset or technique is childsplay. I needed to learn to write Android apps, so needed to learn some Java first. 4 months on, I won't pretend my Java is world class, but it is better code than any of my colleagues with fewer than 5 to 7 years experience are turning out, and my Android skills are progressing at pace.

    1. sabroni Silver badge

      Re: I've never seen a single case of racism or sexism relating to hiring

      Oh, that's ok then. I guess all the women and black people are just not very good at IT.

      You are sure that you can see the mental processes of the people hiring, yeah?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I've never seen a single case of racism or sexism relating to hiring

        @sabroni, Well there was only 1 female in my EE class of >50 males (all white or Chinese) 30 years ago, AFAIK nothing has changed there. Maybe they are more interested in something else. So it follows most women aren't good at IT along with 90% of male population too. Whether those not interested is because they aren't good or vice versa is not relevant.

        Like in UK, law, medicine, social science are all dominated by female graduates

        It's very simple. You cannot have 50% of engineers being female if the education system outputs only 16% female engineers. (Same goes for race)

        Now, if you can show that female engineers have a higher unemployment rate than males then there is something that employers can address.

    2. Gamorra

      Re: 20 years, near enough...

      I agree that I have seen much more of the positive bias than the negative. In fact, since I hire people, I'm subject to it myself.

      The reason we have no women in the team currently is because none applied in the latest hiring round. Not that none were suitable, but none applied. The last time one did apply, she was hired almost before she got out of the room. Not because she had certain bits I lacked, but because she was (or seemed to be, based on the interview and later proved by performance) really, really good (thanks, Valentina).

      If a white guy had applied who seemed as good - I mean exactly equally as good - I would still have hired the lady as it meant the team would be more diverse. That's bias. I can live with it. The only other way of differentiating would be to toss a coin. That's not generally accepted as solid business practice. Except if you're a trader.

      As for colour - something I have gone through various iterations of describing and find most of them ridiculous and prejudiced when Eddie Murphy can use a term which, from me, would be considered insulting - we don't have any Chinese people. Now, that is one of the largest groups on the planet. Am I being discriminatory? Not if no-one applies. I can't hire people who aren't there.

    3. Tom 38

      Re: 20 years, near enough...

      Seemingly, the fact that the grey haired 40 something had been doing the job commercially longer than the fetus interviewing him had been alive counted for nothing.

      Perhaps the interviewer picked up on the fact that his potential new hire viewed him as a "foetus" and decided there would not be an effective working environment between the two of them?

  11. codejunky Silver badge

    I disagree

    Hey, different genders have different propensities to do things. Who knew? Well, everyone. And nobody's terribly upset about that.

    Feminists get very upset about it. As long as it doesnt require getting your hands dirty, provides better benefits than the evil gender (I assume men but anything not female is usually hit by the scatter gun) and of course is freely chosen by the woman (free choice restricted to anything 'pre-approved' by the most prudish feminists). That goes for career, hobby and pretty much any aspect of life if the feminists around here are anything to go by.

  12. William Donelson

    Just wait until YOU are classed as TOO SKILLED (read: too old)

    Ten years at MIT, BS and MS in engineering and computer graphics, award-winning work... just featured in Wired.com --

    http://www.wired.com/2015/01/tech-time-warp-week-1977-tablet-computer-took-entire-room/

    After two and a half years of job search, 66 applications to various companies (in the UK) I was offered 0 (zero) interviews.

    I even cut the dates of my degrees out of my CV, but still "too qualified".

    This *WILL* happen to you.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just wait until YOU are classed as TOO SKILLED (read: too old)

      So how old are you?

      1. William Donelson

        Re: Just wait until YOU are classed as TOO SKILLED (read: too old)

        I spent 2.5 years applying to jobs, and was 55 when I started.

        1. LucreLout
          Paris Hilton

          Re: Just wait until YOU are classed as TOO SKILLED (read: too old)

          I spent 2.5 years applying to jobs, and was 55 when I started.

          Yes, it's one of those things that makes me glad my government keep pushing back the retirement age. The idea that we can all just work longer is ok, provided there are actual opportunities to do so.

          In the IT dept where I work we have published stats for number of women, number of ethnic minroties, number of gay or transgender people, etc etc. The one thing we don't have any metric for is the number of coal face staff (coders, sysadmins etc) over 50.

          I really don't relish the idea of spending 5-10 years on the scrap heap before I can take my private pension that I paid for. I also don't see how watching Dad fail to land a job despite having state of the art skills and a whole career full of experience is going to encourage my kids into coding. Is anyone from the government listening?!

          Paris because some careers last a lot longer than anyone expected.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Just wait until YOU are classed as TOO SKILLED (read: too old)

            "I also don't see how watching Dad fail to land a job despite having state of the art skills and a whole career full of experience is going to encourage my kids into coding"

            I agree, I will not be encouraging my kid into engineering/ tech. My advice is only do it if you are exceptional, and then get transferable skills like management asap. Because once the music stops...

            I despair, the government/politicians talk up the need for tech yet I feel it there is no shortage (a round of redundancies coming to my office shortly).. There is a shortage at prices employers want to pay.

            Disclaimer. I'm on the wrong side of 50, I still have a job, for now.

        2. Dan Paul

          Re: Just wait until YOU are classed as TOO SKILLED (read: too old)

          Try applying to your local temperature controls vendors, Schneider Andover, Siemens, Johnson Controls etc. they need your skills and will likely value your maturity over any age issue

    2. Mark 85

      Re: Just wait until YOU are classed as TOO SKILLED (read: too old)

      "Too qualified" is a euphemism for "we'll have to pay you more than we want".

      1. JEDIDIAH
        Linux

        Re: Just wait until YOU are classed as TOO SKILLED (read: too old)

        > "Too qualified" is a euphemism for "we'll have to pay you more than we want".

        With an MS in graphics, it sounds like your best bet is trying to break into the game industry. That said, you have to compete with H1B PhD talent with more education than you and more experience than you who will (likely) accept a lower salary than you.

        I remember when I could demand more money than those types because of my citizenship status and my role in the company.

        Outside of the game industry you would probably be thought of as only qualified for a junior role in some other specialty and a junior position isn't going to pay squat.

        The "age" thing is another possibility. Older "senior" developers seem to be less flexible, less trainable, and less able to adapt to a new corporate culture. Sometimes, they also aren't really that senior either.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ok, I understood:

    I'm going to exclusively hire black women and then pay them less than I would a white male.

    Then everyone will be happy.

    Umm, did I get that right?

  14. Dave Bell

    It is at least possible that there are gender differences in mental abilities arising from basic biochemistry. And I know how my own medications can interact with circumstances to mess up my thinking. So gender differences are plausible, quite apart from the blatantly obvious physical. And if you're looking for unusual abilities, which you have a test for, it's foolish not to test candidates just because they're the wrong gender.

    Oh, I might as well mention Rear Admiral Grace Hopper at this point.

    Her career started at a time when people knew they didn't know what they wanted.

    Today, recruiters are sure they know what they want.

    I am not at all sure which is better.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There also seems to be a lack of interest from woman vs men in IT

    For a time I was an IT mentor in a 16-18yr old apprenticeship scheme teaching A+ and moving on to the advanced courses. One of my duties, among many, was to interview the likely candidates to see which one would best suit the course.

    Even in the interview stage there was about 1 girl to every 20 guys even applying. And even with that, I gave most of the girls a chance. All of them dropped out or transferred to the Office courses (secretarial type courses). I of course did my utmost to try get their heads around the course work as I honestly wanted to see them take the guys on as the lack of females in IT is something I had noticed many years ago. When you get down to the technical garb they just generally seem to lose interest or can't get a grasp of the core concepts.

    That is of course, not to say that they are incapable, but going from my experience, they just seemed less interested. One of the girls who applied, when I asked them why they wanted to do this IT apprenticeship, replied something along the lines of "Well, I love using my phone/laptop, so I would like to see what makes it all work". Then when they realized we were teaching acronyms and boring facts, instead of how BBM and whatsapp work, they just didn't want to know.

    Likewise, when you went to the other end of the argument in this article, I could say that the most disruptive people in the class happened to be of colour (and I don't just mean black, I honestly got asked by one of the lads from Indian heritage, if it was ok to smoke weed while at his job placement at a school.")

    Although I noticed likewise that most of the Caucasian lads, while not disruptive to the class as a whole, tried to sneakily watch youtube and such when they should be doing mock exams and studying.

    But then again, this was in North london, with a lot of the candidates coming from Hackney and surrounding area's. So I guess you could argue that played a role in these observations.

    AC because I don't want to be seen as sexist or racist or anything.

  16. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. JEDIDIAH
      Linux

      Re: Errrr guys...

      Of course. Abuse the nerds. All of the drooling mouth breathers in Communications or Journalism or the Business School just love that idea.

      Take the group that are kind of trying to hide out from constant abuse and heap some more abuse on them because quite frankly they are one of the few groups left that you can get away with subjecting to blatant bigotry.

  17. The Dude

    Rational people?

    Ed: "sceptical about the existence of proper free markets in which all people act rationally"

    When, and where, did all people ever act rationally about nearly anything? Regardless of people's "rationality" it is always a good idea to get as close to a free market ideal as you possibly can. It might be true that whole lot of irrational people will make the obviously irrational decision to waste money on a stupid iThingy, but that's why we call it a "free market"... because people ARE free to purchase any bit of bling they like.

    The only rational alternative to this "free market" ideal is to let ME make all your purchasing decisions for you, and I expect to be well-paid for that service. And if not me, then somebody like me, with a regulators badge.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Discrimination against the stupid and talentless!

    It's not MY fault I wasn't born with uber coding skills, or the aptitude or creativity to create awesome applications. Nor was I born with the foresight to get a MBA out of high school and the charisma to schmooze my way into six figures for doing nothing! So why should I be discriminated against and not hired at Google for 3x what I make now, doing even less and be paid to be a Project/Relationship Manager? If I'm terrible at it, it's because I wasn't handed those talents at birth!

    Sounds pretty f'n stupid when you put it that way. But everything and anything can be "not fair" if enough people are convinced to blame someone else for their failures.

    Must be nice to wake up every single morning and know (and get constant positive affirmation) that every single c*ckup and bad luck and missed opportunity in your life isn't at all your fault, but due to "-ism"s. No wonder so many less-than-stellar individuals think "pride" is the be-all-end-all, since that's what they have a lot of and it's all been given to them. Problem is, like any currency, if everyone is full of the same unearned "pride" then it becomes worthless to anyone else.

    1. freedomfighter

      Re: Discrimination against the stupid and talentless!

      Any person who believes that a person is looked over exclusively because he or she lacked talent is missing something. Just look at what Jackie Robinsons had to endure and look at the racism Daniel Hale the black physician who is noted for being the first to perform an open heart surgery had to swallow despite being more than capable. Also Asians, and (South Asian) Indians who are in influential positions in these companies are often prejudice and this further shuts the door in the face of other minorities in the industry. The industry is lucrative and the industry is booming and the fact is the insecurities of some whites and other minorities who are accepted in the industry, the latter whom are clawing to an upper position in Americas caste system are keeping the doors shut and it is to their advantage.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    white guys are a strawman

    I am so sick of hearing about how white men dominate IT jobs. Every place I have worked since the tech crash has been staffed by 90% Indian men, 8% Indian women, and 2% everyone else. The place I currently work (in my office location alone) has over 600 Indian computer programmers and about 12 non-Indian computer programmers. This was the same at my previous company as well. But lets keep blaming white men for all our troubles. For what it is worth, the cost of the Indian contractors is about the same as the cost of the non-Indian full-timers. Most of the programmers hired at my current company barely know how to operate a computer and barely speak English. My boss sends me resumes of good American candidates (men and women) and when I tell him to interview them all I get are invitations to interview more Indian men.

  20. Fungus Bob
    Go

    I get hired because of my looks

    People think anyone showing up for an interview looking as horseshit as I do _must_ be good.

  21. sabroni Silver badge

    Jesus wept!

    Listen to the white boys whine. Did someone threaten your privilege?

    1. LucreLout
      Mushroom

      Re: Jesus wept! @sabroni

      See, it's racists like you that ARE the problem.

    2. Robert Grant

      Re: Jesus wept!

      People on here (and quite a lot of tech people generally, from what I've seen) are relentlessly (sometimes detrimentally) fair and logical in some regards, and get upset by obviously silly claims and comments such as yours. For example, go visit Verdun if you think white males are all privileged.

      But, more simply, your comment is a) very sexist and b) very racist. Until you can comprehend that, then there's nothing to discuss.

      To put it one final other way, white males are the ones who decided amongst themselves to relinquish power voluntarily (as in, only people with the vote could vote to allow other people to vote), and even went to war against other white males for equality. Until you (not women, or people from other races, or whoever you identify with, but you personally) have the same fierce, external sense of fairness, and stop fighting just for increased power for yourself, then you're the same as anyone who ever got some power and rode roughshod over others.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Jesus wept!

      As far as white male privilige goes for employment in IT I can say as someone working in electronics and software development for 3 decades that the reason there are few women is that almost none apply. When they do apply they have a distinct advantage. There is/has been a strong desire to support and encourage women everywhere I work. If ther eis any unfairness it is against men but not significantly so becaus ethere are so few women applicants.

      As far as being white is concerned this is transparently nonsense if you look at the numbe rof asians in engineering and the obvious lack of any discrimination against them. The reason there are a lot of asians and not for example west indians, is that a lot of asians apply and not many west indians.

      It has always been difficult to find high quality applicants of any description and in general anyone who convinced us they were any good got an offer.

      The ide athat white males are in som eway priviliged is at leats for th emale part in the UK completely against the evidence.

      Lower life expectancy coupled to lower health spending - men

      Poorer educational performance coupled to gender specific programs and encouragment to make the difference worse - men.

      More time spent in jail (~3 times!) when convicted for the same offence coupled with official guidelines to make the difference even greater - men.

      Almost equal levels of domestic violence but no provision for support - men.

      Far more frequently victims of violence coupled to targeted programs that only address women and girls (not even boys) - men

      Higher levels of suicide, higher levels of unemployment, lower levels of pay in part time work and when younger - men.

      I could go on but the idea men are massively priviliged is complete nonsense.

      The idea that white

    4. Dan Paul

      Re: Jesus wept! @ sabroni

      Second that, you race baiting schmuck.

      Privilige has nothing to do with the fact that there are no blacks even attempting to get into programming or other technical trades. There "might" be say 5% females that are in the curriculum and almost all get hired if they don't drop out.

      If there are no black candidates available, how is that racist if they don't get hired to be a programmer or engineer?

      If no one wants the training and almost all minorities will get a free ride thru college including room and board here in the US; then the real issue is the culture itself.

      It difficult to feel sorry for a self fullfilling prophecy.

  22. Brian Allan 1

    Pretty simple really!

    Hire the best! Color, gender and age really doesn't have much to do with it...

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Standard deviation

    The article makes the point that the mean ("average", if you prefer) $thing of two different populations can differ. But standard deviations can differ too. If they do then what you find is that at the extremes - the highest achievers - the differences become even more marked. My own thesis is that the Y gene confers greater standard deviation. Hence more male high court judges, more men in prison.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Employer racism

    A few years back I did some database work for an IT recruitment company. They told me that there were certain companies where, no matter *how* well qualified a candidate, they would simply never get called for interview if their first name was "Shazad" or "Muhammed".

    1. lucki bstard

      Re: Employer racism

      And one of my local supermarkets will only hire people who speak Cantonese (this in a country where the official languages are English/French), that's life either work for yourself or accept a free market means the ability to say No as well as Yes

  25. This post has been deleted by its author

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doors shut?

    It is a known fact that Asian, and Indians(South Asians) are a big part of the workforce and middle management in these big tech companies and it is no secret a large portion of the Asian community are prejudice against blacks in particularly and bring their own bias to the table, they also recommend their friends, family, and other whites when positions open. It is also worth noting that African Americans and Hispanics make up about 1-2% of the workforce in most of these Big Tech companies individually. So when you add the Asians together with the dominant Caucasian personnel that make up the bulk of the tech companies, it is no surprise you get the results you get from their hiring practices to their algorithms used in search queries. And the rumor about their not being enough educated and qualified minorities in this field is only partially to blame for the situation because blacks and Hispanics are graduating in CS at a much larger rate than they are represented. I know many qualified minority programmers that have been overlooked by these big firms, fortunately most were eventually able to find work in different cities and states with other less than prestigious companies, but almost all are still underpaid when their salaries were compared to Caucasians, and Asians in the field. Blacks will always have an uphill battle in everything they try to do it seems, that is the way it is and that is what most in the community have come to expect. The only thing is, it really is perplexing how other minorities are so feverishly promoting, and vigorously amplifying the stereotypes qualified educated blacks are trying to move ahead of in order to secure themselves in Americans caste system when they would not be able to enjoy some of the privileges they do today if it were not for the brave black men and women who pushed through the civil rights movement and beyond.

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