Hard cheese on all the sprinters who've trained hard all their lives to become the best they can be, but at least it means people who can barely run 100m without stopping to catch their breath get a chance at glory as well.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
quote:Really? There are many disadvantaged students who go all the way through the process of applying to elite schools, get admitted with full scholarships or generous aid, and then choose not to attend? I find that hard to believe.
Originally posted by stonespring:
(... A lot of talk at elite schools is currently about making college more affordable, which is very good and necessary, but there is considerably less talk about admitting more poor, lower middle class, and rural students in general and doing more to make their universities seem like a place where such students would fit in (since many such students who are admitted, even with full scholarships or debt-free financial aid, choose not to attend)).
quote:Isn't the latter the whole point of affirmative action? To choose those who are most capable, correcting for prior attainment that can be a result of socio-economic or discriminatory factors. You can't be blind to those things if you're using things affected by them (like academic results) as a yardstick.
Originally posted by Enoch:
In the UK, legislation that forbids negative discrimination normally also forbids positive discrimination except in certain specific and rather narrow circumstances. So affirmative action that goes beyond encouraging people to apply is usually illegal.
Unlike Stonespring, I agree with that.
One is supposed to choose the best person in a way that is blind to ethnic or socio-economic background.
quote:The problem is that it's not that easy. Just to carry on with university admission (but, similar dynamics work in employment and other parts of our society), even if the admissions system was entirely blind to candidates race and background those from disadvantaged backgrounds would still be disadvantaged. As has been pointed out, students of equal ability will systematically score lower in exams if they're from poor backgrounds. So, even a computer-based points system where the candidates are offered places without an interview where potentially less-blind humans get involved will carry that bias - and, in the majority of cases, good candidates will rapidly make up the differences from their backgrounds within the first year of university.
Originally posted by Enoch:
One is supposed to choose the best person in a way that is blind to ethnic or socio-economic background.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
quote:But untangling this a little - that discrimination and imbalance is not just historical.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I remember CJ in "The West Wing" pointing out ruefully that whatever the social benefits of affirmative action, her father had suffered some career blight as a result. And I think that is the moral issue with affirmative action. At the level of selection or appointment, giving the edge to any candidate for reasons other than ability disadvantages other worthy candidates. Even if we see that something needs to be done to redress a historically unfair discrimination and imbalance, the disadvantage to others takes no real account of their part in that historical unfairness.
quote:Except this egalitarian principle is rather thin on the ground in the real world.
I can see the social engineering arguments in its favour, but am uncomfortable about what it does to the egalitarian principle.
quote:I've not seen it either, though been informed that it's technically fantastic. But, you still wonder whether Farage would have been so positive about the film if it had included some of the 10s of thousands of muslim troops (in the British army mostly from Pakistan, in the French army from N Africa) who fought and died holding the perimeter, or the thousands more African troops (and, sailors). Would it have appealed to his prejudice if the film acknowledged that the relative success of the evacuation was largely down to the black and muslim soldiers fighting and dieing to hold that perimeter.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
@ Alan Cresswell
I guess that is a pop against "Dunkirk"? Haven't seen it yet.
quote:My egalitarian principle would say it shouldn't be necessary. But, I'm also a realist, and recognise within myself the tendency to prefer people "like me" and am under no illusions about egalitarianism being dominant within our society.
Is affirmative action the right "something needs to be done" response? Given that the alternatives are very long term, I can see the social engineering arguments in its favour, but am uncomfortable about what it does to the egalitarian principle.
quote:As a matter of law positive discrimination of the sort that affirmative action would constitute is forbidden in the UK except in a handful of cases.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
There is much to be said for effective and stringent scrutiny of selection processes to safeguard against tilting the playing field, or guarding against other corruptions.
quote:I think the problem comes when it's applied to any vacancy. When you get to more senior positions where past experience and demonstrated capability are important then affirmative action will mean that the most qualified person won't get the job. But, at less advanced positions where part of the requirement is to learn on the job, and even more so at university admissions, then you're looking more for potential than past achievement and an adjustment for factors that have limited past achievement to reflect potential is more justified.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I don't think you can argue that affirmative action is compatible with the selection of the best individual candidate for any vacancy.
quote:I think that's a false "either/or". Discrimination on grounds other than knowledge, skills and experience is a catch-all for both the latter and the former.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:As a matter of law positive discrimination of the sort that affirmative action would constitute is forbidden in the UK except in a handful of cases.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
There is much to be said for effective and stringent scrutiny of selection processes to safeguard against tilting the playing field, or guarding against other corruptions.
Yet it looms as a bigger problem in the UK media than the various forms of systemic discrimination which are actually shown to exist.
I suspect that impact of the latter is rather greater than the impact of the former, both here and in the US. Yet it seems imperative that we first address the former. Why is that?
[and yes, I'm well aware of the plot of West Wing].
quote:Taking the UK as an example - please provide evidence that it's a catch all for both the latter than the former.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I think that's a false "either/or". Discrimination on grounds other than knowledge, skills and experience is a catch-all for both the latter and the former.
quote:Because people (for which read white, probably male, people) find it easy to imagine a job for which they are the best candidate, and imagine losing out to someone else who ticked all the right diversity boxes. Those same people don't run the risk of being discriminated against because of their ethnic-sounding name, because they haven't got one.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Generally I see more people getting excised by the somewhat theoretical possibility that the 'best candidate' may be disadvantaged by affirmative action than by real studies that show real, regular and systematic discrimination against - say - CVs from candidates with ethnic sounding names.
quote:How does one university admitting a few thousand students differ from a few thousand employers each hiring one employee?
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I think there is a distinction between a multiple place situation like university admissions and single place situations like job interviews.
quote:But this is true for each individual employer as well. Sure - if you're hiring one person, you're not going to get the average, but the strategy to maximize the ability of your new hire is exactly the same as the strategy to maximize the ability of your 5,000 new students.
Now, necessarily in that situation you'll end up unfairly admitting some black people who haven't suffered significant disadvantage and excluding some white or Asian people who have, but you should still end up with a more able cohort overall.
quote:Oh I fully understand the dynamic, I was just pushing back against it being manifested in this thread.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Those same people don't run the risk of being discriminated against because of their ethnic-sounding name, because they haven't got one.
quote:Logically, it is. Statistical anaylses suggest that something other than KSE (or in the case of some University entrance, demonstrable academic prowess) must be in play. The real argument is about appropriate remedial action, and whether affirmative action is appropriate. Prejudices die hard, as does promotion in one's own image.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:Taking the UK as an example - please provide evidence that it's a catch all for both the latter than the former.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I think that's a false "either/or". Discrimination on grounds other than knowledge, skills and experience is a catch-all for both the latter and the former.
quote:
But the point here is the identification of injustices and their causes. These are the things that need tackling, surely, and where affirmative action is needed. Not exactly the same usage of the term, but in the long run surely more just and effective than an approach which is at best a sticking plaster, and at worst an encouragement to discriminatory behaviour. And this last point is important because amongst the causative factors, attitudinal ones figure. If they need changing, why would you want to pursue a course that reinforces current attitudes?
quote:I'm not addressing Leorning Cniht personally, because I don't know if he/she holds the ideas expressed in the post, but --
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Because people (for which read white, probably male, people) find it easy to imagine a job for which they are the best candidate, and imagine losing out to someone else who ticked all the right diversity boxes. Those same people don't run the risk of being discriminated against because of their ethnic-sounding name, because they haven't got one.
quote:This is true. But how likely do you think this will happen? The remedial action entails uplifting the poor as a major component. How likely do you think this is?
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The real argument is about appropriate remedial action,
quote:Since pushing up from the bottom is not going to happen, reaching down from the top is one of the few, practical options.
and whether affirmative action is appropriate.
quote:The biggest killer of prejudice is familiarity. And if you do not change the unfamiliar into familiar, there is no reason for that prejudice to die.
Prejudices die hard, as does promotion in one's own image.
quote:Pardon me, but we appear to be talking past each other. My point is it's not like we have a 'generalised issue with discrimination by factors other than KSE' that manifests itself equally in both directions.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Logically, it is. Statistical anaylses suggest that something other than KSE (or in the case of some University entrance, demonstrable academic prowess) must be in play.
quote:Of course it's not. But affirmative action is something that employers and universities can do NOW. Otherwise we have a situation of them washing their hands and saying, "Well the real problem is the racism endemic in our society. As soon as that changes, we'll have more proportional representation at our firm/school." Which is a cop-out.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
OTOH when I look at the US, I don't think that the biggest and most pressing issue when it comes to racial injustice is necessarily that of affirmative action.
quote:I don't think affirmative action, being a response to inequality, is a major cause of inequality and I do agree about folks who make too much of its shortcomings. I'm saying it has shortcomings which are worth recognising. I'm not discounting its pragmatic value in fostering good change.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:Pardon me, but we appear to be talking past each other. My point is it's not like we have a 'generalised issue with discrimination by factors other than KSE' that manifests itself equally in both directions.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Logically, it is. Statistical anaylses suggest that something other than KSE (or in the case of some University entrance, demonstrable academic prowess) must be in play.
As I said, I don't believe that the issues caused by affirmative action either in the US - or marginally in the UK - are the biggest causes of racial inequality, which leads me to be rather suspicious of anyone making a huge noise about it - in the best case it does what lilbuddha describes above, in the worst case it perpetuates particular sections of ethnic middle-classes.
quote:How do you differentiate experience from background?
Originally posted by Enoch:
In the UK, legislation that forbids negative discrimination normally also forbids positive discrimination except in certain specific and rather narrow circumstances. So affirmative action that goes beyond encouraging people to apply is usually illegal.
Unlike Stonespring, I agree with that.
One is supposed to choose the best person in a way that is blind to ethnic or socio-economic background.
quote:My mileage varies considerably with yours, B62. I've worked in, and adjacent ot, a number of different fields. And my experience most hiring is not done with amazing skill. Interviewing is an art and a skill. So is being interviewed.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
JaneR
Interview processes are an opportunity for candidates to do a good job of selling themselves. But they are also processes of discovery about the merits of respective candidates. How effective they are in doing that depends on the quality and experience of interview panels. IME they weren't easily conned by shadow, rather they were pretty good at spotting substance. But YMMV of course.
quote:(source: nytimes.com)
Although you will never hear this from Mr. Sessions, men are the greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action in college admissions: Their combination of test scores, grades and achievements is simply no match for that of women, whose academic profiles are much stronger. Yet to provide some semblance of gender balance on campuses, admissions directors have to dig down deep into the applicant pool to cobble together enough males to form an incoming class.
quote:Perhaps I failed to express myself properly; It was a comment on those who see affirmative action as a huge problem that should be solved by ending it because it 'tips the deck' in some way. My argument was more along the lines of solving the other problems first, as the magnitude of the problems *caused* (rather than addressed) by affirmative action were probably dwarfed by other systemic biases.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Of course it's not. But affirmative action is something that employers and universities can do NOW.
quote:Not just mine: the Harvard Business Review agrees that interviews are flawed tools at best. It is also fairly generally accepted that appearance has an enormous effect on success at interview. Dressing in a suit when the corporate culture is casual, or vice versa, will lose you the job before you have finished shaking hands with the interviewer.
IME they weren't easily conned by shadow, rather they were pretty good at spotting substance. But YMMV of course.
quote:I think it's a mixture of things; that some workplaces are very much more conservative and that the sources of bias are often more persistent.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Maybe things have regressed since the 80s and 90s? Or maybe my organisation was unusually enlightened? From what you are saying, it must not have been typical.
quote:I addressed solving the other problems first. As I said, it's a cop-out for universities (etc) to say, "Well, there's nothign we can do until the other problems are solved first." Did you read my whole post?
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:Perhaps I failed to express myself properly; It was a comment on those who see affirmative action as a huge problem that should be solved by ending it because it 'tips the deck' in some way. My argument was more along the lines of solving the other problems first, as the magnitude of the problems *caused* (rather than addressed) by affirmative action were probably dwarfed by other systemic biases.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Of course it's not. But affirmative action is something that employers and universities can do NOW.
quote:I suspect many organizations have implemented training to improve their interview processes, but just because people are trained doesn't mean the training is effective. What makes you think your system worked - did your organization have an outside auditing mechanism to verify that you had eliminated the effects of unconscious bias?
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The Harvard Business Review article might almost have been written by my course trainer! Certainly, the processes we used included many of the corrective recommendations in that article.
Maybe things have regressed since the 80s and 90s? Or maybe my organisation was unusually enlightened? From what you are saying, it must not have been typical.
quote:Yes I did, and I still think you are misreading what I'm saying.
Originally posted by mousethief:
I addressed solving the other problems first. As I said, it's a cop-out for universities (etc) to say, "Well, there's nothign we can do until the other problems are solved first." Did you read my whole post?
quote:Universities are at the current time the optimal place to fix racial disparities in universities.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
[While universities are not the most optimal way to fix racial disparities, I agree with you that there's a case for action where it's possible now].
quote:Right. That's insane.
My beef is with those - mostly on the right - who seem to think that 'affirmative action' is the biggest 'problem' from the point of view of discrimination generally.
quote:...so all the interviews you yourself conducted were a choice between different internal candidates? Then you're right, your organisation was not typical. Very few organisations have the luxury of a workforce large enough to fill all vacancies from internal candidates, and even fewer would think it desirable to do so. In fact the organisation I used to work for was obliged to advertise all vacancies externally, even if there were several internal candidates suitable for the job. And it is very rare indeed for any but the largest private-sector organisations to train interviewers for the recruitment process. I sat on an interview panel (once, because they needed my technical expertise to understand what the candidates were saying when asked about the job they were applying for) with no training whatsoever.
The safeguards were different for external recruits. In general, people were recruited to an entry grade and interviews were carried out by an independent body.
quote:This. This. This.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Funny the complaints about positive discrimination.
One of the most common is:
"The job should go to the most qualified"
This assumes that jobs have ever got the most qualified ...
quote:You cannot know the best person for the job unless you hire everyone and have them do it for a sufficient time.
Originally posted by Enoch:
I accept this may not be fashionable, but our recruitment training was very strong on the notion that the purpose was to recruit the best person for the job,
quote:This sounds nice, but it essentially just maintains the status quo. And isn't, as I mentioned, of net benefit to most jobs.
The primary purpose is not providing more opportunities for people who might have been denied them. Nor is the primary purpose to be affirmative. The primary purpose is to recruit the best person, irrespective of who they are. Ensuring equal opportunities and not being discriminatory are secondary purposes that contribute to that primary purpose, not purposes that might function independently in a way that subverts or diverts the primary purpose.
quote:Everyone brings up jobs like neurosurgery and nuclear physics as if this is representative. It isn't.
Choosing somebody for a course on, say nuclear physics, because you want more deaf people in your classes, rather than because applicant x is best qualified or on one's assessment of their potential, shows the best capability of making the most of the course, strikes me as unjust, foolish and intellectually dishonest.
quote:All right. Medical school or a course on French Literature. The point I'm making and my view, if not yours, is the same.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Everyone brings up jobs like neurosurgery and nuclear physics as if this is representative. It isn't.
quote:The first statement is true. The second isn't.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
And, as I've said before, most jobs don't need the best. The efficacy of most jobs doesn't change between the "best" and basic competency.
quote:Let's work on the assumption that people with physical disabilities are no less capable of studying intellectually challenging subjects/working in intellectually challenging jobs. On that assumption, all other things being equal, you'd expect the proportion of physically disabled people on those courses/in those jobs to be representative of the population.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Choosing somebody for a course on, say nuclear physics, because you want more deaf people in your classes, rather than because applicant x is best qualified or on one's assessment of their potential, shows the best capability of making the most of the course, strikes me as unjust, foolish and intellectually dishonest.
quote:You say this and then go on to demonstrate the second is true. Or at least mostly true.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:The first statement is true. The second isn't.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
And, as I've said before, most jobs don't need the best. The efficacy of most jobs doesn't change between the "best" and basic competency.
quote:That's not at all what I said.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
You say this and then go on to demonstrate the second is true. Or at least mostly true.
quote:Would they also smell the rat if the better candidate was passed over in favour of the woman, or the non-white person?
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
... You also have a group of people not involved in the formal process (other colleagues who were not up for promotion and not on the panel) who would be able to smell a rat if the better candidate was passed over in favour of the white guy.
...
quote:Not almost all jobs, IME.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:That's not at all what I said.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
You say this and then go on to demonstrate the second is true. Or at least mostly true.
Is a person of basic competence better than not having a person? Yes, absolutely. So if "basic competence" is all I can find, I'll take it. But a "good" person is measurably better than a "basically competent" person, in almost all jobs.
quote:What are the chances, do you think, that I might have some work other than filing documents for John or Joan to do?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Not almost all jobs, IME.
Joan can file twenty documents an hour, John can file ten. Does it matter who you hire if there are less than 80 or more than 160 a day?
quote:But if I'm looking for a book, and Henry invites me to search through his shelves, whereas Jane in the bookstore next door leads me to the section where they keep that kind of book, which bookstore am I likely to return to?
Henry is an employee in Blackwell's. Henry doesn't know how the books are organised. Does this prevent LC from finding a book? No.
quote:James's work is likely to be harder to modify in the future, is likely to create more areas that, whilst not being problems might look like problems (and so increase the effort required to inspect the plumbing), and is likely to leave less space for future installations of other things.
Ed is the best plumber in the city. his soldering tidy and his routing of pipes economical and artful. James' soldering is messy and his routing of the pipes adequate, but unattractive. Neither work leaks. Does it matter who you hire? No.
quote:You can posit expamples and find exceptions. Most things don't work that way.
Originally posted by mousethief:
But I think the point is, that better is very often better.
You would be better off, I think, giving examples of someone doing 18 widgets to someone else's 20, not comparing someone who can only do half as many. Someone who can only do half as many is clearly inferior and definitely not a good hire.
quote:True, but has nothing to do with those 3 examples, or at least is not something you mentioned until now.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But more important points are that you don't know who is the best, better or even good before you hire them
quote:Likely but again has nothing to do with your 3 examples.
and most hiring is more likely to operate on bias rather than finding the better candidate.
quote:Bully for you. But you might want to try just a little harder to find examples to back your claims. Because your examples suck.
ETA: I'm not backing down from my claim about good enough.
quote:read upthread. This is part of what we've been discussing.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:True, but has nothing to do with those 3 examples, or at least is not something you mentioned until now.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But more important points are that you don't know who is the best, better or even good before you hire them
quote:which three? The first ones I gave to LC or the subsequent 5 I gave in a later post?
Likely but again has nothing to do with your 3 examples.
quote:I think the first three were simplistic, but don't suck. The last 5 are very real examples.
But you might want to try just a little harder to find examples to back your claims. Because your examples suck.
quote:And the rest of us aren't being swayed from the position:-
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
... I'm not backing down from my claim about good enough.
quote:A person with someone signing for them will be interviewed with the panel speaking English and the person signing will sign in Auslan. There'd really both be an interview in the person's first language (assuming a hearing problem dating from birth) and also in English. After all, the job would most likely be carried out in English and the need for a signer may very well be a relevant consideration in employment
Originally posted by Jane R:
Well, that's another thing. A person who's been deaf all their life has probably learnt English as a second language. Their first language will be British Sign Language. Yet, because they are British they will be expected to be as fluent in English as a hearing person who actually did learn English as their first language.
I don't think there is a requirement for people to be interviewed in their first language.
quote:I have read that Google employee's statement, and that's not what it says. He says that unequal numbers of men and women in software engineering is not necessarily proof of discrimination. If fewer women than men apply for these jobs, there will be fewer women in them.
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I’m surprised that no one’s yet mentioned the current kerfuffle at Google (an employee getting fired for claiming that women are inherently less suited for tech/engineering).
<snip>
But how do you counterbalance that against that fact that people like Mr Google Arsehole are automatically going to assume that a woman is less talented for the job?
quote:I agree. And if we are talking about hiring someone to bus tables and empty the garbage at McDonald's, "good enough" is fine. For many jobs, it is not.
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The issue about hiring someone who is "good enough" is that in virtually all cases you are hiring someone who will not be the "best" whatever on day one (even assuming we can define "best"). ...
quote:And by saying that he identified himself as part of the problem. As wild haggis says, the bias starts in preschool. Before that, even. If you've been told all your life that girls aren't good at science/maths/engineering, why waste your time trying to study a STEM subject at university and make a career in it? If the job advert asks for qualifications you don't have, because nobody encouraged you to get them (because girls don't do that stuff), is it really surprising when you don't apply?
He says that unequal numbers of men and women in software engineering is not necessarily proof of discrimination. If fewer women than men apply for these jobs, there will be fewer women in them.
quote:This man is not responsible for what happens in preschool. As I mentioned, he had worked with women whose skills he admired. It is not an established fact that many girls would like to study math but are discouraged by what other people say.
Originally posted by Jane R:
Moo:quote:And by saying that he identified himself as part of the problem. As wild haggis says, the bias starts in preschool. Before that, even. If you've been told all your life that girls aren't good at science/maths/engineering, why waste your time trying to study a STEM subject at university and make a career in it?
He says that unequal numbers of men and women in software engineering is not necessarily proof of discrimination. If fewer women than men apply for these jobs, there will be fewer women in them.
quote:This is the traditional 'some of my best friends are female/black/gay' defence employed by all bigots.
As I mentioned, he had worked with women whose skills he admired.
quote:Actually it is: Women in UK science
It is not an established fact that many girls would like to study math but are discouraged by what other people say.
quote:This sounds very similar to the memo:
Originally posted by Jane R:
The problem doesn't just affect women; there are plenty of men whose real aptitudes and interests are ignored and/or actively discouraged because they don't fit traditional gender roles. Sexism is bad for men too.
quote:
From the Google menu:
The male gender role is currently inflexible.
Feminism has made great progress in freeing women from the female gender role, but men are still very much tied to the male gender role. If we, as a society, allow men to be more “feminine,” then the gender gap will shrink, although probably because men will leave tech and leadership for traditionally feminine roles.
quote:No, it is a clear statement that he does not believe that all female software engineers are inferior to male software engineers.
Originally posted by Jane R:
Moo:quote:This is the traditional 'some of my best friends are female/black/gay' defence employed by all bigots.
As I mentioned, he had worked with women whose skills he admired.
quote:No, he said their interests were different.
But he didn't stop there. He went on to suggest that the reason why women didn't apply was because their brains were wired differently, which is bollocks.
quote:It would put many men off applying to them also.
I don't know anyone who works for Google, but what I hear of their corporate culture suggests that it is... let's say unfriendly... to those with caring responsibilites (for children or elderly parents). That issue alone would put me off applying to them.
quote:Not sure who one can get from what is written here to claiming he doesn't think women are biologically inferior. At least in regards to the ability to write code.
Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech3
At Google, we’re regularly told that implicit (unconscious) and explicit biases are holding women
back in tech and leadership. Of course, men and women experience bias, tech, and the
workplace differently and we should be cognizant of this, but it’s far from the whole story.
On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just
socially constructed because:
● They’re universal across human cultures
● They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone
● Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify
and act like males
● The underlying traits are highly heritable
● They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective
Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these
differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men
and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why
we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences
are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything
about an individual given these population level distributions.
quote:Which is plainly bollocks if they are interested enough in a software engineering job to train for it and apply for it.
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:No, he said their interests were different.
Originally posted by Jane R:
But he didn't stop there. He went on to suggest that the reason why women didn't apply was because their brains were wired differently, which is bollocks.
quote:Does he believe that any male software engineers are inferior to female software engineers?
Originally posted by Moo:
No, it is a clear statement that he does not believe that all female software engineers are inferior to male software engineers.
quote:It certainly seems to be the case that he's saying that on average women are less able to write code (or hold positions of leadership).
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
This excerpt is from page 3 ....
Not sure who one can get from what is written here to claiming he doesn't think women are biologically inferior. At least in regards to the ability to write code.
quote:Since human culture is a social construct therefore any culturally determined differences between people is by definition a social construct.
On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:
● They’re universal across human cultures
quote:All of which needs a lot of supporting evidence. And, I can almost guarantee in most (if not all) cases any evidence cited could be countered by equally good academic studies showing the opposite.
● They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone
● Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify
and act like males
● The underlying traits are highly heritable
● They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective
quote:The Google memo suggested...
Originally posted by Jane R:
I don't know anyone who works for Google, but what I hear of their corporate culture suggests that it is... let's say unfriendly... to those with caring responsibilites (for children or elderly parents). That issue alone would put me off applying to them.
quote:...which at least goes part of the way to helping people with caring responsibilities.
Allowing and truly endorsing (as part of our culture) part time work [to] keep more women in tech.
quote:Slate Star Codex has an article about gender differences that's rather better argued than the memo, as well as a slightly older one applying to libertarians.
Originally posted by Moo:
No, he said their interests were different.
quote:In general the standard of most of his citations are gladwellic.
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
All of which needs a lot of supporting evidence. And, I can almost guarantee in most (if not all) cases any evidence cited could be countered by equally good academic studies showing the opposite.
quote:Dans l'anglais?
Originally posted by chris stiles:
In general the standard of most of his citations are gladwellic.
quote:About the same level as the citations in the average Malcolm Gladwell book.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Dans l'anglais?
Originally posted by chris stiles:
In general the standard of most of his citations are gladwellic.
quote:this is a problem. You are starting from a bias. This is natural, humans are bias machines. However, one needs to be at least open to a concept before it can be evaluated.
Originally posted by Enoch:
And the rest of us aren't being swayed from the position:-
a. that we didn't agree with you to start off with, and
quote:Especially as a lot of jobs are going to involve multiple skills all measured on different axes. Given that people are normally hiring against an existing team, the mix of skills required may vary over time anyway - as they seek to balance their team.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Yes, given the choice, you may want the "best"* but in reality good enough is typically good enough.
*Best is much more difficult to quantify than most people think.
quote:Huh.
Originally posted by lilbuddha
Not sure who one can get from what is written here to claiming he doesn't think women are biologically inferior.
quote:I think that saying women are on average more neurotic (high anxiety, low stress tolerance) is saying that women are biologically inferior. I also can't find any research supporting it.
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:Huh.
Originally posted by lilbuddha
Not sure who one can get from what is written here to claiming he doesn't think women are biologically inferior.
I'm not sure how anyone can get the idea that he does think women are biologically inferior from what he's written.
But then I've actually read the memo, not just the headlines.
quote:The memo linked to a Wikipedia subsection discussing gender differences in neuroticism. You could easily miss it because Gizomodo stripped out all of the links to supporting evidence before posting the memo, which strikes me as a dishonest trick.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I think that saying women are on average more neurotic (high anxiety, low stress tolerance) is saying that women are biologically inferior. I also can't find any research supporting it.
quote:I'm commenting only on this one small point, not the OP and rest of thread.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I think that saying women are on average more neurotic (high anxiety, low stress tolerance) is saying that women are biologically inferior.
quote:You're right. I've taken that section of the memo as flowing from "On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways." But the memo is so structured that it's hard to tell if that really is his intention.
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
quote:I'm commenting only on this one small point, not the OP and rest of thread.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I think that saying women are on average more neurotic (high anxiety, low stress tolerance) is saying that women are biologically inferior.
He could indeed be saying women are biologically inferior. He could also be saying women are inferior as a result of years of social pressure and deformation, not biology.
quote:'Neuroticism' is not normally used in a positive sense.
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I can think of some fields where neuroticism is an advantage.
quote:Thanks HL. From there it seems that the research supporting it is all based around five factor model tests. I'm now trying to think of a way that five factor model testing could be done in a gender blind way.
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
The memo linked to a Wikipedia subsection discussing gender differences in neuroticism. broke out on the Wiki page.
quote:But even that is not necessarily unbiased. I recently heard about research done by one of the job recruiting websites that showed how particular words being present in a job ad would have an impact on the proportion of women applying - and this was not restricted to a particular profession such as software engineering.
Originally posted by Moo:
He says that unequal numbers of men and women in software engineering is not necessarily proof of discrimination. If fewer women than men apply for these jobs, there will be fewer women in them.
quote:At the university where I work there is a noticeable correlation between qualifications on entry and likelihood of achieving a first class degree. This would seem to suggest that on average the candidates with lower grades are not better than those with higher ones.
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
What's harder is to decide who's the best candidate when you have person A from a privileged background where statistically academic performance is better with 2As and a B at A level, and candidate B from a less privileged background with 2Bs and a C - both of whom could be equally able, and indeed the candidate with lower grades could be better.
quote:Not really. It could just as equally suggest that the person who starts a race 10 metres in front only has to run at the same pace, or slightly slower, in order to maintain their lead. Running faster, being a better runner, is not in fact required if you have a head start.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:At the university where I work there is a noticeable correlation between qualifications on entry and likelihood of achieving a first class degree. This would seem to suggest that on average the candidates with lower grades are not better than those with higher ones.
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
What's harder is to decide who's the best candidate when you have person A from a privileged background where statistically academic performance is better with 2As and a B at A level, and candidate B from a less privileged background with 2Bs and a C - both of whom could be equally able, and indeed the candidate with lower grades could be better.
quote:But that's not a useful comparison. Presumably your good grade and poor grade groups both contain a selection of those from different backgrounds. In the comparison you're making, you average over educational background.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
At the university where I work there is a noticeable correlation between qualifications on entry and likelihood of achieving a first class degree. This would seem to suggest that on average the candidates with lower grades are not better than those with higher ones.
quote:Yebbut, lilBuddha if that applies to either of us, it applies to you as much as to me.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:this is a problem. You are starting from a bias. This is natural, humans are bias machines. However, one needs to be at least open to a concept before it can be evaluated. ...
Originally posted by Enoch:
And the rest of us aren't being swayed from the position:-
a. that we didn't agree with you to start off with, and
quote:I'll not deny that I can be biased. Though, in this case, I began with the same position as you; merit will rise and better in = better out. It is life that has shown me otherwise. This is not about my own path, but those I have observed along the way. Best is an illusion and better doesn't always matter.
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:Yebbut, lilBuddha if that applies to either of us, it applies to you as much as to me.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:this is a problem. You are starting from a bias. This is natural, humans are bias machines. However, one needs to be at least open to a concept before it can be evaluated. ...
Originally posted by Enoch:
And the rest of us aren't being swayed from the position:-
a. that we didn't agree with you to start off with, and
You have started from your position. You have tried to persuade me to agree with you. You have not succeeded.
quote:Sure.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Thanks HL.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I was blackly entertained how the Wikipedia page changed drastically every time I clicked on it - it summed up online ideological battles nicely.quote:The memo is confusing, largely because it covers way too much ground. It's also very off-putting to people who aren't already in his camp - talking about "neuroticism" was particularly tone-deaf and cringey, even if it was the right technical term.
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I've taken that section of the memo as flowing from "On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways." But the memo is so structured that it's hard to tell if that really is his intention.
quote:In addition, there is the question of whether the same bias towards those from advantaged backgrounds continues to apply. Does the student with good grades because she had a place to study at home continue to be able to afford a decent student house? Does the student with poor grades because he had to share the dining table with his siblings continue to struggle, unable to afford a decent house and needing a bar job to make ends meet?
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:But that's not a useful comparison. Presumably your good grade and poor grade groups both contain a selection of those from different backgrounds. In the comparison you're making, you average over educational background.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
At the university where I work there is a noticeable correlation between qualifications on entry and likelihood of achieving a first class degree. This would seem to suggest that on average the candidates with lower grades are not better than those with higher ones.
The question you want to ask is: of candidates that came to you with top grades, are the underprivileged more or less likely to get first class degrees.
quote:Yeah, perhaps Google should weight inter-personal skills more heavily when they recruit.
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
Overall, Damore strikes me as very naive.
quote:It's a really good, mature response.
James,
As a woman who led a 700-person team at Google, I can knowledgeably — and vehemently — disagree with what you wrote in the memo questioning Google’s efforts to diversify its workforce.
But I’m glad you wrote it. You gave others a chance to challenge your thinking. In return, I am open to you challenging mine. Like you, I care about psychological safety, yours in particular.
To that end, in the spirit of radical candor, I’m offering some ideas for sharing your opinions more productively in the future.
Let’s start with where we agree: “We all have biases which are invisible to us. Thankfully, open and honest discussion with those who disagree can highlight our blind spots and help us grow.” Amen!
quote:Stonespring, I've probably not understood this, but the way you have described it, what you've described reads like a system designed by a moron to reward mediocrity, the unadventurous and the unimaginative.
Originally posted by stonespring:
... At my school, AP and IB courses (and the "honors" classes that prepared for them) had weighted grades, meaning that an A or B in them was worth more for a student's GPA than an A or B in the same subject in a non-advanced course. But all students still had to take subjects like physical education, health/sex ed that did not have weighted letter grades. If a student managed to avoid taking these classes because of a medical or religious excuse that, at least in my school district, did not necessarily need to involve a letter from a doctor or clergy, then that student could have a higher GPA than another student who had the same academic performance but took those classes. Also, a student who wanted to be in choirs, bands, orchestras, etc, at my school had to take classes for those activities that did not have weighted grades, so participation in these activities, even if you take just as many advanced classes as another student, could pull down your GPA (the reason this works is that at my school at least, you could opt to take more than the minimum number of classes. A student who took the minimum number of classes, all of which were advanced, would have a higher GPA than a student with the same academic performance who took the same number of advanced classes and one more class that was for choir and hence did not have weighted grades). Being from a privileged background often means having access to networks of people who offer advice on how to best to navigate systems like this so that one's college application looks the best. ...
quote:Well for one thing, if I had to bet on such a race then you'd better believe I'd back the person who starts 10 metres in front. Because at that point it doesn't matter why they're more likely to win, only that they are.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Not really. It could just as equally suggest that the person who starts a race 10 metres in front only has to run at the same pace, or slightly slower, in order to maintain their lead. Running faster, being a better runner, is not in fact required if you have a head start.
quote:That's actually not borne out by the experience of schools - selective schools often have very high value added scores, because more able students tend to progress faster. In mathematics, for example, a mediocre student can be expected to progress the equivalent of one GCSE grade over the course of a year of study, and able one two, a less able one perhaps 1/2 or less.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
*= this would, of course, be a hideous way to rank universities as it would make students with the best A-Level grades the least desirable for universities as there is no improvement possible with them. That idea may please those who wish to see everyone made artificially equal - those for whom the "perfect" race would see every sprinter cross the line at exactly the same time whether they are Usain Bolt or Marvin the Unfit Martian - but it has no place in any institution seeking to promote and foster academic excellence.
quote:You don't have to go to extremes of rating improvement alone, it can be introduced in as part of a mix of things.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
*= this would, of course, be a hideous way to rank universities as it would make students with the best A-Level grades the least desirable for universities as there is no improvement possible with them.
quote:Yes, that's what I said.
Originally posted by orfeo:
People do not arrive at university shaped purely by their innate academic abilities. They arrive shaped by the opportunities they actually got to improve and develop those abilities.
quote:That's not something I've said. I know people get different levels of opportunity, but by the time you get to university-level education that doesn't really matter. Someone may well be less academically talented because of lack of opportunity, but they are still less academically talented.
And I cannot see a justification for naively believing that everyone got the same amount of opportunities. Otherwise the entire notion of trying to send your child to a "good school" wouldn't exist.
quote:Er, no. You are better at drafting legal documents than me, which is equivalent to saying you are more likely to succeed in a job that requires that talent.
"More likely to succeed" is one thing. "Better" is quite another.
quote:That is a more complicated issue involving reduction of poverty and/or spending money on schooling in poorer areas.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If you want to fix that, look to the schools.
quote:Universities have admissions standards. Anyone who meets them is qualified.
Saying universities should take less academically talented students
quote:Poor analogy. It is more like preventing you from exercising, prohibiting you from proper training before the trials, preventing your descendants from the same and making their start conditional on your performance.
just because they never got the opportunity to develop their talents before that stage is like saying the Olympics should let me race in the 100m final despite being slow as hell, because I never got the opportunity to train as a sprinter during my childhood.
quote:Poor analogy. The 100m final is a competition to see who is fastest at that moment; university is meant to develop talent, not just filter and measure it. A better analogy might be a football talent scout - they'll pick kids who've been having professional training since 3 and have wonderful skills, but they'll also be on the look out for good footballers who've picked it up from observation and school PE lessons because they'll know they can improve a great deal with a little proper training.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If you want to fix that, look to the schools. Saying universities should take less academically talented students just because they never got the opportunity to develop their talents before that stage is like saying the Olympics should let me race in the 100m final despite being slow as hell, because I never got the opportunity to train as a sprinter during my childhood.
quote:Qualifications? What are those, and where do they come from? Secondary school grades are determined by human beings who are subject to quirks, biases, and failings. In the US, standardized "objective" college entry tests like the SATs and the ACTs routinely show higher scores for white, male, high-family-income students; inner-city low-income women of color routinely do far less well. Is this because of inherent differences in these groups of test-takers, or because of bias inherent in the test?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
At the university where I work there is a noticeable correlation between qualifications on entry and likelihood of achieving a first class degree. This would seem to suggest that on average the candidates with lower grades are not better than those with higher ones.
quote:I think there might be a pond difference at work here. In the UK (and in many other places) exams taken at school are marked at a national level to national standards. Serious quality control measures are in place and these days the marking is largely anonymous. I mark for a couple of the major exam boards (one English, one Scottish) and there is little room for personal bias to creep into the marking (I can point you to an exam and its mark scheme if you'd like). The issue is that people from deprived backgrounds are, on average, less well prepared for these exams even though they may have potential to do as well as someone from a more privileged background. Part of this is family circumstances, part of this is the racism (and indeed classism) of low expectations.
Originally posted by Ohher:
Qualifications? What are those, and where do they come from? Secondary school grades are determined by human beings who are subject to quirks, biases, and failings. In the US, standardized "objective" college entry tests like the SATs and the ACTs routinely show higher scores for white, male, high-family-income students; inner-city low-income women of color routinely do far less well. Is this because of inherent differences in these groups of test-takers, or because of bias inherent in the test?
While I grant that there has to be some way of at least appearing to be fair in admitting students to college, I doubt that we have found one. Tests and grades are created, administered and applied by human beings, and if we agree on nothing else, we can surely agree that human beings, consciously or not, deliberately or not, are subject to making biased judgments. The idea that "qualifications" like school grades and test scores are some sort of objective measure of an individual's ability to learn and think and discover is nonsense.
quote:There may -- or may not -- be room for bias in marking; you know better than I. The problem is that there is often bias in the test itself. Who makes up the test items? How are the questions framed and phrased? This is typically where bias shows up.
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I think there might be a pond difference at work here. In the UK (and in many other places) exams taken at school are marked at a national level to national standards. Serious quality control measures are in place and these days the marking is largely anonymous. I mark for a couple of the major exam boards (one English, one Scottish) and there is little room for personal bias to creep into the marking (I can point you to an exam and its mark scheme if you'd like). The issue is that people from deprived backgrounds are, on average, less well prepared for these exams even though they may have potential to do as well as someone from a more privileged background. Part of this is family circumstances, part of this is the racism (and indeed classism) of low expectations.
quote:Well, in the UK girls out perform boys by quite a margin (and this was the case even 50 years ago when "intelligence tests" were used for grammar school admissions at 11). I'm surprised to hear that US tests are biased in favour of men.
Originally posted by Gee D:
As I read Ohher's post, I took it as meaning that the very nature of a test was discriminatory - a woman in a poor neighbourhood will do less well because she does not bring the same set of skills to sitting for the test, regardless of its subject matter, as a male in a more comfortable area of the country. I have no idea how you compensate for that sort of difference.
quote:Ohher seemed to be saying that there was some aspect of how the tests were set (by people) that was introducing bias. Certainly poor people, on average, do less well than rich people, but tests still give a pretty good idea of which people are best suited to university. It would, however, be wise to make a correction to those results to account for unrealised potential due to socio-economic differences (which many UK universities already effectively do).
Originally posted by Gee D:
I took Ohher's comparison and can't comment as to biases in the tests. But to go back, I understood Ohher to be saying that the wrong is having the test in the first instance as tests in general are biased against the poor and ill-educated.
quote:Ohher said:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:Ohher seemed to be saying that there was some aspect of how the tests were set (by people) that was introducing bias. Certainly poor people, on average, do less well than rich people, but tests still give a pretty good idea of which people are best suited to university. It would, however, be wise to make a correction to those results to account for unrealised potential due to socio-economic differences (which many UK universities already effectively do).
Originally posted by Gee D:
I took Ohher's comparison and can't comment as to biases in the tests. But to go back, I understood Ohher to be saying that the wrong is having the test in the first instance as tests in general are biased against the poor and ill-educated.
quote:Now, I took the reference to the tests being objective as a reference to any test; you took it as being the test as composed. I can see your reading as possible. Let's wait and see a clarification from Ohher.
In the US, standardized "objective" college entry tests like the SATs and the ACTs routinely show higher scores for white, male, high-family-income students; inner-city low-income women of color routinely do far less well. Is this because of inherent differences in these groups of test-takers, or because of bias inherent in the test?
quote:You seem to be assuming facts not in evidence. There's a good deal of evidence that the SAT, as currently composed, is a fairly poor predictor of college performance. Women, in particular, seem to perform better in college than men with similar SAT scores. Or men are underperforming in college relative to women with similar SAT scores, if you want to look at it from that perspective. At any rate, the low degree of correlation between test scores and college performance would seem to indicate that current standardized tests aren't measuring what we think they're measuring.
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:Ohher seemed to be saying that there was some aspect of how the tests were set (by people) that was introducing bias. Certainly poor people, on average, do less well than rich people, but tests still give a pretty good idea of which people are best suited to university. It would, however, be wise to make a correction to those results to account for unrealised potential due to socio-economic differences (which many UK universities already effectively do).
Originally posted by Gee D:
I took Ohher's comparison and can't comment as to biases in the tests. But to go back, I understood Ohher to be saying that the wrong is having the test in the first instance as tests in general are biased against the poor and ill-educated.
quote:Bias is generally towards the dominant culture. In most cases this will be along race and class lines. You fix this by reducing classicism, racism and poverty. Redesigning the tests can help, if potential is preferred over base proficiency, but the ultimate problem will only be completely solved if the source is fixed.
Originally posted by Gee D:
As I read Ohher's post, I took it as meaning that the very nature of a test was discriminatory - a woman in a poor neighbourhood will do less well because she does not bring the same set of skills to sitting for the test, regardless of its subject matter, as a male in a more comfortable area of the country. I have no idea how you compensate for that sort of difference.
quote:First off, I'm not talking about predicting university grades, just whether somebody can hack university or not, and secondly I'm talking about UK qualifications, not US-style standardised tests. Broadly speaking, if you can't pass A-Levels or Highers (particularly in the subjects related to your area of study), you're going to struggle at university. I think you'd struggle to argue that, given two people one with As in Physics and Maths at A-Level, one with Cs, that the former isn't more likely to be successful studying Physics at university. Now they're certainly not perfect: I have 3As and a B at A-Level; didn't stop me getting a 2:2 in my degree.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
You seem to be assuming facts not in evidence. There's a good deal of evidence that the SAT, as currently composed, is a fairly poor predictor of college performance. Women, in particular, seem to perform better in college than men with similar SAT scores. Or men are underperforming in college relative to women with similar SAT scores, if you want to look at it from that perspective. At any rate, the low degree of correlation between test scores and college performance would seem to indicate that current standardized tests aren't measuring what we think they're measuring.
quote:Ironically, the history of the Open University says you are wrong. Lots of people have degrees from the OU having started without A-levels, and the OU stands against the prevailing mindset that thinks somehow attainment at A-levels is any kind of benchmark as to performance at degree level or beyond.
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
First off, I'm not talking about predicting university grades, just whether somebody can hack university or not, and secondly I'm talking about UK qualifications, not US-style standardised tests. Broadly speaking, if you can't pass A-Levels or Highers (particularly in the subjects related to your area of study), you're going to struggle at university. I think you'd struggle to argue that, given two people one with As in Physics and Maths at A-Level, one with Cs, that the former isn't more likely to be successful studying Physics at university. Now they're certainly not perfect: I have 3As and a B at A-Level; didn't stop me getting a 2:2 in my degree.
quote:Yes, indeed - but you actually have to go.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
People can learn a lot in the "school of hard knocks". The OU evidence points that way.
quote:Absolutely. A part of growing up. Some people only learn the self-discipline involved in study as a result of the cost of not practising it. Part of the school of hard knocks.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The second group? It was obvious that they had bad grades because they'd spent their A-level years partying, and they wanted to spend their university years in a similar fashion. One or two turned in to reasonable students, but the vast majority continued to do no work, and usually failed to get a degree.
quote:No, not if you read what I actually wrote. I'm pretty sure that anyone capable of taking an OU degree could have sat down previously and done the relevant A-Level courses (note that I talked about being able to pass the courses, not whether they actually had or not). The fact that they don't have to is good, but a quick google suggests that the OU has a 87% drop-out rate which seems to me to indicate that past academic performance may be relevant. Also note that while the OU doesn't require A-Levels or equivalent, only 1/3 of their students start with 1 A-Level equivalent or less. Now, you can argue that the OU drop out rate is affected by other factors, such as working while studying or the difficulties of distance learning but it does mean you can't argue convincingly that the OU model is effective at selecting those candidates who can succeed - indeed they make little attempt to do so.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Ironically, the history of the Open University says you are wrong. Lots of people have degrees from the OU having started without A-levels, and the OU stands against the prevailing mindset that thinks somehow attainment at A-levels is any kind of benchmark as to performance at degree level or beyond.
quote:I'm pretty sure that isn't the case, because the courses start at a level below that of A-levels. And I personally know of people who have thrived at OU never ever having reached A-level standard and who wouldn't have passed them when they began the OU degree.
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
No, not if you read what I actually wrote. I'm pretty sure that anyone capable of taking an OU degree could have sat down previously and done the relevant A-Level courses (note that I talked about being able to pass the courses, not whether they actually had or not).
quote:This is misleading because OU degrees are not organised like other universities are organised. At the end of each year, one can get a qualification. And as many part-time students are doing other things many simply do not continue with their studies to graduation.
The fact that they don't have to is good, but a quick google suggests that the OU has a 87% drop-out rate which seems to me to indicate that past academic performance may be relevant.
quote:How many other universities have a third of all students with less than 1 A-level?
Also note that while the OU doesn't require A-Levels or equivalent, only 1/3 of their students start with 1 A-Level equivalent or less.
quote:Eh? As I said above, those with grit determination succeed at OU. If you can't be arsed, you won't succeed.
Now, you can argue that the OU drop out rate is affected by other factors, such as working while studying or the difficulties of distance learning but it does mean you can't argue convincingly that the OU model is effective at selecting those candidates who can succeed - indeed they make little attempt to do so.
quote:You do realise that having an A-level equivalent means having something more than a single grade E do you?
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
You were using the OU to argue against my claim that being able to succeed at A-Level (or equivalent) was a good indication of whether you can complete a degree course. The OU is a complete non-sequitur in this discussion, as you've just illustrated.
quote:I'm aware that definitions vary - you'd be hard pressed to say that the BTEC Extended Diploma in Applied Science is equivalent to 3 A-Level passes but, at least at the time I taught a bit of it, it was (on paper). My recollection is that the standard for "level 3" in qualification terms is 2 A-Levels (which is why the OU reference 1 A-level or lower i.e. below level 3). I think the Scottish equivalent is probably 3 Higher passes but it's not a term we use so I'm not completely sure.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:You do realise that having an A-level equivalent means having something more than a single grade E do you?
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
You were using the OU to argue against my claim that being able to succeed at A-Level (or equivalent) was a good indication of whether you can complete a degree course. The OU is a complete non-sequitur in this discussion, as you've just illustrated.
quote:Well, that's the thing - they're not "patent bullshit" - there's enough truth in them that it's easy to fall into the trap.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
All the cream rises to the top arguments irritate.
They are what justifies holding down those who do not have and they are patent bullshit.
quote:If a group of people apply for a job, they are in a contest to see which of them will receive an offer. They'll probably be in competition with each other again for the similar job that interviews next week.
Originally posted by mousethief:
But comparing two people's trying to have successful lives to a footrace is obscene.
quote:I've not seen anyone making that argument. As far as I'm concerned even a perfect meritocracy is unjust as we don't get to choose the genes and upbringing that result in our intellectual ability. And the current system in the UK is a very long way from being a meritocracy. All I'm arguing is that the ability to pass one set of academic qualifications is a pretty reasonable indicator of whether someone is likely to be capable of completing the next level of academic qualification (at that moment; people do change).
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
All the cream rises to the top arguments irritate.
They are what justifies holding down those who do not have and they are patent bullshit.
quote:IME, this is spot-on in USA.
I think the problem in the American case is that higher education ends up carrying a lot of water for problems further down the educational system that society at large is unwilling to address.
quote:At Amazon, they never consider more than one person at a time for a position. They only look at someone who is qualified, then they run them through the rigorous interview process (it takes all day), and at the end all of the people who interacted with that person (except their "lunch buddy" who is truly neutral) votes up or down. Down votes have to be explained. If that person isn't selected they start over with the next candidate.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:If a group of people apply for a job, they are in a contest to see which of them will receive an offer. They'll probably be in competition with each other again for the similar job that interviews next week.
Originally posted by mousethief:
But comparing two people's trying to have successful lives to a footrace is obscene.
The potential employer looks at them, and asks two questions: first, do any of the candidates meet the minimum standard, and second, of those acceptable candidates, which one will work out best.
That's really pretty similar to a series of footraces. The difference, of course, is that in the job race, successful candidates don't keep attending interviews.
quote:In which case the real selection process occurs when they decide the order in which they will invite people for interview.
Originally posted by mousethief:
At Amazon, they never consider more than one person at a time for a position. They only look at someone who is qualified, then they run them through the rigorous interview process (it takes all day), and at the end all of the people who interacted with that person (except their "lunch buddy" who is truly neutral) votes up or down. Down votes have to be explained. If that person isn't selected they start over with the next candidate.
The idea is that either this person is a good hire or not. If they are a good hire, then it doesn't matter who else might be a good hire, let alone a "better" hire.
quote:I believe that's done randomly.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:In which case the real selection process occurs when they decide the order in which they will invite people for interview.
Originally posted by mousethief:
At Amazon, they never consider more than one person at a time for a position. They only look at someone who is qualified, then they run them through the rigorous interview process (it takes all day), and at the end all of the people who interacted with that person (except their "lunch buddy" who is truly neutral) votes up or down. Down votes have to be explained. If that person isn't selected they start over with the next candidate.
The idea is that either this person is a good hire or not. If they are a good hire, then it doesn't matter who else might be a good hire, let alone a "better" hire.
quote:Obviously this approach works for Amazon (I wonder, though - do they use it to hire their C-level officers as well?).
Originally posted by mousethief:
I believe that's done randomly.
quote:What exactly do you mean by "fair"? A process where a job goes to a qualified applicant doesn't strike me as particularly "unfair".
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Is the Amazon process fair? It doesn't strike me as fair to other applicants. I'm sure it's legally permissible.
quote:They never get a chance to impress, or to make the case for why they should be hired rather than anyone else who meets the minimum requirements. That doesn't seem fair to me.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:What exactly do you mean by "fair"?
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Is the Amazon process fair? It doesn't strike me as fair to other applicants. I'm sure it's legally permissible.
quote:I have a feeling that here most candidates' resumes don't get read if there are very many applicants.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
In the UK system, fair includes giving equal consideration to all candidates.
quote:That could be said any time you apply for a job you're qualified for and don't get an interview. It's happened to me many times. It's not unfair unless it is happening to a particular person or category of people disproportionately without good reason.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
They never get a chance to impress, or to make the case for why they should be hired rather than anyone else who meets the minimum requirements. That doesn't seem fair to me.
quote:No. The methods and principles for shortlisting for interview are required to be fair and above board, in the UK public sector at least. They normally involve some preliminary screening (does the applicant meet any minimum professional or educational standard) and marking (how does the CV stack up against the job description). But the screening and marking criteria are set in advance and applied to all applicants.
Originally posted by mousethief:
If 1000 people apply for a single job opening, must the company interview them all in order to be "fair"?
quote:Just as they are in the Amazon case.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quote:No. The methods and principles for shortlisting for interview are required to be fair and above board, in the UK public sector at least. They normally involve some preliminary screening (does the applicant meet any minimum professional or educational standard) and marking (how does the CV stack up against the job description). But the screening and marking criteria are set in advance and applied to all applicants.
Originally posted by mousethief:
If 1000 people apply for a single job opening, must the company interview them all in order to be "fair"?
quote:Not at all.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Just as they are in the Amazon case.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quote:No. The methods and principles for shortlisting for interview are required to be fair and above board, in the UK public sector at least. They normally involve some preliminary screening (does the applicant meet any minimum professional or educational standard) and marking (how does the CV stack up against the job description). But the screening and marking criteria are set in advance and applied to all applicants.
Originally posted by mousethief:
If 1000 people apply for a single job opening, must the company interview them all in order to be "fair"?
quote:There are plenty of circumstances in which this isn't done particularly rigorously or done at all, simply because of the sheer number of CVs received for each opening.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
In the UK, applicants will be filtered out by whether they meet the essential criteria for the job, then by whether they meet the desirable criteria, then by how well their CV matches the job
quote:No, it's not. I don't like that either.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
It's really no different to chucking half the applications into the bin on the grounds that by definition they're the unlucky ones and you don't want unlucky people working for your company.
quote:And apparently at Amazon it's a case of picking one CV out of the bag and throwing away the rest. Which makes throwing away every third CV or stopping at 10 suitable candidates look incredibly good for the applicants.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
If you are lucky it's moved to 'CVs that can successfully get past the machine filters' (read game the system), if you are unlucky its initial CV selection via whatever means HR were using that day (throw away every third CV, stop when you get 10 candidates and so forth).
quote:Wow. Not trying to undermine your sensibilities, but, in the US, you can *never* assume that the person who got the job is the best candidate. In my experience, people who aren't hired after an interview tend to be sad, angry, and pretty sure that *they* should've gotten the job.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I've never minded failing to get a job, because I always knew that the person who got it was a better candidate than me. If I knew that the only thing that stopped me getting the job was dumb luck I'd be far more upset. My wife has experienced both random deselection and coming second or third at interview, and it was definitely the former that hurt her more.
quote:I'm not sure that the British civil service is a particularly great counter-example to this.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Competitive interviews are a better fit for the "open competition" principle. In the UK public sector, it harks back to the Caesar's wife principle I mentioned earlier. Shortlisting to one may be fair, interviewing shortlisted candidates looks fairer. Plus it gives them a chance to be seen and "sell their wares".
Similar processes apply to competitive tendering for contracts for goods and services in the UK Public Sector. For large contracts, shortlisting followed by more extensive evaluation processes is normal.
quote:Indeed. I don't mind which method of selecting candidates is used, so long as all applicants have the ability to tailor their applications accordingly. With random selection you could be the best candidate or the worst candidate and it simply doesn't matter - your chances of success are the same.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I guess if it was made clear in advertising that all applications got datestamped on receipt and only the first x plus ties would be considered, that might be OK. At least that lets candidates know that the early birds are the only ones that can catch the worm.
quote:So explain how it is different to not advertising at all, waiting for people to speculatively send in their CVs and choosing to interview someone who sounds like they're capable of doing the job.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
It's really no different to chucking half the applications into the bin on the grounds that by definition they're the unlucky ones and you don't want unlucky people working for your company.
quote:OK but some businesses don't need "the best" they just need someone who is capable of doing the job.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Indeed. I don't mind which method of selecting candidates is used, so long as all applicants have the ability to tailor their applications accordingly. With random selection you could be the best candidate or the worst candidate and it simply doesn't matter - your chances of success are the same.
quote:Most companies don't need 'the best' - as witness the fact that they rarely aim to offer the best possible T&Cs to their employees.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
OK but some businesses don't need "the best" they just need someone who is capable of doing the job.
quote:That entirely depends on whether all candidates know what meta data the automatic screening portions of the process are likely to be looking for. If very few people know this, then the process is effectively random.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
chris stiles is right about gaming the system, but all candidates can do that. Increasingly, these days, they do. So that's not unfair.
quote:The civil service is not capable of policing itself.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
mr cheesy
That's why there is this body.
It monitors performance against these guidelines - which are updated regularly to take into account the findings.
quote:I don't think this is a problem with the principles and I don't think it is about gaming the system. From what I can see, the system is thoroughly broken, riven with discriminatory practices which means that it is highly likely to recruit crappy candidates who happen to tick boxes in interviews.
Sure there is a gap between service-wide principles and various departmental practices. And sure, some folks will pay lip service and "game the system" in what they see as their particular interests. But the principles are not secret. They are both spelled out and monitored.
quote:That's not the point. The point is that all the applicants get the chance to prove themselves to be the best person for the job.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
OK but some businesses don't need "the best" they just need someone who is capable of doing the job.
quote:Then they should focus on going for jobs at a level where they are the best applicants, and/or training themselves up to the point where they are amongst the best.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yeah, but not the best people need jobs as well.
quote:Easier said. There are always people at the bottom of any list. You can only be "amongst the best" if there are other people worse than you are.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Then they should focus on going for jobs at a level where they are the best applicants, and/or training themselves up to the point where they are amongst the best.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Yeah, but not the best people need jobs as well.
quote:Well it clear is a point. I'm not sure that the competitive nature of the free market in applicants for jobs is necessarily a good thing. And clearly a lot of employers don't either - given that they don't advertise positions and interview people based on speculative applications.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That's not the point. The point is that all the applicants get the chance to prove themselves to be the best person for the job.
quote:I think it is a lot better than simply sifting through applicants and binning them based on spelling mistakes or other pointless criteria. Maybe that's just me.
It's a contest, with the job as the prize. Randomly selecting a winner without allowing them to show their worth is no better than the Olympics randomly choosing a sprinter to receive the gold medal without allowing them to actually race for it.
quote:You know this how? In any case, see here.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The civil service is not capable of policing itself.
quote:
The Commission is independent of Government and the Civil Service
quote:OK, it's a government appointed quango not civil service.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
You know this how? In any case, see here.
Particularly this
quote:
The Commission is independent of Government and the Civil Service
quote:That's a small part of the whole civil service.
external recruitment competitions at Senior Civil Service pay band 2 (Directors), pay band 3 (Director General) and Permanent Secretary levels. An external competition is one that is advertised outside the Civil Service and candidates who are not existing civil servants may apply.
Commissioners also chair internal competitions at SCS pay band 3 and Permanent Secretary level under the terms of the Senior Appointment Protocol, agreed with the Head of the Civil Service. An internal competition is one advertised across the Civil Service, but which is not open to applicants who are not existing civil servants.
quote:It's an ombudsman with no teeth reporting that the self-collected data from government departments indicates recruitment practices are shite even to their own standards.
In 2016-17, 10 organisations (representing 3% of total recruitment) were assessed as “green” and 38 organisations (representing 14% of total recruitment) were assessed as “amber-green”. However, 19 organisations (representing 58% of total recruitment) were assessed as “amber-red” and 8 organisations (representing 25% of total recruitment) were assessed as “red”. The Commission is concerned at the high proportion of recruitment being done in high-risk Departments and will follow up on these results with those Departments.
quote:I'm not sure why this is relevant. It has a brief to watch on recruitment practices across the civil service, can only do that with information collected by the government departments themselves and even then suggests that the departments frequently violate their own expected norms and practices.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
It's got a long history, pre-dating the quango concept.
quote:How are they wrong? If you feel you know how they are wrong, that's surely the first step on the road to replacing them with something better.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Oh it doesn't make the principles wrong. But they are wrong
quote:The Amazon process seems competitive to me, with some randomness thrown in. But I thought you had doubts about competitive processes? So how could its more widespread introduction be better?
Personally I can't see that things would be any worse with Amazon-style recruitment practices, and may actually be a whole lot better.
quote:If that has to be the case, then I think it's better for them to be there on merit than because of random chance.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
There are always people at the bottom of any list.
quote:Why not? And what do you think would be better - a system whereby we are all just randomly assigned jobs perhaps?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm not sure that the competitive nature of the free market in applicants for jobs is necessarily a good thing.
quote:That's just filtering for a different set of talents and traits. The sort of determination, optimism, confidence and legwork that it takes to keep firing off speculative applications are exactly the sort of characteristics that would be highly valued in a number of jobs.
And clearly a lot of employers don't either - given that they don't advertise positions and interview people based on speculative applications.
quote:Spelling mistakes on a job application show a worrying lack of attention to detail, especially in an age of automatic spell checkers and online dictionaries. If someone can't be bothered to make sure they spell their own application correctly then why should I believe they'd be bothered about doing any work I gave them properly and accurately?
quote:I think it is a lot better than simply sifting through applicants and binning them based on spelling mistakes or other pointless criteria. Maybe that's just me.
It's a contest, with the job as the prize. Randomly selecting a winner without allowing them to show their worth is no better than the Olympics randomly choosing a sprinter to receive the gold medal without allowing them to actually race for it.
quote:Well it isn't as competitive as waiting until you've got 500+ applicants, sifting so you get rid of 450 and then sifting again to get 5 to interview.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The Amazon process seems competitive to me, with some randomness thrown in. But I thought you had doubts about competitive processes? So how could its more widespread introduction be better?
quote:No, I don't think it is really - however one can say that the thing may well work in favour of those who ordinarily don't get through the most competitive recruitment drives - because they just have to apply at the right time. If they're competent, they get the job and it doesn't matter if someone else - who maybe didn't apply at that moment - is better on paper.
And given the OP, it hardly seems a process of Affirmative Action or Positive Discrimination either.
quote:There is quite a difference between "randomly assigning jobs", employing someone who is competent and waiting to tick-box the "best" candidates to take forward to interview.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why not? And what do you think would be better - a system whereby we are all just randomly assigned jobs perhaps?
quote:You see one thing, I see another. I see employers who don't have time to sift hundreds of applicants and just want someone who is actually capable of doing the job as soon as possible.
quote:That's just filtering for a different set of talents and traits. The sort of determination, optimism, confidence and legwork that it takes to keep firing off speculative applications are exactly the sort of characteristics that would be highly valued in a number of jobs.
And clearly a lot of employers don't either - given that they don't advertise positions and interview people based on speculative applications.
quote:People make mistakes. Fact of life.
Spelling mistakes on a job application show a worrying lack of attention to detail, especially in an age of automatic spell checkers and online dictionaries. If someone can't be bothered to make sure they spell their own application correctly then why should I believe they'd be bothered about doing any work I gave them properly and accurately?
quote:I think some form of patronage is the only real alternative to appointment on merit, assessed fairly, after allowing open competition. And patronage is worse.
1854. Northcote-Trevelyan Report
The Report on the organisation of the permanent Civil Service identified patronage as one of the main reasons for endemic inefficiency and public disrepute. It recommended open competitive examination to test merit.
quote:Nope. The Amazon system clearly isn't patronage.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I think some form of patronage is the only real alternative to appointment on merit, assessed fairly, after allowing open competition. And patronage is worse.
quote:I'm not sure why you brought it up. I can't see that I've advocated anything even vaguely like patronage.
Indeed, your posts tell me that you don't believe in patronage either, you see it as a threat to any half-decent system. On that at least, we should be able to agree.
quote:How do you know that? Where is the audit of the Amazon procedures? Seems to me that it could very easily be influenced by patronage.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:Nope. The Amazon system clearly isn't patronage.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I think some form of patronage is the only real alternative to appointment on merit, assessed fairly, after allowing open competition. And patronage is worse.
quote:I haven't audited Amazon procedures. It could be a system of patronage, but I doubt it.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
How do you know that? Where is the audit of the Amazon procedures? Seems to me that it could very easily be influenced by patronage.
I brought up the issue of patronage because processes of open competition, a process about which you have reservations, were introduced in the 19th Century as an antidote to patronage, which was bringing the service into disrepute.
quote:I think open competition is based on a lie, a perception of fairness which is underlaid by the worst kind of bias.
But I'll go along with a third option. Limited competition with randomness factors thrown in. Is there any evidence that it would produce better outcomes then the present imperfect open competition systems? Or is your opinion based your belief that nothing could be worse than open competition, as presently practised?
quote:I dunno, is it really the worst? A black solicitor employs a youngster from a family he knows. He doesn't consider other candidates, he has more-or-less created the role for the candidate. Is that really so terrible?
I assert that patronage is the worst system; also that it is still pervasive. It is possible for those who wish to exert patronage to game any system, of course.
quote:That's more nepotism than patronage, like a prominent politician giving important government posts to his daughter and son-in-law, if we also stipulate that there's no way anyone would appoint them to high political positions under any other circumstance.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:I dunno, is it really the worst? A black solicitor employs a youngster from a family he knows. He doesn't consider other candidates, he has more-or-less created the role for the candidate. Is that really so terrible?
I assert that patronage is the worst system; also that it is still pervasive. It is possible for those who wish to exert patronage to game any system, of course.
If the youngster has almost zero hope of getting into law any other way, hasn't his connections with the black lawyer bucked the trend?
quote:I'm not sure the example I gave is nepotism as I think that's associated with positions of power. I think there is some distance between the deplorable nepotism you describe above and patronage that I described before.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
That's more nepotism than patronage, like a prominent politician giving important government posts to his daughter and son-in-law, if we also stipulate that there's no way anyone would appoint them to high political positions under any other circumstance.
quote:Well I think it is similar but subtly different, and is usually used when politicians are giving friends or relations jobs based on family ties rather than ability.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Patronage includes nepotism.
quote:Well for me it is both methodology and principle. I don't really see that better workers are found by suggesting that one is looking for "the best" candidate. And the best evidence for this is the large number of businesses who recruit without having a competitive field of applications called by advert, IMO.
Some forms of patronage are worse than others. All are a means of giving preference rather than testing merit.
Rubbishing merit based systems seems to me more about methodology than principle.
quote:Merit is fairly easy to assess in a small number of roles, almost impossible in a large number of roles. So I don't really believe that there could ever be an objective measure.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
If there were proven objective method for testing merit, would you not prefer that as a means of selection. If not, why not?
quote:I am puzzled how there could ever be a perfect system for assessing merit based on a written application form and a short interview. Unless one is interviewing for an interviewer, this is highly unlikely to show representative skills needed for the job.
I am happy to concede that there are presently no perfect methods for assessing merit.
quote:How so? Your argument is that it's okay to provide favoritism based on personal connections, so what's the difference between getting someone a political appointment no one else would consider them qualified for and a wealthy family bribing a prestigeous university to admit their unqualified son (to pick another totally unrelated example)? How much unearned favoritism is too much unearned favoritism?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:I'm not sure the example I gave is nepotism as I think that's associated with positions of power. I think there is some distance between the deplorable nepotism you describe above and patronage that I described before.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
That's more nepotism than patronage, like a prominent politician giving important government posts to his daughter and son-in-law, if we also stipulate that there's no way anyone would appoint them to high political positions under any other circumstance.
quote:The distinction is that nepotism is typically about rewarding personal connections, whereas patronage (in typical usage) usually refers to rewarding political connections. They're similar, though.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Well I think it is similar but subtly different, and is usually used when politicians are giving friends or relations jobs based on family ties rather than ability.
quote:Did any of those dictionaries mention that etymologically "nepotism" derives from the Latin nepos, meaning "nephew"? Because it seems like giving preferential treatment to nephews is literally the definition of nepotism.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I don't think a family friend who gives a job to a nephew - where the job is not something to do with power and/or a public service paid for by taxpayers - is nepotism.
I've consulted several different dictionaries . . .
quote:I don't think either of those two examples are similar to mine. It's not just about degree, it is also about corruption in public life being of a different order to patronism in private business affairs. Nobody is saying that I can't employ my own nephew, but there are clear reasons and rules about misuse of public funds to benefit my own family if I'm an elected official.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
How so? Your argument is that it's okay to provide favoritism based on personal connections, so what's the difference between getting someone a political appointment no one else would consider them qualified for and a wealthy family bribing a prestigeous university to admit their unqualified son (to pick another totally unrelated example)? How much unearned favoritism is too much unearned favoritism?
quote:I'd be interested to hear a more extended explanation of this difference.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The distinction is that nepotism is typically about rewarding personal connections, whereas patronage (in typical usage) usually refers to rewarding political connections. They're similar, though.
quote:It was about popes giving jobs to their nephews. Not about the general idea of giving a job to a nephew, which has happened in many places and many roles since the year dot.
Did any of those dictionaries mention that etymologically "nepotism" derives from the Latin nepos, meaning "nephew"? Because it seems like giving preferential treatment to nephews is literally the definition of nepotism.
quote:I appreciate your disbelief in any objective measurement. I'm inclined to agree that the best systems are always likely to be approximate; not least because of the huge variations in job descriptions.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:Merit is fairly easy to assess in a small number of roles, almost impossible in a large number of roles. So I don't really believe that there could ever be an objective measure.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
If there were proven objective method for testing merit, would you not prefer that as a means of selection. If not, why not?
But that's not really the most important point: the system in place in the UK is very often weighted box ticking. If one changes the weighting, different candidates are selected and different candidates are interviewed.
Too often the weighting has no relationship with the needs of the job, and in reality a large number of jobs have too many applicants and so a percentage of applicants are not considered "fairly" anyway.
quote:If people who look good on paper may not actually be competent then how exactly are you supposed to decide which of them to hire without a merit-based selection process?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:There is quite a difference between "randomly assigning jobs", employing someone who is competent and waiting to tick-box the "best" candidates to take forward to interview.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why not? And what do you think would be better - a system whereby we are all just randomly assigned jobs perhaps?
I've never said the former and I think the latter often fails because people who look good on paper get through initial sifting but may not actually be competent.
quote:Clearly.
You see one thing, I see another.
quote:Making mistakes is one thing. Not going back over your work to find and correct them before submitting it is something else entirely.
quote:People make mistakes. Fact of life.
Spelling mistakes on a job application show a worrying lack of attention to detail, especially in an age of automatic spell checkers and online dictionaries. If someone can't be bothered to make sure they spell their own application correctly then why should I believe they'd be bothered about doing any work I gave them properly and accurately?
quote:It's not about finding the "perfect" candidate, it's about determining which of the candidates who have actually applied is the best. If I have two candidates who are equally competent, but one has a perfectly spelled CV and the other doesn't then that will put the former above the latter. It is evidence that they have a better attention to detail, which is important in my line of work.
To me this just shows the problem: boxes are ticked and entirely competent people are rejected in favour of finding the mythical "perfect" candidate who too often turns out to be entirely incompetent.
quote:Well done. I was thinking of a response and your's captures it. I may add that unconscious bias also enters. We hired recently someone who used their middle name, and once hired, requested we use her first name. Why? She reported being screened out of positions when using her first, ethnic name. (We didn't have the chance to know if we'd have responded in a biased manner, I like to think not.)
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Merit is a multi-dimensional quality, so saying "we hire based on merit" is still pretty meaningless. Does merit mean technical skills? Interpersonal skills? Connections and experience in the industry? Personal hygiene? All of the above?
I'm sure I'm not the only person to have had the experience of having to choose between two candidates of comparable merit with varying levels of expertise in the many skills and qualities needed for the job. At that point, "merit" becomes a decision about how the different attributes are weighted.
quote:Depends on the job. Any decent job description will highlight particular knowledge, skills and experience and which factors are likely to be more important than others. Sure, there is likely to be a balance to be struck, but in practice it is not that difficult to see which factors should be given more weight than others for any specific appointment.
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Merit is a multi-dimensional quality, so saying "we hire based on merit" is still pretty meaningless. Does merit mean technical skills? Interpersonal skills? Connections and experience in the industry? Personal hygiene? All of the above?
quote:Not sure it does, really. If you are using tick-boxes then they are going to be weighted in order to find the best candidate.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Depends on the job.
quote:Yes, but the problem with a competitive system is that reasons have to be found to split up the candidates - so when there are two candidates who are equal in most other respects, then the minor/stupid characteristics might become very important.
Any decent job description will highlight particular knowledge, skills and experience and which factors are likely to be more important than others. Sure, there is likely to be a balance to be struck, but in practice it is not that difficult to see which factors should be given more weight than others for any specific appointment.
quote:They don't shortlist to one. Did you read what I wrote? They short list to a short list then interview them in random order.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Then that's fine. If Amazon shortlist to the one they determine is the best available candidate, they are using the process to shortlist to one and check them out in depth.
quote:You miss the point. Amazon has decided the concept of "THE best candidate for the job" is meaningless or not helpful. It's a myth, a fantasy that the ranking you speak of really produces a "best" candidate. Change the parameters even slightly and a different person becomes the "best" candidate. Better to not even try to find this chimera, and rather find a person who is an excellent fit and will do the job well. Because that's what matters, not finding some mythical "best candidate."
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Amazon filter applicants by whether they meet the essential criteria, then by random chance. This means that it doesn't matter if you're the best candidate or if you just scraped past the minimum criteria, you have an equal chance of getting the job.
quote:Is it? The point to the COMPANY is to find someone who can do the job well and fit in with his or her colleagues well. Not to stroke the egos of the applicants.
The point is that all the applicants get the chance to prove themselves to be the best person for the job.
quote:Oh come, this is Republican logic. "We don't know it's not patronage, so it could be patronage, so it's bad." Either prove it's patronage or have the grace to drop it.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Where is the audit of the Amazon procedures? Seems to me that it could very easily be influenced by patronage.
quote:I can see that those wedded to a highly competitive model see this as unfair - and that candidates who didn't get the job might feel that they would have got it if they'd been interviewed first.
Originally posted by mousethief:
You miss the point. Amazon has decided the concept of "THE best candidate for the job" is meaningless or not helpful. It's a myth, a fantasy that the ranking you speak of really produces a "best" candidate. Change the parameters even slightly and a different person becomes the "best" candidate. Better to not even try to find this chimera, and rather find a person who is an excellent fit and will do the job well. Because that's what matters, not finding some mythical "best candidate."
quote:Yes, this. Finding the "best" takes a lot of effort and paperwork. Interviewing qualified candidates at random until one is found who can do the job seems like quite a major saving of time and money.
Is it? The point to the COMPANY is to find someone who can do the job well and fit in with his or her colleagues well. Not to stroke the egos of the applicants.
quote:About this aspect, I do not know. Big tech firms in the US (and Amazon is a tech firm more than it is a retail firm) tend to do pretty well at affirmative action, at least at the lower-to-middle levels. But on this I have no data.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But then I'm not sure this says much about affirmative action - unless somehow Amazon is saying that disabled/minority/etc people who apply are guaranteed an interview if they meet the minimum requirements. Maybe they are.
quote:And they may well could have. And their name is in the system now and applying for another similar job in a different division will be simple, as everything has already checked out, and they just need to be thrown in the hopper for that position's interview slots.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I can see that those wedded to a highly competitive model see this as unfair - and that candidates who didn't get the job might feel that they would have got it if they'd been interviewed first.
quote:So where's the problem? From your POV that's the "best" candidate. From Amazon's POV they run them through the interview process and either that person is hired, or they go back to trying to find more candidates.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
mousethief
You misunderstand on shortlisting. Shortlisting processes may identify only one candidate. I've seen that happen.
quote:Not at all sure what conclusion you want me to draw from this.
I've also seen them identify no suitable candidate. They don't just do relative ranking, they can also include a quality cutoff point.
quote:Perhaps. But I think the way in which it isn't fair isn't really relevant. If you were being passed over for some reason that isn't your fault, or for some reason that favored a candidate who was unqualified over you, or even less qualified over you, for some nefarious reason -- that is an understandable charge of unfairness. But because you were slated to be interview #3 and they hired #2? So what?
If they identify more than one suitable candidate, it saves the Company time and effort to check out only one in detail. That's fine for the Company but not for the other candidates. That's not about ego stroking. If you need a job and pass the shortlist bar, but don't get further consideration for reasons other than relative merit, I don't think that's fair.
quote:Like I said, I don't have inside information on that. The system is no more and no less subject to such cheating than your system. So what does it matter?
On gaming the system for patronage reasons, it's easy to do if the manager makes the 'random draw' from a list of shortlisted names, or influences the relative length of the short list. Which is why I asked about audits of the process.
quote:Sure.
All that is avoided if the shortlisting and random draw are carried out independent by HR. That independence can be audited.
quote:The Amazon system may, for any specific job, find only one candidate who passes the shortlisting suitability bar. In which case checking out one candidate further is obviously fair. Otherwise I don't think it is. I noted your other argument, but it still looks like random discrimination (at best) to me.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Not at all sure what conclusion you want me to draw from this.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I've also seen them identify no suitable candidate. They don't just do relative ranking, they can also include a quality cutoff point.
quote:
Barnabas62 quote:
On gaming the system for patronage reasons, it's easy to do if the manager makes the 'random draw' from a list of shortlisted names, or influences the relative length of the short list. Which is why I asked about audits of the process.
quote:All things being equal, it is easier to game. The detailed process does not involve comparison between the winner and other potentially suitable candidates. Which makes that second hurdle easier for any candidate to jump, particularly with help from a patron involved in the detailed process. And if the draw can be gamed (e.g by choosing from a list of names rather than some kind of "blind draw" basis), that makes it even easier.
Like I said, I don't have inside information on that. The system is no more and no less subject to such cheating than your system. So what does it matter?
quote:Is it?
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
All things being equal, it is easier to game.
quote:Anecdotally, reasonably often (and as a caveat not every group in Amazon follows the serial process), most groups are worked very hard, and most employees wouldn't want colleagues who tread water.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I wonder, for example, how often Amazon rejects the first person subject to detailed check. Given that economy of Company effort favours the Company, I would reckon they are quite reluctant to reject the first person they see.
quote:I don't know. As I understand it, Amazon is arranged in working groups, so if one group isn't performing and it is clear that someone isn't pulling their weight then questions might be asked about who did the interviewing. If it is a patronage system working, then it is going to get found out if it is employing incompetent people. If it isn't, then maybe they don't care: the patronage is recruiting competent people.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
mr cheesy
All systems are gameable, it depends what hurdles are in the way.
I don't know the Amazon system in any great detail, but the detailed check looks like a lower hurdle than a competitive process involving shortlisted candidates. It's just a yes/no choice, with cost arguments favouring yes, since a "no" answer subjects Amazon to more costs.
Obviously I don't know these things for certain, it depends how controlled and overseen the Amazon processes are. That's the point of "All things being equal".
And so far as discovery of incompetence is concerned, the patron has the power to protect their choice, even if it is a poor one. That's part of the power of patronage.
quote:I'm not sure about whether the "absolutely" is general, but I've had my suspicions in my own experience.
I have, in contrast, worked with incompetent people in local government and other government departments who have been recruited by competitive systems, who have absolutely got their job due to gaming and who absolutely are incompetent. And who cannot easily be removed.
quote:The warehouse workers are rarely directly employed by Amazon.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I guess it depends on "what job". If it's entry-level work in the semi-automated warehouses for example, that's a hard environment for an incompetent or a slacker. But if it's further up the food chain, there's scope for patronage and protection.
quote:I am sure as I can be about specific instances, I don't know how often it happens generally in the civil service. From what I've heard, it happens fairly regularly.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I'm not sure about whether the "absolutely" is general, but I've had my suspicions in my own experience.
quote:It's a learning experience. One only has a few choices in that kind of circumstance.
Sorry that was your experience, the evidence is that you are not alone. The Peter principle is a sod to live with if you are on the receiving end of the misdeeds of incompetent promotees.
quote:This may be a pond difference. In the UK employment law is set up in order to ensure that all applicants - and then all interviewees - get a fair and equal chance to demonstrate their worth. All hiring decisions (and the reasons behind them) made by the employer have to be documented. The idea being, of course, to ensure that people are being hired (or not) based on their talents and abilities rather than due to irrelevant attributes like sex, race, or already knowing someone at the company.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Is it? The point to the COMPANY is to find someone who can do the job well and fit in with his or her colleagues well. Not to stroke the egos of the applicants.
The point is that all the applicants get the chance to prove themselves to be the best person for the job.
quote:Two things: the rules about applicants for jobs is only for advertised jobs. A company is not obliged to advertise for jobs and can select candidates based solely on speculative applications - where it would be impossible for anyone else to tell if a process had been conducted "fairly" or not.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
This may be a pond difference. In the UK employment law is set up in order to ensure that all applicants - and then all interviewees - get a fair and equal chance to demonstrate their worth. All hiring decisions (and the reasons behind them) made by the employer have to be documented. The idea being, of course, to ensure that people are being hired (or not) based on their talents and abilities rather than due to irrelevant attributes like sex, race, or already knowing someone at the company.
quote:It isn't, it is absolutely shocking. A mirage of fairness.
Is it perfect? No, of course not. But as principles go it's pretty good.
quote:But (a) would this happen because (b) how would a candidate know that they'd been shortlisted unless invited to interview.
If a UK company shortlisted five people for interview but then told candidates two through five not to bother because the first person was good enough, they'd be wide open to legal challenges. Mostly around the fact that they haven't given the other four candidates a fair and equal chance to show that they're better than the first.
quote:Here you lose me again. The experience of many people, including yourself, is that many organisations claim to apply the principle but don't. But they hide behind it as a claim of using a fair-minded approach.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:It isn't, it is absolutely shocking. A mirage of fairness.
By Marvin the Martian:
Is it perfect? No, of course not. But as principles go it's pretty good.
quote:I think I've been quite clear: the idea of weighted boxes to sift candidates is unfair. It is the system which is at fault not the application of it.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Here you lose me again. The experience of many people, including yourself, is that many organisations claim to apply the principle but don't. But they hide behind it as a claim of using a fair-minded approach.
That makes their behaviour wrong, reprehensible, even absolutely shocking. But it doesn't invalidate the principle they claim, dishonestly, to apply.
We've been here before in this discussion.
quote:AFAIU Amazon looks for competence and keeps looking until it finds someone. Other systems look for the best of the available candidates based on weighted box ticking.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Weighted boxes is surely a method of application of the principle. It may indeed be an unfair way (not a crooked one of course) of looking at relative merit. But I can't see how it invalidates the principle of looking for merit.
The Amazon system also looks for merit in candidates, it just doesn't bother to look at everyone who it thinks has merit.
quote:Your preferred system being what, exactly? You've posted in favour of patronage on this thread, so does that mean you think a system of sifting candidates based on who they know is fairer?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:I think I've been quite clear: the idea of weighted boxes to sift candidates is unfair. It is the system which is at fault not the application of it.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Here you lose me again. The experience of many people, including yourself, is that many organisations claim to apply the principle but don't. But they hide behind it as a claim of using a fair-minded approach.
That makes their behaviour wrong, reprehensible, even absolutely shocking. But it doesn't invalidate the principle they claim, dishonestly, to apply.
We've been here before in this discussion.
quote:I think a system based on competence is entirely reasonable. I don't think patronage is terrible if it generates competent people.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Your preferred system being what, exactly? You've posted in favour of patronage on this thread, so does that mean you think a system of sifting candidates based on who they know is fairer?
quote:In theory, possibly. In practical application: no.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
In the UK system, fair includes giving equal consideration to all candidates.
quote:And it is fair to the people who never have the chance to be in the running?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
They never get a chance to impress, or to make the case for why they should be hired rather than anyone else who meets the minimum requirements. That doesn't seem fair to me.
quote:Let me just stop you there.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Competence, which is actually just another word for relative merit
quote:Well, of course. No one is done right by incompetence being hired/promoted.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Competence, which is actually just another word for relative merit, needs to be assessed somehow.
quote:Yes. But not all the information is relevant to doing the job.
All shortlisting systems involve an assessment of information.
quote:Unless it is a double-blind, with no names, there are issues here as well. Plus, there are cultural biases involved that can make the concept of an unbiased assessment problematic.
Shorthand; shortlisting involves a relative scoring of merit without seeing any candidate. You end up with a score for each candidate, then a ranking.
quote:But it doesn't have to include any scoring at all.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Shorthand; shortlisting involves a relative scoring of merit without seeing any candidate. You end up with a score for each candidate, then a ranking.
That's as much a part of the overall process as more detailed assessments involving interviews, presentations by candidates, specific testing, peer review, managers' opinions, what have you.
quote:Perhaps because you're looking at it from the perspective of an employer and we're looking at it from the perspective of an applicant?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm puzzled why you're not getting this.
quote:If the decision is made on merit, yes.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:And it is fair to the people who never have the chance to be in the running?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
They never get a chance to impress, or to make the case for why they should be hired rather than anyone else who meets the minimum requirements. That doesn't seem fair to me.
quote:But I don't really accept this charge that it is unfair. In my example, 100 people meet the required standard, as listed in the person specification, on paper.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
To an employer I can well believe that it doesn't matter which competent individual gets the job*. But to the applicants that's actually quite an important question that needs to be answered properly.
I realise this may make me sound like a raging leftie, but I think it's more important to err on the side of making sure the applicants get treated fairly than the side of minimising employer paperwork.
.
*= I can believe it, but that doesn't mean I agree with it even from that perspective. I wouldn't buy a car or house on the basis of just grabbing the first one that meets my minimum criteria, so why should I do so with an employee?
quote:I have weak knees and low lung capacity, but by this argument I should still be given a random chance to win the Olympic 100m gold medal.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Also, for the candidate who isn't the stand-out winner in a competitive race - which might include a load of people for whom life hasn't been kind - it gives a chance at a job they'd never otherwise get because they're not a winner.
Hard cheese on the person who is "the best" but doesn't get allocated an interview, but better for all those other candidates who aren't and who get at least a chance at getting an interview and a job.
quote:Sigh. No.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If the decision is made on merit, yes.
quote:Stupid example I'm not even going to respond to. Get a better argument.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I have weak knees and low lung capacity, but by this argument I should still be given a random chance to win the Olympic 100m gold medal.
quote:Most jobs applicants are not applying to be olympic athletes.
Hard cheese on all the sprinters who've trained hard all their lives to become the best they can be, but at least it means people who can barely run 100m without stopping to catch their breath get a chance at glory as well.
quote:100 people each have a 1/100 (1%) chance of getting an interview in the first example.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
100 people stand a chance of getting an interview instead of 5. 100 people have a equal chance of impressing the interviewers instead of 5.
quote:That is my point. Merit is a bullshit concept as the handicaps are not the same for everyone. The poor, and more specifically the poor and brown, have a lesser chance of being able to generate merit.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If the decision is made on merit, yes.
quote:Yay, let's reward mediocrity! Forget all that guff about being the best you can be, just aim for "good enough"!
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
So we're not talking about people who can't do the job, we're talking about a large number of people who are capable but never get the chance to show the employer that they can do the job because there is always someone who is "better".
Instead, here is a system whereby those who are capable but not "the best" have an equal chance to get an interview.
quote:You miss the point. There is not a substantive difference in every job between good enough and the best. Not in most jobs. It is that the job doesn't require more, not that we accept less.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Yay, let's reward mediocrity! Forget all that guff about being the best you can be, just aim for "good enough"!
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
So we're not talking about people who can't do the job, we're talking about a large number of people who are capable but never get the chance to show the employer that they can do the job because there is always someone who is "better".
Instead, here is a system whereby those who are capable but not "the best" have an equal chance to get an interview.
quote:No, come on now. If they're being ranked against each other than anyone other than the top 5% has exactly zero chance of getting an interview.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
100 people each have a 1/100 (1%) chance of getting an interview in the first example.
100 people, assuming they're all of exactly equal merit, have a 1/20 (5%) chance of getting an interview in the second example.
quote:Rubbish. It is a 1% chance of interview vs a 0% of interview for the 95% of candidates who are not "the best".
Even in your own example, the odds of getting the chance to stand before the employer and impress them are five times higher in my scenario than yours.
quote:There is nothing wrong with mediocrity. If you are competent, you are competent. It doesn't matter if there are 1 or 100 people who look better on paper.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Yay, let's reward mediocrity! Forget all that guff about being the best you can be, just aim for "good enough"!
quote:"Merit" means ability to do the job. The jobs I interview for are in data analysis - if you're not any good at data analysis then you ain't getting hired, regardless of why you aren't any good at it.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:That is my point. Merit is a bullshit concept as the handicaps are not the same for everyone. The poor, and more specifically the poor and brown, have a lesser chance of being able to generate merit.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If the decision is made on merit, yes.
quote:And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why this country is going to shit.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
There is nothing wrong with mediocrity.
quote:Nope, there's your problem right there. You don't understand that "merit" is beyond the ability to do a job and is being used to distinguish between candidates who all look to be entirely capable of doing the job. It isn't that only 5 people could possibly do the job, it is that the company has determined that they're only going to interview 5 and so they're going to choose the best 5 using tick-boxes.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
"Merit" means ability to do the job.
quote:Doesn't that contravene employment law? Of is it only against the rules for thoe who claim to be equal ops. employers?
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
[QB A company is not obliged to advertise for jobs and can select candidates based solely on speculative applications[/QB]
quote:AFAIU either employment law doesn't apply or it is extremely hard to prove.
Originally posted by leo:
Doesn't that contravene employment law? Of is it only against the rules for thoe who claim to be equal ops. employers?
quote:Have you seen (heard of) Moneyball? How do you explain that phenomena?
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
"First class people employ first class people. Second class people employ third class people."
quote:This makes for a concise platitude. But that is the most complimentary thing I can say about it.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
A good friend of mine, looking at this issue a few years ago, came up with this neat statement.
"First class people employ first class people. Second class people employ third class people."
quote:Ambition can also destroy a team. It is dependent on the motives and ethics of the ambitious. Self confidence is good when it is justified.
Another friend observed this. "I always want people working for me who reckon they can do my job. Ambition and self-confidence are very useful in a team."
quote:But life isn't always that simple. For people that I want to hire, there are some that I would love to have, and will do my best to generate an extra vacancy if we get two of them applying for one job.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
100 meet the person specification. They have the minimum amount of experience and qualifications expected for the job.
It isn't necessary to score and rank these applicants. They all look like they are capable of doing the job.
quote:I can assure you that this happens regularly in government jobs. I've not seen it quite as blatantly in the private sector.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
But life isn't always that simple. For people that I want to hire, there are some that I would love to have, and will do my best to generate an extra vacancy if we get two of them applying for one job.
I could write a spec with that kind of person in mind, but if I did that, then half the time I'd have no qualified applicants at all.
quote:I don't know what industry you are in, but given that around here even a small number of jobs at Tesco have hundreds of applicants, I'd be willing to bet that there are many many jobs with many many suitable applicants.
There's a second rank of applicants who I think I can work with. They're not the perfect applicant - perhaps they don't really have the right experience, or they're a solid performer but don't show much creativity or originality. I can still use those people. The one with the wrong experience might turn out to be great with some training; the solid performer can be assigned tasks where his lack of creativity isn't a huge impediment, and free up someone else for a task where more lateral thinking is an advantage.
I'd rather have group 2 than nobody, but I'd rather have group 1 than group 2.
quote:By what process do HR/management know that the 100 applicants meet the person spec and 400 don't? Are they just saying "it's obvious" after reading the CVs? What makes it so "obvious" that no more detailed assessment is necessary.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:But it doesn't have to include any scoring at all.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Shorthand; shortlisting involves a relative scoring of merit without seeing any candidate. You end up with a score for each candidate, then a ranking.
That's as much a part of the overall process as more detailed assessments involving interviews, presentations by candidates, specific testing, peer review, managers' opinions, what have you.
500 people apply for a job. Of those, 100 meet the person specification. They have the minimum amount of experience and qualifications expected for the job.
It isn't necessary to score and rank these applicants. They all look like they are capable of doing the job.
I'm puzzled why you're not getting this.
quote:Do you check references? How do you make sure you aren't hiring an asshole who will destroy your team? How do you know you're getting someone who will actually show up on time, showered and properly dressed, and put in a full day every day once they've got the job? What if the amazingly good analyst in your candidate pool has a criminal record or won't work overtime or has a disability or chronic illness? What if the top candidate asks for a higher salary than you've budgeted for?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
"Merit" means ability to do the job. The jobs I interview for are in data analysis - if you're not any good at data analysis then you ain't getting hired, regardless of why you aren't any good at it.
If you're capable of doing the job, you have a good chance of an interview. If you're amazingly good at it, you'll almost certainly get the job. ...
quote:But that comparison is completely squishy, or at least just as easy to game. You have made no argument as to why the one is easier to game than the other. If someone wants to pick one particular person, or not pick someone of a particular people group, neither system is any more fair than the other. The only argument you have for why the Amazon system is "unfair" is that it depends on luck, and not everybody is as lucky. Which is magical thinking.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
All things being equal, it is easier to game. The detailed process does not involve comparison between the winner and other potentially suitable candidates.
quote:And maybe you would be so unscrupulous. That's not the story I hear from inside the walls.
I wonder, for example, how often Amazon rejects the first person subject to detailed check. Given that economy of Company effort favours the Company, I would reckon they are quite reluctant to reject the first person they see.
quote:Clearly. No, Amazon is doing much the same kind of marking scheme, but they're not ranking. They're saying, "Is this person worth interviewing? Does it look like they would be able to do the job?"
The alternative to some preliminary marking scheme to assess relative merit is what exactly, if it isn't some form of patronage or random discarding? That's what I don't get.
quote:Either you're competent or you're not. Relative merit is irrelevant. If anybody who scores over a 70 is deemed competent, my scoring 88 and your scoring 85 is irrelevant to our competence. We're both competent, period. There is no need to assess relative merit -- ranking -- to determine competence.
Assessment of relative merit as a determinant of competence. By some scoring method.
quote:If good enough isn't good enough then you're not pre-screening well enough. If your standards are so low that the mediocre are "good enough" then you've got a problem to begin with. Raise your standards. Problem solved. This is a stupid argument.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Yay, let's reward mediocrity! Forget all that guff about being the best you can be, just aim for "good enough"!
quote:Then you make potential a part of the minimum requirements. This isn't rocket surgery. You set the bar high enough to only get applicants you'd be willing to hire.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
So everyone who meets the minimum standard of competence for any job should have an equal opportunity to get that job? Even if that means random choice?
Well, I'm not sure that actually does meet the employer's needs. Other than the immediate short term. What about potential? Doesn't it suit an employer better to have people with potential to advance in the organisation?
quote:Most British job person specifications distinguish between essential and desirable attributes that the employer is looking for in candidates.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
By what process do HR/management know that the 100 applicants meet the person spec and 400 don't? Are they just saying "it's obvious" after reading the CVs? What makes it so "obvious" that no more detailed assessment is necessary.
quote:If it is mostly a gut feel then the process isn't working properly. What it should be is a fairly objective sift of who of the applicants could do the job measured against the essential characteristics - which in turn ought to be things that are easily measured against what is written on the application form.
That sounds like a gut feel process to me. A non-scoring process is still a process.
quote:But I'm not talking about gut feeling, I don't understand what you're not getting about this.
You can certainly argue in favour of gut-feeling your way through applications, but I don't see why that should be superior to some kind of scoring system.
quote:This is a whole other problem caused by the pressure to recruit someone even if they don't meet the minimum standards needed to do the job.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
I was acquainted with a woman who had a hobby of applying for jobs she wasn't really qualified for, just for fun. She was good at getting interviews, and very good at being interviewed. She'd often go through a few levels of that, before a mutual decision that she might not be a match.
quote:Well yes, this is an other problem. One can hit all the right notes in an application in order to get an interview and then blag through an interview to get a job.
People BS their way through interviews all the time. And people who are honest may be perceived as not interviewing well. Often, interviewers and employers are waiting to hear/read the right magic words, whether or not that has anything to do with the job. And they want someone who seems like part of their "tribe". (Nod to Richard Nelson Bolles.)
It's not as simple as who's qualified. Or, perhaps, a lot of other qualifications are considered that aren't in the official job description.
quote:If you ask for feedback and you were in the final few who were interviewed, the chances are that you were all considered to be able to do the job.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
What is still sticking in my gut, though, is fairness to candidates. Feedback which says, actually you were good enough but you didn't win the raffle, next time you might be luckier, means there is nothing you can do to improve your prospects. Doesn't that provoke the response, "you never really looked"?
quote:I understand that Amazon interviews for engineers comprise of 7 or 8 interviews and tests. The idea that they're somehow not rigorous isn't backed up by the available evidence.
mousethief, a noncompetitive detailed interview assessment is easier to game because the assessors (including a motivated manager) have less to go on. It's more a confirmation that the initial sift was right about competence. And auditors of the process have less to audit, other than the confirmation was reasonable.
quote:I don't really see what you are going on about here. Let's say that Amazon truly randomly chooses candidates to interview from the available pool of qualified applicants.
In competitive interview/assessments in the UK, the panel normally mark individually before any discussion. I've been in one as an independent manager, with a manager from the recruitment area and an HR chairman. The HR chairman and I both gave an A to a candidate, the area manager gave him an E. For another candidate, the HR chairman and I gave him a D, the area manager an A.
That information would have been available for an audit.
Whatever you want to make it that situation, which was resolved well after a long discussion over the sharp differences, it's an illustration of how possible bias both for and against candidates may be detected in an audit.
None of this proves that competitive interviews are necessary, of course, but that wasn't my point.
quote:You can ask, did I make the sift or not? Whether you are an internal or external candidate. I don't know whether it's Amazon's policy to reveal such information. I can't see any reason why asking that question should upset anyone.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:If you ask for feedback and you were in the final few who were interviewed, the chances are that you were all considered to be able to do the job.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
What is still sticking in my gut, though, is fairness to candidates. Feedback which says, actually you were good enough but you didn't win the raffle, next time you might be luckier, means there is nothing you can do to improve your prospects. Doesn't that provoke the response, "you never really looked"?
So 9/10 times the answer will be that someone else was considered to be slightly better.
In the Amazon example if you don't even get an interview, I don't see how you could possibly know whether you were even in contention as a person capable of doing the job.
quote:The metric isn't made-up by the assessors, it's a pre-established marking standard, and one interviewers were trained in using. Whether any form of competitive interview marking should be regarded as valid or not is a separate issue.
At the end of this process (the single interview assessment) they can still have an auditable trail of paper including the application form and the interviewer notes showing why they thought that this candidate would be competent.
The only thing they don't have is some made-up metric about why this candidate is better than all the rest of the candidates.
quote:Well that's where we differ. If the idea is to rank candidates to decide which 5 to interview, then in my opinion that's a subjective and made-up standard - which may be wildly beyond the minimum needed to do the job. If one changes the variables slightly, different people would be called for interview.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The metric isn't made-up by the assessors, it's a pre-established marking standard, and one interviewers were trained in using. Whether any form of competitive interview marking should be regarded as valid or not is a separate issue.
quote:My point was that you don't really know that for sure at appointment stage. Lots of jobs include probationary periods which give managers the opportunity to find out in practice whether the initial assessment of competence was justified.
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Competence is a different standard. You are or you aren't competent.
quote:True, but also IMO irrelevant.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
My point was that you don't really know that for sure at appointment stage. Lots of jobs include probationary periods which give managers the opportunity to find out in practice whether the initial assessment of competence was justified.
quote:No I didn't say it was infallible, but I suspect that Amazon finds it saves a lot of time and still generates employees that are at least as good as finding them the other way.
Given that appointment and training processes are quite expensive for organisations, it's not wrong to try and find means of reducing the risk. The Amazon process does that one way in advance, by more detailed testing of one candidate; the traditional competitive process does it another way in advance, by looking at relative merit among the competent.
But I'm sure it doesn't stop there for Amazon or anyone else. The failure rate afterwards is not a bad indicator of which type of process is more effective.
I don't think any system is infallible in assessing competence in advance. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
quote:Actually, I'd say that given their relative success it's down to the naysayers to prove why their hiring policy doesn't work.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
You suspect? Let's leave it at that. I appreciate you have grounds for your suspicion. Neither of us can know for sure, without more evidence.
quote:What does fairness to candidates mean, beyond your compliance with whatever anti-discrimination laws apply in your jurisdiction. No-one has any right to a job, but only a right not to be discriminated against. If I, as an employer, decide to call for interview only 10% of candidates, and those are chosen entirely at random, what complaint can a candidate have?
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I think some good points have been made in favour of using minimum competence as a standard to be used by an employer. From their point of view, good enough is good enough for many jobs.
What is still sticking in my gut, though, is fairness to candidates. Feedback which says, actually you were good enough but you didn't win the raffle, next time you might be luckier, means there is nothing you can do to improve your prospects. Doesn't that provoke the response, "you never really looked"?
quote:I believe there is a certain amount of this in some of the groups in Amazon, this is certainly one view:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Unless you believe in Darwinian management, of course. Let the fit survive. There's plenty more out there to fill the gaps left by those who don't survive.
quote:If a company has a policy of hiring the best and seems to be successful, one cannot know if the success is because they did hire the best or because anyone competent will do.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:Actually, I'd say that given their relative success it's down to the naysayers to prove why their hiring policy doesn't work.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
You suspect? Let's leave it at that. I appreciate you have grounds for your suspicion. Neither of us can know for sure, without more evidence.
quote:But as we have already been discussing for the last page or so - their strategy is explicitly based on the idea that in most cases they won't be hiring the 'absolute best' for the job.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If a company has a policy of hiring the best and seems to be successful, one cannot know if the success is because they did hire the best or because anyone competent will do.
quote:And my point for much of the entire thread is that absolute best isn't even relevant.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:But as we have already been discussing for the last page or so - their strategy is explicitly based on the idea that in most cases they won't be hiring the 'absolute best' for the job.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If a company has a policy of hiring the best and seems to be successful, one cannot know if the success is because they did hire the best or because anyone competent will do.
quote:Interesting and disturbing link, chris. Yes, that's almost a textbook illustration of Darwinian management. This quote was pretty telling.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:I believe there is a certain amount of this in some of the groups in Amazon, this is certainly one view:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Unless you believe in Darwinian management, of course. Let the fit survive. There's plenty more out there to fill the gaps left by those who don't survive.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html
Though of course as in most exposes there's an element of bias here. Some of it has been confirmed to me anecdotally by people I know who work there, though it seems to be less true for others. Certainly they are very metrics driven internally, and they've grown at a point where IT itself is adopting quasi assembly-line style methods of production.
quote:Also in the context of the recent pages in this thread, did you note this in the link?
But in its offices, Amazon uses a self-reinforcing set of management, data and psychological tools to spur its tens of thousands of white-collar employees to do more and more. “The company is running a continual performance improvement algorithm on its staff,” said Amy Michaels, a former Kindle marketer.
quote:Only the best are hired? The best? That's not a hiring standard based purely on competency.
The process begins when Amazon’s legions of recruiters identify thousands of job prospects each year, who face extra screening by “bar raisers,” star employees and part-time interviewers charged with ensuring that only the best are hired.
quote:I wasn't contending that the 'absolute best was relevant'. I wasn't even arguing for the concept of the 'best'. Furthermore:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
My point for much of the entire thread is that absolute best isn't even relevant.
The myth of "best" is a key factor in preventing equal opportunities.
quote:Nothing in that is necessarily contrary to the serial process mousethief described (and which is also what have had described to me by both friends who work at Amazon and recruiters working at and for Amazon), it's just the assumption that they can identify 'the best' earlier (which ends up being competency based). Some groups in Amazon do recruit differently depending on location and local management.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quote:Only the best are hired? The best? That's not a hiring standard based purely on competency.
The process begins when Amazon’s legions of recruiters identify thousands of job prospects each year, who face extra screening by “bar raisers,” star employees and part-time interviewers charged with ensuring that only the best are hired.
quote:OK, I appear to have missed parts of the thread.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:I wasn't contending that the 'absolute best was relevant'. I wasn't even arguing for the concept of the 'best'. Furthermore:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
My point for much of the entire thread is that absolute best isn't even relevant.
The myth of "best" is a key factor in preventing equal opportunities.
"If a company has a policy of hiring the best and seems to be successful,"
I wasn't even contending that Amazon were hiring the 'best' (in fact the random element would specifically rule this out except accidentally - see Marvin's posts up thread).
So I have no idea what the relevance of what you said has to do with what I said.
quote:I assume it is in phrasing, but rewards for a putative 'best employee' is not proof that the best employee exists.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The concept of the best employee is not a myth, since most management systems these days have performance measures (output, quality, profitability etc) to determine rewards such as bonuses or annual increases.
quote:Yeah, I've seen several schemes. The best those do is measure how well a person who already has the job is doing. And if the specs work, that will be nearly any competent person as most jobs really don't change beyond that. Most cannot as they do not exist independently.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
lilBuddha
The concept of the best employee is not a myth, since most management systems these days have performance measures (output, quality, profitability etc) to determine rewards such as bonuses or annual increases.
quote:Understatement. Only in a very tiny organisation can this even be attempted accurately.
What is undoubtedly problematic is whether attempts to determine which candidates will turn out to be better than others are soundly based.
quote:My point is that for most jobs it doesn't actually matter.
But if a manager has a choice between a candidate who is thought to be up to competency standards, and one who is thought to have promise to do better (in accordance with the performance measures for the job,) which one do you think the manager will want.
quote:Most of the reason is the illusion that it matters and that one can easily determine "best". Remember, the criterion I am using is competence. Not mediocrity, not marginal. Competent.
The best is not a myth, and managers may have good reasons for wanting the candidate who is seen to be the best available. They may end up disappointed, of course, but you can understand the motivation for looking.
quote:So really why interview 5 people if you have already determined that one of them is the "best" in accordance with the performance measures for the job? Unless interviewing well is a performance measure that can add points to one candidate and not the other. But unless the job involves being interviewed, that's inane.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But if a manager has a choice between a candidate who is thought to be up to competency standards, and one who is thought to have promise to do better (in accordance with the performance measures for the job,) which one do you think the manager will want.
quote:Not to plump for Amazon but surely they can't be the only company in the world to read Deming? FFS "continual improvement" has been business standard since the 70s in Japan and the 80s in the US.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quoting from the article:
quote:
But in its offices, Amazon uses a self-reinforcing set of management, data and psychological tools to spur its tens of thousands of white-collar employees to do more and more. “The company is running a continual performance improvement algorithm on its staff,” said Amy Michaels, a former Kindle marketer.
quote:A horrid practice which pits employees against each other, thereby disincentivizing cooperation and thereby reducing productivity and/or quality. See the recent CEO of Sears who turned the business into a competition between internal groups, and ran the business into the ground. It's still doubtful whether it can rebound, or whether it will die in the next year or so. Competition is not an unmitigated good.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The concept of the best employee is not a myth, since most management systems these days have performance measures (output, quality, profitability etc) to determine rewards such as bonuses or annual increases.
quote:Shortlisting doesn't complete evaluation; all it is intended to do is screen out candidates for further evaluation.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:So really why interview 5 people if you have already determined that one of them is the "best" in accordance with the performance measures for the job? Unless interviewing well is a performance measure that can add points to one candidate and not the other. But unless the job involves being interviewed, that's inane.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But if a manager has a choice between a candidate who is thought to be up to competency standards, and one who is thought to have promise to do better (in accordance with the performance measures for the job,) which one do you think the manager will want.
quote:It's the use of the word 'algorithm' which gives the game away. The rest of the article gives you some insight into the pressurising nature of the algorithm. It's a while since I read Deming but from memory he understood the difference between incentivising and demotivating. High turnover gives you the clue about the aggressive nature of the algorithm.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Not to plump for Amazon but surely they can't be the only company in the world to read Deming? FFS "continual improvement" has been business standard since the 70s in Japan and the 80s in the US.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quoting from the article:
quote:
But in its offices, Amazon uses a self-reinforcing set of management, data and psychological tools to spur its tens of thousands of white-collar employees to do more and more. “The company is running a continual performance improvement algorithm on its staff,” said Amy Michaels, a former Kindle marketer.
quote:Like you, I have reservations about individual incentives on their own. My point was that the concept of best employee is alive and well in many organisations, so it has some influence on recruitment practices. Incentives are not bad in themselves. The normal method of encouraging teamwork is to couple individual incentives with a group performance incentive. Not all organisations do this, of course.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:A horrid practice which pits employees against each other, thereby disincentivizing cooperation and thereby reducing productivity and/or quality. See the recent CEO of Sears who turned the business into a competition between internal groups, and ran the business into the ground. It's still doubtful whether it can rebound, or whether it will die in the next year or so. Competition is not an unmitigated good.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The concept of the best employee is not a myth, since most management systems these days have performance measures (output, quality, profitability etc) to determine rewards such as bonuses or annual increases.
quote:While the concept might exist this doesn't necessarily mean that the reality exists.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
My point was that the concept of best employee is alive and well in many organisations, so it has some influence on recruitment practices.
quote:Only, at this point, if correlation proves causation.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
High turnover gives you the clue about the aggressive nature of the algorithm.
quote:That has no bearing on whether or not it's chimerical.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
My point was that the concept of best employee is alive and well in many organisations, so it has some influence on recruitment practices.
quote:Incentives and competition for bonuses and pay rises are quite different things, or are at least easily distinguishable. An zero-sum incentive, one that not everybody can achieve, is anti-cooperative.
Incentives are not bad in themselves. The normal method of encouraging teamwork is to couple individual incentives with a group performance incentive. Not all organisations do this, of course.
quote:My observation is that in most white collar environments a significant portion of any job can end up being fairly generic and not particularly anything to do with the ostensible specialty of the department to which someone is assigned.
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Coming into this late, but the idea of a 'best' candidate doesn't seem to me to mesh well with the observations that most people do in fact have jobs, and that most jobs are interchangeable (in terms of skills required) with at least some other jobs.
quote:Everybody who has been supporting the idea that you'd rather have a "good" person than an "adequate" person has also been saying that you'd rather have an "adequate" person than a vacancy. This is not inconsistent with that.
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Coming into this late, but the idea of a 'best' candidate doesn't seem to me to mesh well with the observations that most people do in fact have jobs, and that most jobs are interchangeable (in terms of skills required) with at least some other jobs.
quote:No, it doesn't.
To put it another way, the concept of 'best' candidate suggests that both jobs and employees are unique and special snowflakes* and the process of matching one to the other requires infinitesimal fine-tuning.
quote:Good for him. And I mean that.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Fair enough, chris.
Amusingly, I was talking some of this through with my very bright 18 year old grandson, off to University in 5 weeks. He's been doing part time work in a fish and chip shop (to help him with his initial costs before loans come through) and his manager thinks the world of him. Reason; he's very good with money, very accurate over orders, and a faster collator and wrapper of orders than any of the other assistants. "The manager thinks I'm the best, and the fastest, and I am!", he tells me. He's getting the same basic pay as other assistants, but it doesn't bother him. "I've got a guaranteed holiday job to come back to, grandpa".
quote:Nobody has been supporting this idea. It has been said over and over -- perhaps you missed it -- that if your cut-off line doesn't get you a good candidate, then you need to move your cut-off line.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:Everybody who has been supporting the idea that you'd rather have a "good" person than an "adequate" person has also been saying that you'd rather have an "adequate" person than a vacancy. This is not inconsistent with that.
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Coming into this late, but the idea of a 'best' candidate doesn't seem to me to mesh well with the observations that most people do in fact have jobs, and that most jobs are interchangeable (in terms of skills required) with at least some other jobs.
quote:This brings up so many questions.
But your framing assumption is that Alice and Bob are identical. What if Alice is better than Bob?
quote:This kind of assumes F&C is a commodity. On the other hand if Chipmonger's has discernibly better wares than Joe's Cod, then it might be worth standing in a slower line to get the better meal. In which case the speed of the counter workers is only relevant to people with undiscerning palates.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
People get put off chippies by long queues, which can be created by slower servers. And efficient counter service is good for the reputation of the place.
quote:If the other servers are creating longer lines than your grandson, they are not meeting the basic level of competence or the shop owner needs to implement a better work-flow. Or not if the level of custom hasn't changed.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
People get put off chippies by long queues, which can be created by slower servers. And efficient counter service is good for the reputation of the place.
I don't know whether that's been reflected in the figures, of course.
quote:I didn't miss it - I just think it's bollocks.
Originally posted by mousethief:
It has been said over and over -- perhaps you missed it -- that if your cut-off line doesn't get you a good candidate, then you need to move your cut-off line.
quote:a) by more than the measurement error on your interview process, otherwise it's a nonsense statement, obviously.
This brings up so many questions.
(a) by how much?
(b) is that really determinable before an offer is made given normal vetting processes?
(c) will this benefit the "winning" manager enough to make a difference?
(d) will the "losing" manager then be better off not hiring Bob at all, but starting the search all over? After all, they want the "best" and Bob isn't it. If, on the other hand, Bob is good enough, then Bob was good enough before Alice was hired, and the ranking is irrelevant.
quote:No, that's nonsense. You're only right if the customer has committed to purchase fish and chips from one of the town's chippies. That describes almost no actual humans.
On the other hand if Chipmonger's has discernibly better wares than Joe's Cod, then it might be worth standing in a slower line to get the better meal. In which case the speed of the counter workers is only relevant to people with undiscerning palates.
quote:Alice can serve 30 customers in an hour. Bob can serve 15 customers in an hour. A chip shop with 25 customers arriving per hour needs to employ one Alice or two Bobs.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If the other servers are creating longer lines than your grandson, they are not meeting the basic level of competence or the shop owner needs to implement a better work-flow. Or not if the level of custom hasn't changed.
quote:It would be polite to say so rather than just ignore it.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:I didn't miss it - I just think it's bollocks.
Originally posted by mousethief:
It has been said over and over -- perhaps you missed it -- that if your cut-off line doesn't get you a good candidate, then you need to move your cut-off line.
quote:Which is so universalizable that anybody who claims to have experienced different is clearly taking bollocks. Someone needs a Copernican revolution.
In my experience,
quote:No, in high tech, this is not always the case.It can be terribly difficult to find someone you're prepared to take. This is why they import people from Asia rather than hiring Americans. There just aren't enough qualified people.
it is always true that there are people that you really want to have, and people that are less good, but that you're prepared to take if there are no good people available.
quote:Yes, exactly. Better to keep looking than to hire somebody who will be a detriment to the company.
It's all very well setting your cut-off line at the boundary of groups 1 and 2, but that just means you often won 't hire anyone.
quote:Do interviews "measure"? Is there a number that is produced by the interview process?
a) by more than the measurement error on your interview process, otherwise it's a nonsense statement, obviously.
quote:And is this often the case? There's always a rock star out there just waiting for you to hire them? This is a fantasy.
c)Given the subsequent performance of our rock star candidate, not just yes but hell yes.
quote:Is he?
d) Alice is better than Bob. Bob is better than nobody.
quote:I'm not sure the comparison to marriage is at all meaningful. My relationship with my spouse and my relationship with my employee are so completely different as to make such comparisons meaningless.
This is a variant of the marriage problem. You got turned down by Alice, but have Bob available. Do you marry him, or break it off and hope to meet Charlie, who is like Alice, but wants you? But there's an advantage in this problem to getting married early, rather than spending more time single. There are certainly cases where marrying Bob is the right answer.
quote:Your data on this please? It's not nonsense just because you haven't experienced it. Maybe to you the category "meal" is a commodity. I don't care what I eat as long as it's food. There are, in fact, people who decide they want a particular kind of food before they leave the house. Or if you're at the seaside and take a hankering for fish and chips, and aren't about to go pack everything up and fire up the car and drive to Chinese. You use the word "nonsense" far too readily. Your life is not normative.
No, that's nonsense. You're only right if the customer has committed to purchase fish and chips from one of the town's chippies. That describes almost no actual humans.
quote:Nobody said anything about crappy service. Don't change the subject. The difference was between normal speed service and extraordinary service because somebody's nephew is an overachiever. Although of course he won't be the only server, so the relative average speed of service between the two chipperies will be marginal.
Sure - if the F&C is great, and I really want F&C, and I have plenty of time, I'll get in the queue. But if I'm a bit rushed, or I'm not completely sold on fish and chips, then crappy service means I'm more likely to pick up a Chinese instead.
quote:You (and perhaps lilBuddha) are the ones proclaiming the universal applicability of the "all people who pass this bar are equivalent" position. My claim is that this is not universally true - and that in my experience (which is by no means universal) it is typically false.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Which is so universalizable that anybody who claims to have experienced different is clearly taking bollocks. Someone needs a Copernican revolution.
quote:This is completely independent of what I said. I made no comment on the ease of finding occupants of either groups 1 or 2 - just that they existed. In your example, you're saying that there are no occupants of either group 1 or 2 that are American. OK.
No, in high tech, this is not always the case.It can be terribly difficult to find someone you're prepared to take. This is why they import people from Asia rather than hiring Americans. There just aren't enough qualified people.
quote:My claim is that group 2 is not a detriment to the company. Group 3 would be - that's why you don't hire them.
Yes, exactly. Better to keep looking than to hire somebody who will be a detriment to the company.
quote:My entire point is that there isn't always a rockstar, but that when there is one, you want to hire him, rather than hiring the first acceptable.
And is this often the case? There's always a rock star out there just waiting for you to hire them? This is a fantasy.
quote:Well, yes. My claim is that Bob exists. I think it's obvious that the chip shop, for example, would prefer 30-customer-per-hour-Alice to 15-customer-per-hour-Bob (unless it had very few customers), and equally obvious that hiring Bob is better than having even longer queues because the owner's trying to do everything himself.
Is he?
quote:The thing I learned as the "marriage problem" is apparently also (better?) known as the Secretary Problem.
I'm not sure the comparison to marriage is at all meaningful.
quote:But for your argument (server speed doesn't matter) to be true, you require almost all people to behave in the way that you describe. For my argument to be true, I need only some potential customers to be put off by the long queues. The effect becomes stronger the more people are like that, of course, but it exists as long as some people are like that.
You use the word "nonsense" far too readily. Your life is not normative.
quote:Where I come from, slow service is crappy. If you have servers of two speeds, it doesn't matter whether you label one of them "fast" and one "normal" or one "normal" and one "slow" - the relative crappiness of the slower server is the same.
Nobody said anything about crappy service. Don't change the subject. The difference was between normal speed service and extraordinary service because somebody's nephew is an overachiever. Although of course he won't be the only server, so the relative average speed of service between the two chipperies will be marginal.
quote:Well yes you've pretty much admitted that you don't care where you eat as long as it's fast. Whatevs.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Where I come from, slow service is crappy.
quote:My observation, which admittedly is based on limited experience, is that jobs at the 'grunt' level are specifically designed so that the people who do them are interchangeable, whereas when you start gaining decision-making capacity, then to a certain extent you also get to set the parameters of what your job is for. Neither of which really mesh with the concept of 'best candidate for the job'.
Originally posted by chris stiles:
My observation is that in most white collar environments a significant portion of any job can end up being fairly generic and not particularly anything to do with the ostensible specialty of the department to which someone is assigned.
quote:I suppose what I'm getting at is that the concept of a best candidate suggests that in a hypothetical perfectly efficient labour market, everyone would be the best candidate for the job they are doing. Which doesn't seem likely to me, because in terms of ability I don't think people are all that unique.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Everybody who has been supporting the idea that you'd rather have a "good" person than an "adequate" person has also been saying that you'd rather have an "adequate" person than a vacancy. This is not inconsistent with that.
quote:But again, most jobs aren't so standalone.
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
People get put off chippies by long queues, which can be created by slower servers. And efficient counter service is good for the reputation of the place.
quote:I said most jobs and I said competent people and that this combination will result in no substantive difference between competent and "the best". I did not say 'universal'. This in my experience and observation.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
You (and perhaps lilBuddha) are the ones proclaiming the universal applicability of the "all people who pass this bar are equivalent" position. My claim is that this is not universally true - and that in my experience (which is by no means universal) it is typically false.
quote:Fair enough - that's why I gave you a perhaps, as I couldn't remember where you drew the line. mousethief seems to have taken a rather stronger stance.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I said most jobs and I said competent people and that this combination will result in no substantive difference between competent and "the best". I did not say 'universal'. This in my experience and observation.
quote:But they wouldn't, because of comparative advantage. You might be a much better widget waxer than the person who you employ to wax your widgets, but you still choose to employ him because it frees you up to make enormous stacks of cash diddling doohickeys.
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I suppose what I'm getting at is that the concept of a best candidate suggests that in a hypothetical perfectly efficient labour market, everyone would be the best candidate for the job they are doing. Which doesn't seem likely to me, because in terms of ability I don't think people are all that unique.
quote:Perhaps you'd like to read this again?
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Well yes you've pretty much admitted that you don't care where you eat as long as it's fast. Whatevs.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Where I come from, slow service is crappy.
quote:It's a multidimensional optimization. Quality of service is one dimension. Quality of food is another. Degree to which style of food matches my current hankerings is a third. My schedule and time constraints are a fourth. My willingness to cook today is probably a fifth.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Sure - if the F&C is great, and I really want F&C, and I have plenty of time, I'll get in the queue. But if I'm a bit rushed, or I'm not completely sold on fish and chips, then crappy service means I'm more likely to pick up a Chinese instead.
quote:This can be difficult to separate and perception is a strong factor.
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
In the general case, our experiences obviously differ. It would be interesting to know how much of that was really different experiences (different kinds of job etc.) and how much of that is different perceptions.
