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Comments (61)
- EridrusIt seems like this is measuring algorithms against the disparate impact standard of all demographic groups needing to have the same aggregate results.Which is extra weird because the samples to this are applications, not humans, so this is subject to bias in how people apply to these positions. So if a demographic group is more likely to apply to some jobs they are not qualified for, this paper would say they are being discriminated against.On top of all this, there isn't even really a claim that the algorithms are picking up on anything demographic related. One of the vendors they look at pymetrics, which makes players play abstract games and uses that to pre-screen people.In the abstract, it makes sense that monocultures are problematic since ML bias alone (in the bias vs variance sense) would just randomly harm folks in a fairly persistent way. But it's also not immediately clear that this even applies to the pymetrics example where I think they have a large assortment of games they make people play for different positions?It's also not clear that these systems breed monocultures if the inputs into them are firm/position-specific, e.g. job descriptions.Though honestly I would be far more interested in the validity of these measures at predicting actual on the job measures like performance reviews, etc.
- mrkeenThis is keeping me out of work at the moment.The usual flow is that I have a great HR interview, then I'm assigned an online intelligence (what dots should be in the next box) test and a personality test, and then the company wants nothing to do with me.They manage to screen me out before I have the opportunity to talk about anything computing related.(The old horror-stories of 'I couldn't reverse a BST on a whiteboard so I didn't get the job' seem wonderful in comparison now. The non-computing people have captured the hiring pipeline into computing companies)
- dhosekThis is just one of many reasons why my current job is likely to be my last. I feel like so much of modern life is just irredeemably broken right now.
- swiftcoderI thought this was going to be about how the whole software industry has been cargo-culting FAANG coding interviews that are heavily reliant on algorithms trivia...
- po1ntIf I had to make an algorithm that would correct these injusticies, I would end up just hiring that algorithm as it's way easier than hiring a human.
- innocentoldguyI've found that if I apply for any company that uses Workday, it's an immediate rejection, so I don't bother with them anymore.
- jmyeetThis sort of thing needs to be illegal. We saw a similar thing wtih RealPage. So many corporate landlords use it that it essentially becomes anticompetitive price-fixing.I've heard a claim that an issue with these ATS AI Systems is that your CV gets scored and that score is cached for some period from 3 to 12 months. So any application with a completely different company with your name will just yield the exact same score. If true, it means that if you score badly for whatever reason, you're going to get auto-rejected by every company that uses that system before ever being seen by a human.This seems to fit anecdotal data where people have applied for hundresd of jobs and never gotten anything other than an automated rejection. But obviously that's not proof or confirmation. But if it is, it's almost like being a voncicted felon. It greatly limits your ability to find a job and that's a huge problem.I don't know what the solution is but I hope these companies get sued for states for issueslike this where actual discrimination occurs.
- anonundefined
- hoshi73This clearly falls under the definition of automated individual decision-making per Article 22 of the GDPR and would be blatantly illegal if it were done in the EU. The GDPR is explicitly designed to outlaw this kind of algorithmic profiling and exclusion in hiring.https://gdpr-info.eu/art-22-gdpr/https://www.bloomberglaw.com/external/document/X4BBTPFO00000...
- jamesonI wonder how they determine an applicant's ethnicity. Is it by the name?
- HedgeMageLots of monocultures exist in hiring even without an algorithmic scoring system. That's roughly how every stupid hiring fad works, and how it's always worked, because most employers have no idea how to identify great potential employees.Hiring managers and companies choose algorithms and hiring fads because they don't know how to be really certain of who to hire, so they'll settle for either assuming someone else's expertise will save them, or for some rubric that "everyone is doing" so it "can't be that bad".When I first became a hiring manager, I was working for a public university. Our salaries were limited, being staff rather than faculty and being public servants, to between 1/3 and 1/2 the going salary for equivalent cybersecurity professionals in the private sector. I did not have the option to hire the people everyone else was trying to hire. I also faced one of the key risks of working in a public institution: once you keep someone past their probationary period, it is very, very hard to fire them. So, it's important not to get it wrong. I learned some things that I have carried forward into every hiring manager or senior leadership role since:1. I base hiring practices on Manager Tools behavioral interviewing systems (https://manager-tools.com). No affiliation, they've just made my work life better.2. I became really good at understanding what my team or organization really needs. Most hirers focus way too much on "years of experience" and specific technologies than is usually wise. As my favorite former supervisor said, "I can teach a smart person cybersecurity, but I can't teach a dumb [or unmotivated] cybersecurity person to be smart."3. I became really good at developing people, and ensuring that the managers under me were as well. We couldn't lay someone off just because their technical specialty became irrelevant, so we couldn't afford to hire people who weren't lifelong learners, or to fail as coaches to ensure that learning was always taking place.4. I cast as wide a net as my HR and regulatory overlords would let me (and now, as a business leader, I cast a huge net). I look for things that aren't just useful at the moment, but are useful long term, in my candidates. I don't care about pedigree.I end up paying less for good employees due to simple supply and demand: I often go for the diamonds in the rough that don't have 10 competing offers.I end up having really good employees who generally stay with me long term, because I apply long-term thinking in hiring, and structure my teams around constant learning and development.I dodge a LOT of bullets... people who have just the right pedigree to look like great hires worth a lot of money, but who'll disappoint me until the day they leave.When it's a tight labor market -- too few candidates for roles I care about -- I'm tapping a hiring market that other managers aren't aware enough of, and still finding talent while they have roles that sit open for months.
- simianwordsWaaaait why is it not in the incentives of companies hiring to automatically fix this? They instantly get better candidates for cheaper wages.
- ameypandey[dead]
- haeseong[dead]
- rahulshah2002[dead]