Blizzard Diversity and Inclusion hiring initiative

[Vynny]

The big issue I have with this argument every time it comes up is that these people being less qualified or less passionate is presented as an assumption, instead of being justified.

The assumption is based on the fact that the initiative is needed in the first place. If the workers hired in these initiatives were the better qualified or more passionate candidate then the initiative to target them for hiring wouldn't be necessary. Requiring to be on a short list to get the job (which I'll admit not all diversity initiatives use, but quite a few do) means you are less qualified, and requiring the company to appeal directly to you in order to stoke interest in the job opportunity (which all diversity initiatives do on some level) means you are less passionate about it.

For example, let's take Lauren. Let's say she applied for a job at blizzard through the normal hiring process with no initiative. No one had to poke her and say "hey look at this, wanna do this for a living?". It was already her passion. Also, if she got the job without any shortlisting then she is likely to be the most qualified or at least of the most qualified candidates.

Now take Jane. Let's say she applied for a job at blizzard through a hiring initiative. In order to convince her to apply, blizzard had to specifically advertise the position to her based on her gender, race, etc. It wasn't her passion that led her the whole way there, it was at least in part the outreach blizzard did. If she got hired through some form of shortlist then it's very likely that there were more qualified candidates that weren't on the short list.

So the justification is that if someone got on due to a short list then they probably weren't the most qualified by the very nature of a short list and that having to be convinced to apply shows you are less passionate about that career than someone who required no convincing to apply.

[Cheze]

The assumption is based on the fact that the initiative is needed in the first place. If the workers hired in these initiatives were the better qualified or more passionate candidate then the initiative to target them for hiring wouldn't be necessary. Requiring to be on a short list to get the job (which I'll admit not all diversity initiatives use, but quite a few do) means you are less qualified, and requiring the company to appeal directly to you in order to stoke interest in the job opportunity (which all diversity initiatives do on some level) means you are less passionate about it.

For example, let's take Lauren. Let's say she applied for a job at blizzard through the normal hiring process with no initiative. No one had to poke her and say "hey look at this, wanna do this for a living?". It was already her passion. Also, if she got the job without any shortlisting then she is likely to be the most qualified or at least of the most qualified candidates.

Now take Jane. Let's say she applied for a job at blizzard through a hiring initiative. In order to convince her to apply, blizzard had to specifically advertise the position to her based on her gender, race, etc. It wasn't her passion that led her the whole way there, it was at least in part the outreach blizzard did. If she got hired through some form of shortlist then it's very likely that there were more qualified candidates that weren't on the short list.

So the justification is that if someone got on due to a short list then they probably weren't the most qualified by the very nature of a short list and that having to be convinced to apply shows you are less passionate about that career than someone who required no convincing to apply.

it's always the dudes who've never been involved in hiring who're super eager to explain the reasoning behind these programs

like, it's not about wanting to give a person of color some advantage just because the management have decided they hate white people or something. It's because the hiring process in lots of industries (and software dev is one of these) tends to attract and favor white men, not the least because most of the people doing the work and the hiring are white men. Managers tend to prefer to hire people who look and sound like them, and who have similar backgrounds.

This is bad for the company though, because it leads to a tendency to overlook people who would be good fits or who'd bring different skills to the table. So you attempt to correct it via policy, by (for example) interviewing more women or people of color.

there's also the fallacy that 'most qualified' even necessarily matters; in a creative field does it matter if someone has five years' or seven years' experience? Not particularly; you hire the person who fits philosophically, socially, etc.

ed: the way people keep throwing around 'quota' as though that's actually representative of such hiring policies is also :lol:

[Deleted]

I think Blizzard is trying to find the middle ground here. It's seems they aren't going for diversity for diversity sake, but actively looking for a diverse group of good programmers, artists, modders, etc. As long meritocracy is the top priority, I don't see a problem with this.

[Rennadrel]

Depending on the industry, if you look around your workplace, it's clear as day why companies do need these types of HR initiatives. I can count the black people at my company on two hands — the black women on one. And this is a fairly large company... 200+ or so employees at my location alone.

The company I work for, I could go to one of over a dozen plants located in the same city and being white makes you a minority. The reason is primarily that white people won't take the jobs because they don't pay enough and the hours and shifts are utter shit. It stands to reason that the majority of workers are immigrants with a poor education who don't realize that they are being exploited.

[HitRefresh]

I thought it was illegal to hire people based on gender.

[Melius]

if they do a good job i dont really care about how diverse they are. what's up with this "diversity quotas" in the us anyway?

[Deleted]

If it benefits the company and it's products, it's great. If it only benefits the applicants, then it's questionable. However, if it levels the playing field for all applicants, then it is, again, great. But, then again, if it has some other aim, such as to appear diverse, and it means less talented people, and less deserving people, are hired simply because of their diversity, then it's BS.

[derpkitteh]

there should be no quotas for anything.

should be on merit alone.

[soulcrusher]

What's the end goal of diversity /multiculturalism? Does 100% diversity mean no white people? Are there similar movements in African and Asian countries or is it only for predominantly white European countries? Who invented the concept? What's behind it?

[Melius]

What's the end goal of diversity /multiculturalism? Does 100% diversity mean no white people? Are there similar movements in African and Asian countries or is it only for predominantly white European countries? Who invented the concept? What's behind it?

asians dont care about diversity and they dont care if you call them out as racists. diversity isnt a bad thing but its not a guaranteed recipe for success. and it can go the wrong way too, you cant just put people with diferent cultures together and expect them to work like a well oiled machine. that would take a lot of time. but on your point a must agree, everybody calls for multuculturalism only in white countries for some reason. i think in time we will get our answers

[Cheze]

like, let's imagine you're a CEO whose job is above all to make fucking money. You understandably want to hire the people who're gonna make you the most money. You head a wealthy and popular company that people want to work for, and you can hire from around the world. So you come up with the best hiring strategy you can, hire the best people, etc.

And then you wake up one morning and you're reviewing some data and realize that your workforce is about 2/3 white dudes (as is the case with blizzard per publicly released data.) How to interpret the fact that though they are a small minority of the hiring pool, white men are such a large presence in your company? It's pretty unlikely just based on population distribution that you've actually hired the best possible people; instead, your hiring process seems likely to have a substantial preference for white men, regardless of applicants' qualifications.

So there's a possibly large inefficiency in your hiring process; it's likely you're passing over non-white, non-male candidates who could help your company (and whom you could perhaps be paying less money.) How do you correct that inefficiency? Institute a policy that encourages your hiring managers to seek out (and then interview) applicants who aren't white men, and provide some resources to that effect (translators, compliance staff, etc)

[ls-]

asians dont care about diversity and they dont care if you call them out as racists.

TBF, we also have a bunch braindead people who like to be offended on behalf of others, who are asking to abandon various traditions because they or symbols involved may be seen as offensive by foreigners. Luckily they're few and hopefully their numbers will stay as such.

[Melius]

like, let's imagine you're a CEO whose job is above all to make fucking money. You understandably want to hire the people who're gonna make you the most money. You head a wealthy and popular company that people want to work for, and you can hire from around the world. So you come up with the best hiring strategy you can, hire the best people, etc.

And then you wake up one morning and you're reviewing some data and realize that your workforce is about 2/3 white dudes (as is the case with blizzard per publicly released data.) How to interpret the fact that though they are a small minority of the hiring pool, white men are such a large presence in your company? It's pretty unlikely just based on population distribution that you've actually hired the best possible people; instead, your hiring process seems likely to have a substantial preference for white men, regardless of applicants' qualifications.

So there's a possibly large inefficiency in your hiring process; it's likely you're passing over non-white, non-male candidates who could help your company (and whom you could perhaps be paying less money.) How do you correct that inefficiency? Institute a policy that encourages your hiring managers to seek out (and then interview) applicants who aren't white men, and provide some resources to that effect (translators, compliance staff, etc)

77% of the country is white, i would expect there to be a bigger number of white folks in the company. and i dont believe blizzard for example has given jobs to people without said people being capable of doing the job. and from what i know, a big corp will always take the ones with experience and achievements in the field. inefficiency should be a thing only if the firm doesnt do well, and in blizzard case its doing just fine. meritocracy should be law when hiring someone, not what you have between your legs or the colour of your skin.

[Cheze]

blizzard's hiring pool is not just the united states, and even if it were white men are less than a third of the population

I'm quite sure that blizzard aren't in the habit of hiring idiots, but that also doesn't mean they're hiring the best people.

should a CEO be concerned with doing 'well,' or doing as well as possible?

[Trumpcat]

It led to the fall of Bioware for sure.

Thank you, was going to point where social justicing led BioWare. But I believe Blizzard has much stronger management than that and won't discriminate talent.

[Independent voter]

I've been stuck with a team member who was hired based on what they are instead of what they can do. It meant that I had to do more work. If she were capable, I wouldn't mind, it's nice having girls around, they bake things and remember birthdays.

[Reyzzz]

I thought it was illegal to hire people based on gender.

At least in Finland, when a certain company advertised they were looking for women for their programming/developer jobs, they got a discrimination notice.

[Mormolyce]

Are you saying there is no such thing as good or bad code? No wonder games these days are so poorly optimized.

And that humanities isn't about parroting the Professors own opinion back to them?

The difference between good and bad code is just about formatting. Which you'll probably find is part of writing a paper too - not the intellectually challenging part either.

And no.

Ehhhh, I haven't seen anybody in my professional and college circle run towards gaming in years and years.

Hell the smart ones (in the sense that they had more common sense) went on to be quants for Wall Street. Hard to say "let's make video games", when you can make $250k for Bank of America. Sure you'll hate your life. But you'll buy your parents house for them in a few years. Wish I did that, instead of consulting.

That's like saying nobody wants to work in Hollywood because you don't see many hedge fund managers quitting to become actors.

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ROFL! Come on man, put some sort of warning in there before saying such ridiculous nonsense, I seriously almost choked on my food here. Granted, it didn't hurt with a laugh today, seeing as how things have gone up until now, but still. "Homework complete"...I seriously hope you're not refering to an actual university, lmfao.

Anyways, I've personally taken a LOT of courses on university, in both natural sciences and the humanities, and, well..."all the humanities being harder than 'STEM'-fields", is propably the single dumbest thing I've ever read on these forums. At least that was, at least seemingly so, an entirely serious statement. And there's no need for using anecdotes really, the entire notion is quite literally ridiculous.

Edit: Programming certainly isn't my forte though, so I have no opinion about that particular field being easier/harder than something else. But STEM-fields such as biology, medicine, physics, chemistry being easier than the humanities? Again, lmfao.

Programming only seems difficult if you aren't an organised thinker. It's literally just telling a computer what to do.

Biology is a bludge subject (I mean I enjoyed it a lot but difficult? Ha!), medicine is literally just rote learning, and I'm a mathematician so I have a pretty dim view of physics and chemistry.

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you don't think so?

https://www.ea.com/careers/diversity-and-inclusion

EA has an inclusiveness policy? Like pretty much every major company? Stop the presses.

[Super Kami Dende]

The big issue I have with this argument every time it comes up is that these people being less qualified or less passionate is presented as an assumption, instead of being justified.

The Issue I have with this argument is that if they had the exact same qualifications and passions as a Male applicant and get the job based entirely on their gender, it is discrimination regardless.

[Mormolyce]

Any CS or Software Engineering degree worth a damn is going to involve complex algorithmic analysis, computational theory and mathematics (amongst others). None of that is "rote learning" or anything that could be taught to a monkey. There are many ways to do the same thing in programming, but discerning and executing the best approach requires a high level understanding of algorithmic efficiency and low level memory management. You don't know what you're taking about even remotely, and it's quite painful reading the ignorant dribble that is your posts.

Comp Sci is an easy subject. Nothing you described here is complex at all.

I'm sure it's fun, don't get me wrong.