
Dear Hiring Manager, Please Don't Shun Me - taylorp
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140213124906-19987-dear-hiring-manager-please-don-t-shun-me
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larrik
"My name is Jamal and I have dreadlocks. I'm old enough to be your father."

"For a woman, I'm rather butch."

"look at my Tweets and Quora responses rather than my bald head"

So this is about a woman who is "old enough to be your father", who has
dreadlocks on her bald head?

Maybe I'm not up to date on the lingo, but how is "I'm actually a tiger once I
warm up to people" positive? Is being a "tiger" some sales term for a people
person?

Maybe I'm not the target audience, but this piece was just all over the place.
I recognize that getting a job is hard, especially if you are different in
some way (or in this case, every way, to the point of many contradictions).

Hiring is hard, too. Hiring the wrong people is bad, often much worse than
missing out on good people. The point here seems to be "hire everyone," which
is simply bad advice.

EDIT: Wow, a lot of replies! I probably missed the point of the article,
especially as I've never worked anywhere big enough to have a "Hiring Manager"
(although I've worked for plenty of discriminatory people, current position
excepted).

I guess I expected a powerful anecdote, kind of like the "AirBNB isn't for
black people" thing, but this article was actually something impossible to
actually relate to. Especially, since the first paragraph vs the rest of the
article is where most of the discrepancies lie.

I'm clearly just too far outside of the scope of this particular conversation.

~~~
aspir
I got the impression that the intent of the article was "hire based on the
skills for the job, not on how well someone aces an interview." There's always
biases going into interviews, whether the company is a tiny startup, or a huge
multinational corporation.

People get written off in interviews all the time for worthless reasons that
have no bearing on job performance. This article is encouraging interviewers
to recognize bias and look past it.

~~~
freehunter
Then again, an interview might be all you have. Just out of college, trying to
get a start in an industry dominated by old timers with no easy way to prove
your skills other than certifications and experience?

Please don't hire Old Joe with 20 years experience for an entry level IT job
making $40,000 just because he applied for it. Young Bill here is fresh out of
college with only an internship on his resume, and if Old Joe gets the job,
Young Bill gets the shaft. Worse yet, they both end up working at McDonalds
because a contractor with a visa would do it for $30,000 and no benefits (and
then the company will complain that there's a tech worker shortage).

I see it far too often.

------
netcan
This is interesting as a conversation starter or somesuch. But, there is
something a little servile about it.

 _" See me for all that I am. I'm proud of who I am."_

We know that shallow aspects of a person play a big role in a person's career,
multiplied by feedback loops of self confidence. An ugly person is less
fortunate than a pretty one. Someone who conforms to a preconceived notion of
what a star manager/lawyer/graphic designer is supposed to look and sound like
has an advantage over someone who does not.

But there is something inherently shallow in a hiring process. It's not
optimized for fairness (as a school admission process might be. It's based on
resumes and interviews. It's not surprising that shallow details matter.

This plea to be "given a chance" rubs me the wrong way. Slightly. I don't know
exactly why. It feels like a sort of sad desire that the world be more fair.

~~~
csbrooks
>It feels like a sort of sad desire that the world be more fair.

I don't understand what's sad about that desire at all.

~~~
netcan
It feels defeatist. Not in general, but in this case.

------
nickthemagicman
I interpret it like thus:

The hiring process (like mate selection) is literally evolution at work.
(unfettered capitalism)

Choosing someone with inferior qualities no matter if technical, personal, or
physical will always rub people the wrong way because it's instinct in our
lizard brain telling us it's watering down the human race.

Human beings are way more primitive that we like to acknowledge and life is
way more brutal and unfair than we like to acknowledge.

