
How often do you see nepotism/ethnic bias in Software industry? - zippy786
Starting to see quite a trend these days. People being denied of jobs not because of their skills but they are not of the same ethnicity from that of manager&#x2F;interviewer. Apparently, being from the same country is a huge push in getting that job.<p>Not sure if this information is relayed all the way up to the CEO but the trend is definitely there mostly in managers&#x2F;Sr. Engineers playing politics.<p>How often do you see this at your workplace ?
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twunde
This is a concern across most industries, not just software as hiring managers
are more likely to identify with people who share their background. This is
reasonable to some extent. When interviewing non-native speakers, their
ability to communicate with you can be a major factor in whether to hire. If
you can't communicate well with the person, they're unlikely to do good work.
That said there's been a problem in the US startup scene where after the
emphasis on culture fit, many companies end up only hiring people that look
exactly like themselves.

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zippy786
Also, they don't give any feedback on interview and claim that they provide
"equal opportunity" regardless of race, ethnicity.

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twunde
Very few companies provide feedback on interviews because it opens them up to
legal liability. In general when feedback is given it is because there is a
specific singular reason they rejected the applicant. That's pretty rare, most
companies will be choosing between multiple qualified applicants and will be
deciding on based on secondary factors including salary requested, likelihood
that the applicant will leave after x amount of time, trainability, and
culture fit.

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cmal
This is quite common, indeed. But the only solution is to build grassroots
cooperatives that do not work _for_ money.

Historically, racism and slavery by the European nations started as a means of
doing more business exploiting people who were precisely considered not to be
people back then (notably by the Catholic church).

These intersections between racism and capitalism (and many more oppression
schemes) are now well-studied, but they still exist.

In France, where nazism is slowly winning the battle on the political spectrum
(with the fascist party gaining votes and the socialist ruling party adopting
an incredibly authoritarian and nationalist stance), there's a resurgence of
both racist and capitalist feelings :

\- veiled women can be insulted on the streets, cops beat up refugees and
rroma kids, many youths feel like the Jews are responsible for capitalism

\- "working more for earning more", "you get what you deserve", the recent
exploitative labour-law reforms

And this is not just about France, look at what's happening in the US, in the
UK, in Germany, Spain, Mexico, Turkey, Japan

Everywhere, the bigots and the exploiters are allying to stop any alternative
to this fucked up society.

Now is the time to stop doing business, and attack capitalism and racism
FRONTALLY.

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whenwillitstop
LOL. People are seeing their cultures being sold away and are angry

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drakonka
I have the advantage of being white but my name clearly gives away my Eastern
European heritage.

Literally every job I've had has been in a country other than that of my birth
- from an unofficial farmhand job when I was a pre-teen to my first QA job in
Australia to my subsequent engineering role in Sweden. The positions in
Australia and Sweden were both obtained via an online application followed by
an in person interview. None of the interviewers or recruiters I've dealt with
knew me prior to my application. So far I personally have not experienced the
kind of discrimination you describe.

I do hear however that here in Sweden it is often more a matter of people who
are Swedish having an easier path into _management_ positions. On the other
hand I've been asked if I would like to move toward a management path in the
past, so the opportunity was certainly not being denied based on my
nationality. How far I'd have gotten I don't know as I opted for a different
route.

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no_hams_fly
I've personally never seen racial discrimination* (in Australia, and have
dodged around a lot of companies). That said, I've not been in a hiring
position often, but sometimes.

If anything in Australia, the companies I've experienced have leaned towards
457 visa workers, which I suspect work out pretty cheaply for them (and are
invariably Indian).

* Edit: With strong emphasis on the hiring process. I'm not saying racism isn't alive and well in Australia beyond that.

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chatmasta
To be fair, a startup in the US might prefer hiring employees from the US
simply to avoid the administrative and financial overhead of the visa
sponsorship process. In that particular case it doesn't seem fair to call it
"ethnic bias." I don't see anything wrong with that. I generally believe that
as an American company, you should hire an equally qualified American worker
over a foreign worker seeking visa sponsorship.

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zippy786
I should've clarified better. I am talking about cases where visa is a non-
issue.

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no_hams_fly
Aside from my other comment though, what you've described I think is basically
human nature.

Nepotism has been a factor for centuries; perhaps shining a light on it as the
Internet is trying to do, will help people understand what's going on in a
larger way.

Some might say it's too late now though.

