

Google claims trade secret status for hiring information - ChuckMcM
http://www.penipress.com/2011/04/17/google-wont-release-minority-hiring-statistics-claiming-trade-secret/

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Jun8
"Since Google is hiring over 6,000 people this year, those picketing there say
they want to make sure that their respective groups have a fair shot at being
hired."

No, what they are really trying to do is to come up with hiring quotas for
their respective groups. Look, Google, Apple & others are already _very_ hard
pressed to get enough candidates to interview and hire. I don't think they are
in any position to say "Hmm, this guy's a Latino/a, let's pass".

The fact that they have no idea what they are talking about is evident from
one of the signs that one of the protesters in the photo is holding up saying
"Break Up the 'Whites Only' Club at Google". Jeez, have you ever been in the
Googleplex? It cannot be called the `Whites Only Club` by any stretch of the
imagination (unless you redefine "white" to include Indians and Asians). The
first fact you notice is how many women there are (I heard estimates of >40%
in general >10% in engineering, and that's unheard of in a technical company).

Similar arguments apply to Apple (although, admittedly, people are better
dressed there, Job's influence?)

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GiraffeNecktie
This part was funny: "Google targets a specific list of schools, she added,
and focuses on hiring candidates with a high college grade point average. All
of this could be a factor that discriminates against minority groups."

"Minority", I suppose, must be read as "not white or Asian".

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daimyoyo
While I think this is a BS excuse to hide behind(trade secrets, really?),
Google has every right to hire only the most qualified applicants it finds. If
they have to hire people based on race, how is that not discrimination? These
people are advocating racism, as long as it benefits their race.

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ChuckMcM
Here is a cautionary tale for any company - Try to hire as diverse an
organization as possible. At least if you try and you fail you can document
that failure (like Cisco has) and folks won't hold it against you.

Or you can be Google and claim that such information is a trade secret. Sigh.

~~~
amock
Why should you hire for diversity instead of just trying to hire the best?
Isn't the goal to eliminate racial and ethnic discrimination rather than
change its focus?

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ChuckMcM
Interesting, apparently I completely failed to communicate.

You should hire the best folks you can find. Period.

You should do everything you can to avoid missing out on hiring excellent
people who are present in groups where finding such people is harder and/or
less likely.

If you do both of those things, then there is never an issue with revealing
how diverse your hiring is because you're trying to find the top talent
regardless of protected class and you've got documentation to back that up.

Personally when I went through interview/hiring training at Google I felt like
they did at least said the right things about hiring, so I was disappointed
that they would hide behind the 'trade secret' excuse. These are the people
that overthrow repressive north African nation states they should be willing
to share how they are trying to find the best folks they can.

~~~
amock
I must have misunderstood your first comment because I agree completely. I
don't have any data about it, but I would think that any large tech company
would be much more interested in having the best people than they would be in
hiring only from a limited pool.

