
A black man walks into Silicon Valley and tries to get a job - curiouscat321
https://medium.com/@andynewman/a-black-man-walks-into-silicon-valley-and-tries-to-get-a-job-b467903acac0
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shadyshogun
I understand exactly where he is coming from. At the end of the day, most
people responsible for hiring go with "culture, values, and gut feelings." If
they do not identify with you, your resume and experience does not matter one
whit. Finally getting hired at a firm in Salt Lake City was supposed to
happen; The more you go to bat, you will eventually get a hit. In other words,
you got lucky at least once.

Also, you "may" have tried at tto high a level(Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.)
only reserved for a few who "fit" the culture: Ivy League grads and/or those
with better references and networks. And then Plan B was to get something
"entry-level," which almost never works out.

People in the majority community will never understand that black males many
times are victims of lack benefit of the doubt in this country. Again, this
falls under that "culture,value, and gut feeling" category. Almost every
comment or reply is going to downplay your experience, equate it with theirs,
claim you feel entitled, call you a whiner, without realizing they are not the
"experiencer," the "knower within."

I feel where you are coming from, but we must all start somewhere and you
never gave up (at least on getting a job in Tech somewhere). Just realize that
there are tens of thousands across demographic lines whose "Silicon Valley
Dreams" were burned before they ever got started.

I will end with this: Underrepresented communities must seek their "niche," or
a form in which makes you stand out from the rest, makes you unique, and
increases your intellectual value. Furthermore, start/begin/ create your own
opportunities instead of waiting on someone to give it to you.

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WalterSear
>They said I didn’t have enough experience — despite graduating with Honors
from said college, being a member of the National Communication Honor Society,
and holding a part-time job and internship for three of my four years in
school.

In this statement, you demonstrate such a poor understanding of what
technology companies are hiring for, it's quite clear where the 'lack of fit'
came from.

~~~
ctvo
I think his point was he had enough qualifications and experience to match
most recent out of college graduates. As for his qualities, he worked two jobs
(part-time and internship) while attending school. I think hard work and
determination are universally valued skills.

I hate when these things get posted and it's a race to see who can tear down
the author the fastest rather than addressing his very real point about the
lack of diversity in the Valley.

~~~
orionblastar
Silicon Valley does have a lack of diversity. It is very hard for anyone to
break into Silicon Valley because of the different culture there.

They'd rather hire locals than people from Ohio. They'd rather hire college
students from California universities than from Ohio.

Even if you get hired, I've had friends who got hired in SV, and got eaten up
and spit out and then returned back to St. Louis Missouri to look for a job
here because it isn't as hard as SV to look for a job. Even if you get a job
it will be stressful and you'll be under a lot of pressure.

But it also depends on the culture of the company that is doing the hiring.

~~~
QuercusMax
I find it incredibly hilarious that you say Silicon Valley isn't diverse
compared to Ohio. I just moved from Cleveland, where I worked at a company
where almost all the developers and management were white guys from Ohio. (We
had a few women and a few asians, but it was pretty un-diverse.)

By contrast Silicon Valley is incredibly diverse. It's a bit of a culture
shock, honestly, but in a good way. It feels much more like grad school.

~~~
orionblastar
That isn't what I said. I said the culture in Silicon Valley is not the same
as the one in Ohio. I didn't say that Ohio is more diverse than Silicon
Valley. In fact I said Silicon Valley has a diversity problem.

The problem is that people who study computer science are mostly white males,
so the people qualified for the IT jobs are mostly white males. When a company
tries to hire people it goes by resume first. You can't tell someone's race on
a resume. Company get like 500+ resumes week for a position and have to find a
way to screen out candidates based on resume. So usually they go by type of
college or university degree, like bachelors or higher or degree from a local
area college or university. Then throw the rest out. Problem is when they do
that they also throw out people who are a minority or female as well without
understanding that they are doing so. They also screen out by key words, type
of company worked for, number of years of experience, etc. Most people they
don't even bother to email or call back that they didn't get the job.

~~~
krakensden
Good companies in SV are often not majority white. Failing to hire lots of the
wildly qualified people of East Asian and Indian descent who live in the bay
isn't a great sign.

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notduncansmith
So, without any work samples from the author, it's impossible to say if it
really was a "racial" thing, or he just wasn't very good at whatever position
he was trying to get hired for. I've seen plenty of reports from people of all
races being treated much the same way. I'm not saying the author wasn't
discriminated against, merely that it's difficult to tell that he definitely
was from an outside perspective.

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pkaye
One thing in Silicon Valley is if you are not an engineer, business
development, marketing or a few other support positions, it is very hard to
find opportunities. The remaining positions just have lots of candidates
competing for a few jobs.

My wife had a hard time finding a business analyst position when she moved
with me and has yet to find anything.

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malandrew
I have two questions:

What types of positions were applied for? What did the applicant study? Were
all the applications via resume submissions?

The author may be completely right that the difficulties he had were due to
race, but he also may be wrong. There simply isn't enough data to figure out
from the blog post.

I'm a white male that graduated with similar credentials and when I applied to
50 management consulting after college I had a very similar experience:
courtesy rejection letters if I was lucky, but most of the time not even that.

In hindsight, now that I've been on the other side of the table and I've
learned a lot about how effective hiring is done, I went about it all wrong at
the time. My current self would give my past self the exact same treatment I
received. give my I had few references and connections to the industry. Most
of my applications were letters/emails with a cover letter and résumé. Later
on I discovered that such a tactic fills less than 10% of jobs out there and
there direct referrals is one of the best ways. I was naive and inexperienced
and went about it all wrong.

Applying from a distance is also a huge strike against you [0]. Only senior
people with lots of experience get to apply from a distance. For everyone
else, you basically need to move to where you want to be and apply as a local
hire.

[0] [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/05/28/you-cant-
look-...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/05/28/you-cant-look-for-a-
job-from-a-remote-location-it-doesnt-work/)

~~~
notduncansmith
For the record, while I am a senior developer, I only have ~3 years of
experience and had no problem finding a position in SF with full relocation
from Alabama (shameless plug, we're still hiring). My point being, don't count
yourself out just because you live across the country. Also, I went through
Hired.com and it was a really great experience overall (I'd say the same even
if I hadn't been placed, they have a truly top-notch platform there).
Recommended especially for devs looking to apply in major cities that they may
not live in.

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davidf18
> "Hiring managers didn’t like me because I went to a small private university
> in Ohio."

He is complaining because he didn't have enough money to live in SV while
looking for a job, complaining that he is not paid for relocation costs, but
somehow he had enough money to go to a private college instead of big public
university that has lots of computing resources. Marc Andreessen went to the
U. of Illinois. So did Larry Ellison. So did several founders of Paypal. So
did I.

Marc programmed the Mosaic browser while he was in college. I paid for college
programming the university's supercomputers. I don't understand why someone
would attend a small private university not known for computing when there are
far superior public universities _if they want to work in SV_.

Also, I don't know of anyone from college who was worried about relocation
costs since they really owned nothing but some books, clothes, etc.

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jasonj79
Sounds like sour grapes, not discrimination...

I moved coast to coast to work for a SV technology company (fully paid), did
NOT graduate from a fancy college (or any for that matter), have my nights and
weekends free, and see the struggle daily that is the fight to find qualified
talent... Truth is that tech companies are having an extremely hard time
filling seats, and they frankly can't afford to discriminate on anything other
than lack of skill necessary or extreme culture mismatch.

The only thing I agree with in this article is that yes, 3 times is a
pattern... a pattern that they don't want to hire him. Maybe he should figure
out why that is before blindly blaming it on race.

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orionblastar
Breaking into Silicon Valley is really really hard. It is a totally different
culture than the one he had in Ohio.

You need more experience than just three to four years as an intern. In fact
you have to work for the right type of company to be a good fit in Silicon
Valley.

You can't expect companies to just hand you a job because of your race or
gender or whatever, you have to earn it. It means acing the interview
including any whiteboard tests and stuff like that. It means impressing them
with communication skills and showing them that you are a team player and a
good fit with their company. You have to market and sell yourself. It is a lot
of hard work and it still doesn't always pay off.

Silicon Valley is more competitive. Salt Lake City is not as competitive. I'm
sorry he didn't get a job in SV, but at least he found one in SLC.

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jtmcmc
I don't doubt that there are a number of challenges to getting a job in
silicon valley - some of these may be racial bias in some cases. However this
blog post doesn't really demonstrate anything.

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dczx
Everyone already stated what I was going to say more thorougly.

Ohio Private School != Silicon Valley

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paulhauggis
"Or, get this — I was also told my experience made me overqualified for the
position and they were afraid I’d get bored."

This happened to me and most my friends. We are all different races. Were you
applying for a low-level job (IE: trying to get anything)? You probably would
have used it as a stepping-stone for a better job and the employer didn't want
to spend resources training you.

"The formula was largely the same. Most I didn’t hear back from at all. With a
few, I had an in-person or Skype interview with the team."

Once again, completely normal.

"Yeah, a company in Utah is doing more for diversity than many in Silicon
Valley — get over your biases of where you believe real change is championed."

The truth is that you just don't have any real-world work experience.

"One of the ways my company encourages diversity is by providing fair pay and
benefits for all; which includes reimbursement for relocation, the opportunity
to work remotely, a generous family leave policy, and flexible scheduling for
personal needs"

Now you are just sounding entitled. You aren't entitled to any of those things
and there are plenty of people in Silicon Valley that are qualified and
willing to take the job (which is why you had trouble). If you want to compete
with them, you will need to move there.

I know lots of different people that made the move and found jobs. You can
too.

This article has nothing to do with 'diversity' or 'race'. It's just plain
silly.

~~~
javanscala
Often one is not 100% certain they are being discriminated against or for the
reason. Rarely do people publicly admit their biases, particularly in a
professional setting. In some cases people can't actually recognize the bias
in their decisions.

Black people in America are often taught that they will experience racism,
there's a ton of history to back up that assertion, and they have most likely
experienced some event that confirmed this teaching. Given that context,
racism often seems like a plausible explanation when not meeting some
subjective criteria and it's hard to rule out.

As a black person you can't completely rely upon the experiences of white
people (or other races) for guidance. It's not unusual for black person to
mimic the actions of others and have a completely different experience.

I often hear the phrase "cultural fit", particularly in Silicon Valley and
cringe. It feels like a new way to express prejudice and cronyism.

~~~
x0x0
culture fit is a phrase that means what the person saying it means, and
without knowing that, you can't infer much. I've seen it mean anything from

\- read those stupid pickup artist books, hit on chicks in the marina after
work, and hire a shitty designer because she has big tits and you think you'll
have a better chance at sleeping with her if you work with her (there's many
reasons I didn't last long here)

\- are you down with tuesday night strip club

\- are you fucking obnoxious to be around for 40 hours a week? (There are
people in the world for whom the answer to this question is a strong yes.)

\- do you have your shit together enough that you'll fit in a more mature team
with relatively low supervision, lots of work getting done, and who really
want to work from 9-5 unless there's an actual emergency?

In case it isn't clear -- the majority of places I've worked would
(thankfully!) consider putting tuesday night strip club on the calendar a
firing offense.

