How often do you see nepotism/ethnic bias in Software industry?

6 points by zippy786 9 years ago | 10 comments

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/interviewer. Apparently, being from the same country is a huge push in getting that job.

Not sure if this information is relayed all the way up to the CEO but the trend is definitely there mostly in managers/Sr. Engineers playing politics.

How often do you see this at your workplace ?

twunde 9 years ago |

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.

zippy786 9 years ago | |

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

twunde 9 years ago | | |

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.

cmal 9 years ago |

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.

whenwillitstop 9 years ago | |

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

drakonka 9 years ago |

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.

no_hams_fly 9 years ago |

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.

chatmasta 9 years ago |

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.

zippy786 9 years ago | |

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

no_hams_fly 9 years ago |

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.