In an interview last month, Uber's HR chief, Liane Hornsey, said this about efforts to make women feel at ease in engineering interviews: What we’re doing, which is much more important, is to make sure that interviews aren’t in any way taking gender or race into consideration. All of our engineering interviews have to have a woman on the panel. ... We’re putting more female engineers into our interview training first, so that we can use more women as interviewers. I’m sure you know if you’re a female coming into a panel of all men, it can be very disconcerting. Full interview This brings up some questions about engineering interviews and women. In general, not specific to Uber. 1. Does it help female candidates if there is a woman present in the engineering interview panel? How? 2. What about interviews that are a series of 1-1, not panel? 3. If a woman needs another woman in the engineering interview panel to feel at ease, how will such a woman work later in engineering teams where she might be the only female? 4. Is necessarily requiring at least one woman in the engineering panel a disservice and patronizing to women candidates who can handle an engineering interview with an all male panel?
Kind of. In addition, it puts an unfair burden on women already employed by the company. Time spent on interviewing often comes at the cost of time that could be spent on other work. Hardly anyone in engineering jumps up in joy and asks for more opportunities to conduct interviews. Should women engineers be required to spend more time on interviewing than their male counterparts spend?
I think the comments are weird and patronizing. Interviewees of whatever gender should be treated with courtesy, whether it be done by an individual or a panel. And whether or not a same gender watch-dog among the interviewers. If a company boss announced that "some" of their interviews will be videotaped (by the security cameras in the room), there'd be better behaved interviewers, no matter whether they are facing men or women; however, there'd be even less volunteers coming forward to do it, or join panels in their companies. This story reminded me of Mike Pence's comment on how he'd rather not be alone with a woman, or the doctor having to have a female nurse present when examining a female patient.
Aren’t the above 2 sentences self contradictory? If we were to take gender & race out of the interview process , then why forcibly / intentionally bring a female on the panel? That would be disturbing the natural process, isn’t it? The CEOs fundas look totally gol to me. The whole interview sounds confusing & doesn’t make sense. Also, if ‘all male’ panels were to make female engineers uncomfortable, then they wouldn’t be engineers in the first place, isn’t it?
Patronizing is the overall tone that comes across, yes. The intent seems to be that women feel intimidated in an engineering interview with an all male panel, and feel more at ease and do better at responding to the questions if there is also a woman in the panel. An appealing idea to record interviews at random but the litigations that can arise would be HR's nightmare. "This interview may be recorded or monitored for quality assurance purposes" : ) the panel might need something to put them at ease. : )
I had to read it a few times, and I gather that women feel intimidated and so opt less for engineering positions, and there is a feeling that men and certain races are favored in interviews. Funda does look gol. LOL. That is the thing.. they want to make engineering more appealing to women, to increase the number of women who apply to engineering, and who get selected. I think other efforts like flex timing, less alcohol at work, less requirement to socialize after office hours, and addressing other "established by males" aspects of the company culture are good moves. But placing a woman in the panel is weird. As a candidate I would feel foolish when I see a woman in the panel and wonder if she is there to fulfill the gender requirement or as a genuine part of the interview panel. And above all, it is not fair to the women in the interview panel. They unwittingly get crowned with the 'peace maker' tiara. They have to go soft on the questions, and come to the candidate's aid if she is struggling with an answer or seems overly nervous. It also seems to assume that all men are direct in asking questions, not very empathetic, helpful. And that all women are the ones who will make the extra effort to put the candidate at ease. Within the range of allowed behavior for the interview panel, there will be male and female interviewers who are more aggressive, make less allowances for the candidate's nervousness, ask harder questions, look more at the final answer's quality than the approach to the problem.
@Rihana Again too many wrong assumptions here. It sets out to take gender & race bias out of the interviews, but in the process actually proves that women are not equal , they need accommodations, they are not comfortable around men, they need easier interview questions ??? All of these are highly questionable & debatable. 1. Efforts like less alcohol at work would help make women feel at ease? Women drink as much as men these days if not more @Nonya will agree with me here. 2. Socializing after work: this one depends more on whether one is married or not & has any family responsibilities, not gender. 3. By assuming women need easier questions in an interview or otherwise, one is claiming that women are not as smart as men. That’s so wrong! 4. The woman on panel needing to rescue the female interviewee when she sounds nervous, again a totally unfounded & discriminatory premise. It all sounds so baseless. And unfortunately, one can’t make engineering appealing by making such exceptions but definitely goes to prove that women are the weaker sex. Though a show based on this can be a great myth -buster show!
@Rihana can we have a gender drinking competition? I along with some others here am willing to participate & prove otherwise
Uber?! Now that that's out of my system ... The gender of interviewers shouldn't make a difference to any candidate — regardless of candidate's gender. If a woman is intimidated by the mere presence of men, she probably needs more help than the presence of one woman on an interviewing panel can offer. Specific to Uber, just because ... Uber definitely needs a certain type of female on the interviewing panel — to demonstrate acceptable servile and masochistic behavior so that prospective employees can more easily understand the company culture. .
