On Diversity

• John Vandivier

Real Talk Diversity series lead by Free Agency - a remote meetup-like discussion with only ~7 people to foster deeper more intimate convos on D&I

end of my 2nd meeting

why was i interested? 1) we recognize general value in diversity but how to we actually optimize or implement it? 2) capital one does a lot really well but good to see what other people and companies are doing 3) general networking 4) specifically, I'm interested in alternative education including self-teaching & this is a diverse field; maybe D&I initiative can boost this

  1. engage and learn - as a white guy I'm not in many of these conversations
  2. play devil's advocate at times
  3. ideological diversity low-key means liberal and we don't measure it though
  4. ethnicity, gender, age all good and capital one is pretty good - but what's the right targets
    1. Asians aren't considered diversity candidates at C1
    2. finding diversity candidates is more expensive than finding non-diversity candidates; is it always marginally worth it? (0 ->10% female is big, but 10 -> 50?)
    3. also most college grads are female now...

interesting that Linkedin doesn't show names; gender and ethnicity bias leverage names. Ironically, this impedes finding a diversity candidate.

recommend this - https://www.seekout.io/diversity-hiring

diversity in my background - self taught programmer & career switcher (this is a diverse crowd) and I'm from Texas and I went through 1) southern stereotyping and hiding my accent, and, 2) complete ignorance of a bunch of cultures (my high school class largely white and Hispanic, very few Asian, middle eastern, or Latin American)

one technique to overcome cultural ignorance - if someone assumes you know something you don't (eg a pop culture reference you didn't get) then ask them

I've had a diverse history - capital one hiring manager was lgbt (she was quickly promoted and then my manager became a guy) college board - fem mgr, halfaker - disabled vet female owner (immediate managers were guys tho) - SAIC, female manager

personality differences & grit & introversion/extroversion - observable vs non-observable diversity correction (are unobservables important? well ideological if it's masked can be)

I may not be able to ask personality at interview time (or IQ, face, gender, ideology, etc), but prior to the interview I can search for candidates who publish such things. this might amount to direct or indirect employer payment to people to publish such info (invariant to hiring process)

how do we prove out the value of diversity? intuitively easy but how to measure and calculate the actual return

\"covering\": I've covered my southern/conservative background as well as the fact that I'm a self-taught programmer

40% of all managers are female https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2017/data-on-display/women-managers.htm

this thing was shared https://www.lcldnet.org/media/mce_filebrowser/2014/09/24/Uncovering-Talent-LCLD-Presentation-KYoshino.pdf

remove gender biased phrasing in job descriptions https://textio.com/