I hear that, and I heard it from your first post as well - just wanted to share my perspective.
There are invisible diversity challenges, and economics is one. Yes, if I don't stutter, and I clean up, and pretend not to be a loudmouth political radical, I can waltz into the Ol' boys club, but my welcome wears out real damn fast. ;)
I think what I was really getting at was that, as in _all_ hiring and recruiting situations, and basically even all consulting situations, you have to keep "what your client wants" and "what your client needs" separate, because you're not selling the first one unless it matches the second, if you're doing well. ;)
I also have a concern about people creating companies that have good ethnic and gender diversity numbers, but which are even _more_ against hiring people without college degrees. I'm not sure this is well founded, because people who are first or second generation college grads are likely to have some of the perspective I have, and understand that their piece of paper is a piece of paper, etc..
Sometimes, when I'm talking about this, it boils down to a chat I had with a manager at Rackspace, years ago. Everyone else on the team wanted to throw away all the resumes without college degrees, and I wanted to throw away all the resumes WITH college degrees. I was like, "We need more of me!". And my boss, a really nice guy I still respect today even though we mounted a horrible coup against him, basically said to me:
"Justin, they're not all you."
There's some truth to that, but I wonder if people tugging at racial and gender diversity get that as well. "You're one of us, you're not like the ones you think you're like. Be happy you're here, kid."
Anyway, I'm excited at what you guys are doing and hope it has an influence! If you succeed at this, you could actually position yourself to be a strong player for recruiting folks from economically diverse backgrounds as well, because our resumes just don't make sense to people, and someone sometimes needs to snap their fingers in front of a manager's face and be like: "HEY! You can't fill this position. This person has already done this work. What are you hung up on?"
A rich kid can get away with spending a year backpacking in Europe at 20, but a poor kid who takes a couple years off from 24-26 because they've been working since 14, well, obviously a bum.
Anyway, I appreciate you all engaging here on HN and I'm looking forward to seeing you succeed. Maybe I'll reach out when we have hiring needs. :)
There are invisible diversity challenges, and economics is one. Yes, if I don't stutter, and I clean up, and pretend not to be a loudmouth political radical, I can waltz into the Ol' boys club, but my welcome wears out real damn fast. ;)
I think what I was really getting at was that, as in _all_ hiring and recruiting situations, and basically even all consulting situations, you have to keep "what your client wants" and "what your client needs" separate, because you're not selling the first one unless it matches the second, if you're doing well. ;)
I also have a concern about people creating companies that have good ethnic and gender diversity numbers, but which are even _more_ against hiring people without college degrees. I'm not sure this is well founded, because people who are first or second generation college grads are likely to have some of the perspective I have, and understand that their piece of paper is a piece of paper, etc..
Sometimes, when I'm talking about this, it boils down to a chat I had with a manager at Rackspace, years ago. Everyone else on the team wanted to throw away all the resumes without college degrees, and I wanted to throw away all the resumes WITH college degrees. I was like, "We need more of me!". And my boss, a really nice guy I still respect today even though we mounted a horrible coup against him, basically said to me:
There's some truth to that, but I wonder if people tugging at racial and gender diversity get that as well. "You're one of us, you're not like the ones you think you're like. Be happy you're here, kid."Anyway, I'm excited at what you guys are doing and hope it has an influence! If you succeed at this, you could actually position yourself to be a strong player for recruiting folks from economically diverse backgrounds as well, because our resumes just don't make sense to people, and someone sometimes needs to snap their fingers in front of a manager's face and be like: "HEY! You can't fill this position. This person has already done this work. What are you hung up on?"
A rich kid can get away with spending a year backpacking in Europe at 20, but a poor kid who takes a couple years off from 24-26 because they've been working since 14, well, obviously a bum.
Anyway, I appreciate you all engaging here on HN and I'm looking forward to seeing you succeed. Maybe I'll reach out when we have hiring needs. :)