GOOGLE UNDER ATTACK FOR INSUFFICIENT RECRUITING AT HBCUS

[PeteS in CA]

GOOGLE UNDER ATTACK FOR INSUFFICIENT RECRUITING AT HBCUS

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/03/google-under-attack-for-insufficient-recruiting-at-hbcus.php

Google is under fire for the way it recruits engineers from colleges. According to the Washington Post:

For years, Google’s recruiting department used a college ranking system to set budgets and priorities for hiring new engineers. Some schools such as Stanford University and MIT were predictably in the “elite” category, while state schools or institutions that churn out thousands of engineering grads annually, such as Georgia Tech, were assigned to “tier 1” or “tier 2.”

But one category of higher education was missing from Google’s ranking system, according to several current and former Google employees involved in recruitment, despite the company’s pledges to promote racial diversity — historically Black colleges and universities, also known as HBCUs. That framework meant that those schools were at a lower priority for hiring, even though Google had said in 2014 that it wanted to partner with HBCUs as a way to recruit more minority talent.

I have no love for Google, but:

1. Do HBCUs have significant CS, IT, and engineering programs? Schools like Stanford University or MIT or Caltech or etc. have high ratings because they are that good.

2. Nothing bars blacks from attending Stanford University or MIT or Caltech or etc., they just have to meet the same standards other students have to meet.

3. Tech companies don't hire skin color, they hire ability and potential for growth. Companies know that if they pass on a good prospect because of their skin color that person might be hired by and strengthen a competitor.

4. a. My personal experience of >4 decades in tech is that three demographic groups are rare or uncommon among engineers and techs: blacks; Hispanics; women (especially if immigrants from east and south Asia are ignored. I've also observed that the exceptions are not mistreated. The only reason my mind can come up with is choices blacks, Hispanics, and women made in high school and college. The choices might be different interests or anticipation of discrimination or being intimidated by required Math and Science subjects or the phase of the Moon.

4. b. Google or FB or HP or Cisco or AMD or etc. cannot hire people who don't exist in the desired percentage.

[mountaineer]

Schools like Stanford University or MIT or Caltech or etc. have high ratings because they are that good.

Nothing bars blacks from attending Stanford University or MIT or Caltech or etc., they just have to meet the same standards other students have to meet.

Aye, there's the rub.

[BassWrangler]

I agree with @PeteS in CA comments. I discovered at my employer that there's an industry that has been created by the "diversity" trends - candidate recruiters who specialize in identifying "diversity hires". You have way more demand for these candidates than supply. I think the supply situation is improving, but it still hasn't caught up with demand.

[goatprairie]

It's far past time that colleges and universities that cater to blacks i.e. HCBUs should be abolished or their mission changed. Most of them are decidedly inferior to regular institutions of higher learning. Blacks who graduate from them are getting an inferior education. Time to stop babying black people and make them compete evenly with other demographics. There are no historically Hispanic or Asian colleges and universities.

[Sled Dog]

Rodents love the phrase "Do as I command, not as I do", don't they?

They are, after all, the biggest racists on the planet.