Pinboard (WimLeers) https://pinboard.in/u:WimLeers/public/ recent bookmarks from WimLeers Why SafeGraph Does Written Interviews ✍️ (and Why Your Company Should Do Them Too) 2019-10-17T15:11:18+00:00 https://blog.safegraph.com/why-safegraph-does-written-interviews-and-why-your-company-should-do-them-too-bbe4b1afab90 WimLeersinterviewing asynchronous bias diversity https://pinboard.in/u:WimLeers/b:8f02f440c140/ Can optimism ever be bad? 2019-06-08T11:17:21+00:00 http://www.theengineeringmanager.com/growth/pessimism-optimism-idealism-and-realism/ WimLeers Drive towards optimism but watch out for credulity. Equally, reward and encourage skepticism, but don’t confuse it with pessimism. The subtleties are critical.
Your team will likely have a combination of idealists and realists. Harness the vision of the idealists to see where the team should move towards, but use the realists to help create the steps needed to get to that destination. A pragmatic balance of idealism and realism creates an actionable plan that moves in the right direction over time.
A balancing act We need optimism without credulity, skepticism without pessimism, and a balance of idealism and realism. Where do you naturally sit in the matrix? What about the individuals in your team? What about the team as a whole? Is the group dynamic different to the sum of the individuals? Why do you think that is? Are you able to change your position to counter-balance extreme opinions within the team, even if that mindset is not the natural one in which you reside? Also, are you able to notice when your own default position can cause biases in your own judgement?
]]> management career engineering programming reference workhacks quotes psychology mustread bias https://pinboard.in/u:WimLeers/b:25055817eab4/ (16) Historic.ly on Twitter: "None of this is true! Let's look at how each of the companies were founded! https://t.co/iUKTgaYK1a" / Twitter 2019-05-01T10:01:57+00:00 https://mobile.twitter.com/historic_ly/status/1119980086420299777 WimLeersstartup bias https://pinboard.in/u:WimLeers/b:908140e427d3/ 100 Ways You Can Be An Ally 2019-01-23T21:55:44+00:00 https://events.drupal.org/baltimore2017/sessions/100-ways-you-can-be-ally WimLeers diversity racism drupal drupalcon inequality sexism culture bias reference mustwatch aw https://pinboard.in/u:WimLeers/b:798946b9a791/ Abeba Birhane on Twitter 2019-01-11T00:09:14+00:00 https://twitter.com/Abebab/status/1083290814036566016 WimLeersbias science academia sjw aw https://pinboard.in/u:WimLeers/b:0620713c02e2/ Waarom slimme mensen domme dingen zeggen - De Correspondent 2018-09-18T23:02:59+00:00 https://decorrespondent.nl/8512/waarom-slimme-mensen-domme-dingen-zeggen/808815874944-1e79b815?mc_cid=343ff86867&mc_eid=0cf615f85a WimLeersbias psychology statistics https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:WimLeers/b:6b27b3de81ca/ Refactoring the Mirrortocracy 2014-06-30T15:02:59+00:00 http://carlos.bueno.org/2014/06/refactoring.html WimLeers Speaking of which, read the fucking résumé. Like, for more than two minutes. I can't believe I have to point that out, but here we are. During the interview, operate from the principle of hospitality. These are competent professionals taking time out of their day to do free make-work for your entertainment. Conducting an interview is like being a talk-show host. Your job is to keep them relaxed & on subject, and allow them to show their smarts. Acting like an irritable dungeon master is not just childish, it's a waste of everybody's time. Kobayashi Maru only works reliably in science fiction. Practice listening to other modes of thinking. There are few things more frustrating than watching a visual thinker and a verbal thinker talk right past each other and come to the mutual conclusion that the other person is an idiot. Practice listening to other accents. So many smart people face a barrier communicating complex ideas outside their native language. I used to have a bad case of Gringo Ear (and still do, when I'm tired). I initially wrote off a former colleague because he got his points across in a long, halting way. Another colleague disagreed. “English is his third-best language, and you aren't making enough effort hearing him. He and I communicate just fine. In French.” Before you get all indignant, try it. It's the most efficient way to increase the number of smart people you can talk to in life, and what the hell is wrong with that? Foreign movies are a good way to train up. If that doesn't work, try communicating in writing. I was surprised (and embarrassed) to discover that that same person writes beautiful, coherent prose. Single-blind as much as possible. Ask your friendly neighborhood recruiter to remove the names and other identifying info from résumés before you read them. I've seen interviewers thrown off their stride because they assumed the candidate's gender and were wrong. It's a terrible source of bias. It's hard to overstate how badly people are biased by names. And of course, don't ask how a candidate did on other interviews before writing down your own opinion. More generally, confirmation bias and stereotype threat are real. If you expect women to be less technical or intelligent, that's what you'll see. One of my most embarassing moments was at a conference with a couple dozen colleagues from Facebook. I had been chatting with one of them for a few minutes about recruiting when I asked her what part of the recruiting department she worked in. “Oh, no,” she said. “I'm an engineer. I work on [important software that I used daily]. I've been at Facebook about six years.” 98% of people have strong, unconcious biases. The other 2% are lying. Study false negatives, the people you turn down. Not just the outliers, like the guy who was rejected by Facebook, then started his own company which was acquired by Facebook for billions of dollars. Also track the gal who was rejected for “culture fit” and went on to a great career. You have the technology to keep tabs on candidates; they are the same tools you use to find them in the first place. A company that doesn't actively learn from the ones who get away has no right to whine about how hard it is to find good people. Another good place to add feedback loops is in the conduct of the interviewers. Doing it well is a hard skill. Pair an experienced interviewer with a trainee and have them trade off watching and learning. Enforce minimum standards of feedback. The feedback should be written immediately afterward and before looking at any other feedback. Every interviewer report should have a précis of the questions asked and answered, a verdict, and specific things that would cause them to change their verdict. For example: “I don't think Fulana de Tal is experienced enough, but if she does well on the other coding interviews I'll vote yes.” If these minimum standards aren't met, then the feedback should be excluded from the final vote and the interviewer told to step up their game. Remember: practice, measurement, and a chance to learn from failure. There's a lot more to learn about creating an industry we can be proud of. First we have to learn how to learn. ]]> career programming bias diversity carlosbueno facebook interviewing https://twitter.com/ https://pinboard.in/u:WimLeers/b:085958e3613e/ First Post 2012-02-20T12:18:34+00:00 http://xkcd.com/1019/ WimLeersjornalism media fail bias aw funny xkcd https://pinboard.in/u:WimLeers/b:15b7824b4532/