1:12 - Confessions of a Biased Manager - How to avoid biases hurting your chances of success!

Live far away from the office? Have an accent? These are some examples of how you can be unfairly rejected from a position. Have you been rejected because of these things? I suspect I had. And I imagine that is true for many of you. biases are pervasive, and sometimes even well meaning managers, such as myself, who have worked as a software engineer manager for years have committed in the past. In this episode, I confess to some of these biases and expose how some questions fester biases for tomorrow and I will show you ways to overcome them. So you can obtain fulfilling positions and careers.

You are listening to diverse software engineers podcast, which inspires engineers to serve clients better, break glass ceilings, and enjoy lucrative work. Your hosts are Eric Lau, Chief consultant at Brainy Butlers Solutions and Fatima Agheli, up and coming engineer. We focus on the soft essential skills which engineers, managers and clients need to upgrade their software projects.

I just saw this question when you mentioned how in class, you'll get the same questions on an exam. But I was thinking how in an interview? Have you ever experienced situations? Or do you think this happens often where an interviewer might ask you a harder question or a different question because of bias or because of judgment early on?

Absolutely. First of all, I don't think a lot of managers or hiring people prepare for interviews as much as you think they do. And it's not necessarily because they're lazy is probably the opposite. Because they're so stress this, they have so many other priorities and imagine teams and other things. While hiring is certainly important part of a manager's job. I've been through this where there are quite a fair amount of chaff to filter, so it can be a real drudge. And so a lot of times even before we get to the interview, there are already biases that are coming into play. For example, recently, I talked to a product manager from Sierra wireless, pretty big company here, British Columbia, Canada. He took him over my clothes for five years before he got in the car wireless, even though he's he has worked with one of the CRL his competitor, and he knows a lot about wireless communications, like a lot. So he was asking an intern, how did you get in? Like, how did you get into the CLR, the intern said, I applied no one's no one responded or whatnot. And he scraped the website, he just want a website that's loaded or script loaded, all the keywords are using just fill as many of those keywords in his resume as possible. just kept kept hitting it until you get an interview. And once it got interview, it was easy peasy Garmin. That's pretty brutal. Basically, what it is, is they just tried to fake out the whatever computer program or or some sort of recruiter criteria for filtering out keywords that that stuff happens more often than you think. It is a little nutty. It's a little less now clrs. Because Amazon and Google and Microsoft hiring so many people that they can't afford to be so picky. He used to be at cry was was was very highly sought after place to go to work for the poor developer struggling interview. A lot of times, it's not necessarily the managers fault, because they will normally given a set of questions or things that you plan on. So they have maybe one or two questions. And you're depending on the impression that the applicant gave. It's something that I found myself doing like if someone that I found dress, well known as the dress was I assume you say that because you know, that's not really that important. But if they, you know, show up early if they speak well, if they seem to answer first two questions. Well, I may just already make up my mind that I think this person may want I don't even ask some of the more tougher questions, or I feel like this person is, I don't know, maybe somewhat quiet or stammering or this I guess some sense that maybe the person isn't really completely truthful, then I will ask more tougher questions. And I'm not proud of it. But I know that almost every manager I've worked with or or as many as I can interview I'm pretty good. They, they all dial out and tend to change their answers and old one question they ask, why not? And sometimes you have to, because the parent want a candidate tells you about their background and whatever they you, you tend to, you know, interested in certain things, right? You want to find out. So, it is a that's actually not that uncommon either. Because it is not always fair to judge everybody in the same box, for example, you can't just came out of school with someone who has been working as accountable and they're searching the career. Right, like they, you know, I mean, yeah. So, so just because you asked same question doesn't mean it's fair either. Yeah, one, one example, even something like really innocuous stuff, just ask for the address, or look at the resume address. I would tell anyone right now, when you do your resume, do not put your physical address, oh, welcome, not because I'm afraid somebody's gonna use your address. And you're like, you know, stalking him. And there's none of those things. I remember several times when we were looking at multiple candidates, and we're deciding who to hire. And one of my colleagues, a file manager says, No, no, I don't want to hire this person. And I said, Oh, why? And he goes, Oh, he lived in a way to Burnaby. And he lives in right rock. Really, what he's saying is that the commute, and then we get to the community long, so therefore, the person may want to take more days to work from home or they want, you may get more time on the driving. Now, there's no rule that says you cannot discriminate based on proximity to work. Lisa is, as a mentor like is your mentor right now, I'm telling you do not put your physical address in your resume. You want to find like maybe a friend closer by? Well, you just don't want to give them a reason to reject you. Right. It shouldn't matter. But it doesn't help you don't do anything that doesn't help you. They can only hurt you. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things I will say about interview, like do not put your physical address. And then there's these brain teasers. These questions are they don't do nearly as much as you think they do. Because, for example here, right? Here's a question that Google actually is famous for asking you these questions. With these brain teasers here. I'll give you one. How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?

Where did you even start with a question like that?

while you're on the clock, the interviewer is looking at, you know, I'm serious, like, do I think about doing your interviews? Right now? You better answer. What would you do?

all the windows in Seattle? I'd say about a million.

Okay, a million? How do you come to that figure?

I assume that there are quite a lot of windows in Seattle. Okay, and that would take a lot of time to wash all of them. And maybe a lot of people as well. Okay, so

how to come up with a million?

Would it be fair to ask the interviewer like sub questions, I'd be like, well, how many windows? Exactly are there so I can base the question off of that?

How would How would you go about estimating this this number? No, but that's it. But that is the question. Yeah. So you can see like, right there. I can tell you that if you answer that way. And if you were they'll kind of rolls his eyes is this probably why I'm not looking for you will be rejected. Now, if you ever tell me the answer, you got to be like, oh, is the right answer is to give a unit price for the work, just say $10 per window. So give you a price for the entire job, which is what what most people do. Right, but like how does it help? I questioned it. And certainly the author of the article certainly agrees and Google agreed to they stopped asking these questions. Now.

That is a really annoying question.

Dave, you should do it as in 2000. This is Google right? Yeah, we're not talking about some niche here. Guy, whatever. This is Google in the space entire hiring Practice, practice on these brainteaser questions. Questions don't even work. I mean, at least you can say, Oh, this one hour has some sort of, of our, you know, estimate thing and that's really stretching it by the way I can easily is a much better estimating question than, than something like this, right. These brain teasers are kinda like why people give advice, unsolicited advice. It makes them interviewer feel smart. It makes the viewer feel smart especially when they see a lot of candidates stumble that's it. I think there's maybe some managers or executives that right now look like oh, that can't be that's not right. But my question is, I'm like you know what, I've heard a lot. I'll give I'll even though I just heard this other day. The person says all this one quarter I love that. My candidate. You have to be eaten by animal. Like right now in the next like one minute you need to be consumed by an animal. So what animal and why?

Definitely an animal that would kill before it consumes. Okay, maybe a Why? Okay, I feel like I've seen enough documentaries to see that they think they kill before they start consuming.

Yeah, so. Okay, so to answer that question, now, I'll tell you how I answered it because the person actually actually challenged us. You don't have an answer and answer that he was super impressed. There are reasons for it. But think about why someone to ask that question.

What's the point? Maybe it's a challenge. Your your thinking skills are like on the spot. Yeah.

Maybe think on your feet. Yeah. Things like that. Yeah. How you beat your creative of sort of how you would structure the problem. So he was telling me that like, one of the worst answers he got was the person who was talking about being eaten by hyena and tabo. How rat, though, that will be another and it was like, oh, like that, right? What is a great answer? Well, apparently, my answer is amazing. Because I said, humpback whale, humpback whale, like that's a very sincere answer. It goes, yes, because I read an article about the fishermen who got swallowed by humpback whale, and got spit back out. So, of course, he didn't say he has to be considered easily be consuming in the animal's mouth. There's no, there's nothing that says I actually have to be digested.

I mean, that's a fair point.

No, but that's the thing. Like, Oh, I remember was telling you the answer. He's like, Oh, my God, that's amazing. You are hired like it was. I mean, obviously, God joking. But he was like, that was probably one of the best answers you ever heard. So now, the question is, if you come up with that, you get hired. Great. But if you don't, what does that have to have it like, Okay, if you're being at your profession as a spy, or your salesperson that need that awesome, so that leads me think really fast on their feet? You're unprepared situation, maybe. But what does the developer have to do with that? Yeah, right. software development is not a firefighting business. You are in a skyscraper planning, building business, the ability to finger feed really quickly, is really not all that useful is not your day to day. Yeah. So I openly say, what's the value of these questions? Not nearly as much as the people asking think they are. But that's the challenge that comes up. And when companies don't tell candidates, how they do, why didn't get hired than these kind of bad questions or that bias season how question I get asked and compare. Just perpetuate that's the reality of me interviewing for a company that's so different than in academia?

Yeah, I can, I can definitely see it being especially really annoying. If I wasn't hired, because the question wasn't even related to the, to the job at hand. Like if I want to try to get job for development at EA or something, and they asked me, What animal would you like to be eaten by? I mean, I, I really be shocked by the question to begin with.

That's part of the preparation for interview really, is not to be shocked. Because these are the things that you actually more common than not. So you have to, you know, be prepared for the so called trick questions. And that's really some ways of how you introduce biases. Because I can say, okay, you know, what, we are a total a fair and equal blah, blah, blah, blah, but they've all the managers are male, and they are, you know, they hang out with buddies that they're all male and male is the easy example and is relatively true, then, you know, he may you may over a drain so talking about some of these Hahaha, like question, a trick question that we asked. And the people who are in private schools or who are in like, you know, who knows, you know, that the dads and uncles are these CEOs and they would have heard these at a dinner table. And even if they don't directly help them by prepping them for questions, by hearing them realize dinner table Thanksgiving dinner whatever. day you already know how to answer these, but they have nothing to do with their ability to do the job. Let's take a break. And here's a word from a podcast you really want to check out.

Electronics specify insights podcast is dedicated to asking the big questions at the electronic industry's biggest players. Electronics and technology are becoming increasingly integral across all aspects of daily life and within society as a whole. Check out the electronic specify insights podcast at WWW dot illiterate specified.com.

Speaking of like a place where like all the manager or men or any situations without even, like when I'm walking into a business, I've seen a lot of situations where like, almost all the employees are of one race or almost all the employees are like one gender I've and I feel like that almost is probably a bias in the hiring system and that place in general,

I've been to places where 85 90% or for example, Asian like Chinese, I've seen that I've seen where a large section our male males only like pretty after they're like Milan's just like even more so like 100% male. I've seen that. I haven't seen all white big RV mostly because the software industry is one issue where you cannot afford to be that picky. Even Google's on a law buddy like California, not picky, but you need to hire the the best you can get right? So you can't afford to pay for those things exist. And they're not never ever, ever, like, Oh, I don't want to hire you know, Indian person. Not gonna close it. I've seen this. I I don't I don't understand this person. This or the ACT from the accent too hard to do to deal with. So I don't want to hire people like that. I have heard that.

Yeah. I can 100% imagine things like that happening in the industry.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I've heard that. And it's not. And it's really hard to differentiate between rather than that. The accent is the is difficult understand, or they just difficult. How to communicate or there's bias. Yeah. But I can't I can't imagine that the two are not intertwined. Yeah. So I mean, that's really about, you know, even though I would love to do like, full dedicate interviews on how to say, No, that's a long, what were all the things are not good about it, but also how they actually feel prepare for interviews. Like they're the what are the questions that are better questions and how to prepare? Yeah, I will say this, and I'll end this nugget here. Besides the coding question, were they testing your technical skills? There are two types of questions, two broad types of questions that I think are fair game. If you don't prepare for these questions, then you cannot shoot yourself in the foot and you have no one else to blame, like these trick questions, don't count, the tutor question that you want to prepare for our behavior questions and situational questions. So behavior questions are questions like, tell me about a time when? blank? Okay, so this blank can be a certain event occurred? Mike, when I called he challenged you on one of your ideas? Right, that that's a beautiful question. Or tell me about a time when a project is at risk of running late? And how do you get back on chat, for example? Or question about Tell me about a time when a opportunities servers or problem was presented and how you designed a strategy. Now, I will have to dedicate episodes, we talked about how to prepare for these, but you can see how these questions are valid my opinion because how you solve past experience, how you do past experiences, it's in a protip, nice similar situations is predictive, right of how you're, you're likely succeed in the current situation or current role. The biggest thing about these questions that you do not answer in general terms. Like you need to come up with a story that your story, what did you do? What did you do in these things that explain exactly what you did? The storm effort is what a lot of times here. We'll get into that in a second. I'll let you look it up. But we see it as a storm effort. And the sum of is how you approach these kind of questions, over arching things that you need to explain it in the story, where you're talking about what you did, how you did it, focus on you. One of the things that drives me up a bat is when people answer generically for example, they give you answer like, kill me a time when a comment colleague, Kurt, like I had a conflict or didn't agree with you. Like I've heard people say things like, oh, I'll talk to you. If that happens, we'll talk this person down and we will discuss the VA. That is not good enough, because the interviewer will almost always ask how did you do? What specific example? If you see general terms of how you would you failed? You understand? Yeah. Because you don't you don't want to answer answer in a way that anybody else in China bullshit can answer. Right? You don't want to answer in a very generic, bland way that that doesn't differentiate at all from from your competitors.

I mean, even from the point of view of an interviewer 100% makes sense to reject natural like that, because I think a lot of times when people say how they would do something, it might not always ally to how they did anyways.

Exactly. Also, there's a sense of like, Well, why didn't Why can't you come up with what you did? Because it's as bad as concealing something like it's, it's also just a lack of preparation. Yeah. But you'd be surprised how often I get as an interview, I get those. I will say, of all my interviews, I think over half, I get it, I get these bland answers. Right, over half, though. And then it's a situational question. Whereas the other one, where I'm more hypothetical, right? Imagine this event occur? How would you handle it? Right, the Kennedys answer, give you a glimpse, the ability to think quickly, right and react appropriately. Right? And see how they would approach problem solving.

If a situational question were to occur. How would you avoid giving a generic answer in that situation, then?

Well, that's the beauty part. Right? Is the triggers, are they it is hypothetical. So you're allowed to give hypothetical answers, because the question is hypothetical. Right? So these are the ones you're given. You're given more, Braff. Right? Yeah. Like you give them more breath. The key point about these questions is important that they ask everyone the same question in the same manner. I've seen, the interviewers ask the same question. But depending on maybe how the candidate responded before or how much time they slap or how stressed they are, they want to get out of there. They may give additional clues to somebody that they like, or they already have a positive impression on, and then not give it to someone they don't like. And this can happen. Without that person even knowing it. I was actually called once for doing that. And I didn't even know I did it. And then after several verses, you know, you realize for this person, you give them all these clues to answer the question. And the person. This wasn't me, he didn't say anything. You think give any of those clues at all. And I'm like, oh, like I fell back. I didn't even know until the the interview ended. And we did a debrief. And thank God that company did the browser's are very thankful for that. Because I realized that what happened and then afterwards I stick to I stuck to the script and said, and ask the question at exact same way, regardless of what my impression of the candidate I see. Now, like, there's a bit of admission of guilt on my part, because, you know, I'm not perfect. And I definitely make that mistake before that. To be fair, this was relatively early in my management career. And no one really taught me about the importance of the of these things. The idea has always been on the other side, you've made it easy. And then we just, you know, you out, you know, imagine Okay, then go ahead, right.

Yeah, I was gonna say that, since you have so much experience in this category, then, we could even have an episode on how to be an interviewer because you might even have viewers who who are way past the interview process, and maybe they are also interviewers, or they are managers, and they could maybe like they're new at the job, and they could use some advices like that as well.

I could I don't know how many of the listeners are in that stage. I think this podcast is more geared towards those who are more junior

100% Yeah, but you but not

really knowing how to interviewer things and what they go through and why the answer will be very useful for it for candidates anyway. And that ends this episode, listeners. If you want to know more about interviews, or your specific questions or subject areas you want me to cover, please let me know at the se podcast.com See you later and take care of yourselves.

congratulating yourself for listening by engaging with us. You are already well ahead of the pack. Please subscribe, share with others and post about on social media. For feedback and suggestions for future episodes, please go to the podcast website DSE podcast.com