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Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

It is a widely and repeatedly observed fact in social sciences that one's friend group is on average biased towards demographics similar to their own. This is true along a wide array of protected demographics relevant to hiring including age, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. For some simple examples, a randomly selected gay person tends to have a significantly higher percentage of gay friends than a randomly selected straight person. Similarly, while 12% of the country is black, a randomly selected black person has way more than 12% black friends, whereas people of other ethnic groups on average have less than 12% black friends. It goes on and on.

People cluster by demographics. Good on you for being an exception, but the rule holds in general.

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I'm not talking about friends, and the article isn't talking about friends, either. What's being discussed is people that a referrer has worked with and whose qualifications can be vouched for.

People tend to refer their friends. Even if you're not friends outside of work, you're more likely to refer people you were friendly with at work.

Sure. And most of that happens in the context of "refer anyone and we will vet them with our hiring process". If you change that to "only refer people whom you personally vouch for because we will trust your judgment to replace parts of the hiring process", there will (or can) be incentives to refer people who are really good, not just people you personally like and would like to help out. If you combine that with hiring people who've worked in diverse environments, that might counteract the natural referral biases.

That's a good point, the demographics of my coworkers are nothing like the demographics of my friends. Most people are probably more likely to refer people who are both friends and coworkers though.

But a monetary incentive based on performance might be able to change that.

Slightly unrelated, but I recently received a survey from my high school asking if I would recommend an African American high school graduate pursue college/university at an HBCU(Historically Black University or College) or a PWI(Predominately White Institution).

How would you answer this question?

(Not a loaded question by the way, I know tone is hard to convey on the internet but you seem informed on this subject and I’m genuinely curious as to your opinion, if you have one.)

Thanks!

I'm definitely not qualified to answer this question as I didn't go to an HBCU and I'm not black. Sorry.

On a related note, black enrollment at my alma mater is plummeting in recent years (in favor of HBCUs), so going to an HBCU is a decision increasingly being made by black college-goers. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/higher-...

Gotcha. Thanks for the information. I also went to UMD and was not aware of this trend.

Yeah, it's bad for everyone involved.

How do you know this?

Isn't that trend a bit worrying? I'm not an American but it reminded me of (the little I know about) the segregationist policies before the Civil rights movement.

Yes, it's very worrying. Racists are increasingly being emboldened in the current political climate, and minorities are withdrawing further into their own groups for protection in response.

Yes, I was thinking it also on the other side? Why are minorities withdrawing (pretty much the opposite attitude they took in the 60's no?)?

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