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Comment by MaximumYComb | Hacker News Reader

Interesting that multiple people here have said that Early Career style programs are aimed at diversity requirements. I guess if you're male and white/asian, you should still make sure to go to university if you have the chance.

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Semi-related but I heard of someone - a friend of a founder I worked for a couple years ago - who tried to get into Oxford and failed, so took a gap year to go travelling. Applied again the next year and failed, so took a second gap year and keep travelling. Tried a third time, failed yet again, and spent more time on holidays. On his fourth attempt he ticked a couple diversity boxes as he'd been travelling around strange parts of the Globe for long enough and actually got in haha.

He was a white Etonian but had the privilege to pay for a long enough holiday to move into one of the diversity groups.

I think it’s less that these programs aren’t interested in people from typical backgrounds and more that the candidates from alternative paths are more likely to be of diverse backgrounds, so considering those alternative paths (in addition to the classical ones) is a good way to help diversify your hires. I.e they’re expanding the pool rather than pulling from just one source.

That's not how it worked at Dropbox when I worked there 2015-2019. Only women and URM candidates from bootcamps were interviewed. There's plenty of white and Asian men in those programs, and if you hired them at equal rates as their diverse counterparts it wouldn't help the company's representation.

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