Why Google Asks Everyone Applying For A Job The Same Exact Interview Questions
At the time, the company's SVP of People Operations, Laszlo Bock, said this line of questioning provided more information about a candidate's abilities than bizarre hypotheticals like, "How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?"
But a new video the company published yesterday reveals another reason Google has shifted to a standardized set of questions: It helps prevent hiring managers' implicit biases about gender and race from influencing their decisions.
The video shows a presentation about unconscious biases that Google director of people analytics Dr. Brian Welle gave to a group of company founders, which Google has invested in through its Google Ventures fund.
The presentation is part of Google's big push to improve diversity at the tech giant after it released data in May that showed only 30% of Google employees are women and only 5% are black or Hispanic.
Welle says the participants preferred male candidates, and when asked why they did not choose a female, they responded that the female candidate in question was lacking either street smarts or school smarts.
But when the participants were asked to first identify whether they preferred school smarts or street smarts before looking at resumes, Welle says the gender bias that had pervaded the first study was eliminated.
"Every question in our interview protocol is tied to a competence that we know you need to have to excel, and then we make sure that if I interviewed five people for that one role, all five people have answered the exact same questions," Welle says.
- Tesla tells some laid-off employees their separation agreements are canceled and new ones are on the way
- Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department' is the messiest, horniest, and funniest album she's ever made
- One of the world's only 5-star airlines seems to be considering asking business-class passengers to bring their own cutlery
- UP board exam results announced, CM Adityanath congratulates successful candidates
- RCB player Dinesh Karthik declares that he is 100 per cent ready to play T20I World Cup
- 9 Foods that can help you add more protein to your diet
- The Future of Gaming Technology
- Stock markets stage strong rebound after 4 days of slump; Sensex rallies 599 pts