Can you even avoid affirmative action employers anymore? 79

[WARose]

I had a buddy talk me into applying to the same place he's working....and I take a look at the place later (nothing like looking after you leap)....and in a company that's 90% male....they've got women in just about ALL the lead positions. I know at least 2 of them.....and they are nowhere near as qualified as some of the other people there.

Is there even a way to avoid this now? (Except at the smaller companies.) I am not anti-female in any way....but this sort of thing has resulted in chaos everywhere I've been that had it.

 

[WARose]

Sorry I missed your experience before. That’s unfortunate and surprising to hear. I wonder why it seems like the norm for your area and not in others?

We got a lot of big EPC/engineering outfits in the area. I remember reading somewhere that this area has (per capita) more engineers than anywhere else in the country.

I don't know if that is accurate though (considering places like Silicon Valley, Houston, etc).

 

[IRstuff]

Sexism is alive and thriving to this day:

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/21/1018...-fined-for-not-wanting-to-wear-bikini-bottoms

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[geotechguy1]

I came 40/150 in my graduating class. A girl who was in the 130-140 / 150 range had 20+ job offers for every internship placement, and likewise after graduation. Most male peers would typically get 1 or 2 offers at best, usually none (or were second or third choices), and many were never able to find employment in the industry or waited 6+ months after graduation - in Alberta, of all places. Now her and many like her are in group management roles and senior engineering roles (7-8 years experience), with employers even graciously counting years off for mat leave as experience in salary reviews. Starting salaries - ditto - typically started on 5-10% higher than male peers. APEGA's salary survey data actually used to back this up for engineers under Level C (essentially everyone under 30) but they've altered the reporting now.

Lots of people 30 and under are going to have similar experiences to mine, and all the while we've still get the media and HR departments bleating on about how privileged we are.

 

[moon161]

Over a couple decades I've worked with a bunch of people in manufacturing and engineering in western NY and maritime canada. As far as office people go I've got a couple lists
1) Wow this person is exceptionally good to work with in a field of technical skill, perception and judgement.
2) This person is in the large and unexceptional middle group.
3) Wow his person is unusually lacking in technical skill, perception or judgement.

The few women in the field in my area are disproportionately represented on #1 (actually most of them are on the list), and #3 is all guys. For me, this is support for the twice as good to get half as far rule.
As far as people without pink skin, outside of the colleges, the field is whiter than a country club. Since I knew and worked with people in various non-white cohorts in school (in this area) and found them not to be especially lacking in technical skill, aptitude or judgment, I've concluded that they are uncomfortable working in the area, encounter barriers to access, or both.

So as far as my life, the original complaint does not hold water.

 

[Fischstabchen]

I think some of this thread is conflation of being able to manage a group and being a group lead. I more often have seen the reverse of a technical person being made manager because they were good technically but were horseshit at leading and managing due to a lack of interest so it was worse for everyone.

While a lot of us want to imagine most of our work is ground breaking, that usually isn't the case. Most engineers just need to stay on task and be timely and I have run into much fewer women who were fuck arounds.

 

[Tomfh]

I came 40/150 in my graduating class. A girl who was in the 130-140 / 150 range had 20+ job offers for every internship placement, and likewise after graduation.

Yep. This is common. And not only that, women applicants aren't just offered positions, they are actively courted, much like star athletes that schools fight over. If you hire a women you get to tick the gender box and boast of your commitment to inclusion and diversity.

 

[3DDave]

Affirmative action takes the real and perceived exclusion from certain areas of work of certain groups of people and strives to convert that into greater competition for jobs in order to ultimately lower salaries. The bigger the company the bigger the potential savings so the greater the lip-service to make it appear they are pro-affirmative action while failing to provide the level of equality they claim to.

It's not an easy task, even for those genuinely interested.

By the time HR looks for candidates at least a decade of decisions has already been made as to who is available. Hiring practices won't fix that. But it will distort demand. For certain some companies will hire a person that is great for the position who they would not have otherwise done except for this policy.

On the other hand, that person is likely to be simultaneously missing out on another, far better position because they never heard of it or would, if not hired at one place, become a star elsewhere.

At that point it's back to a supply problem, not a hiring problem and increasing that supply means lowering salaries for all.

 

[CWB1]

Lots of people 30 and under are going to have similar experiences to mine, and all the while we've still get the media and HR departments bleating on about how privileged we are.

It’s not just those <30, most working today have had similar experiences bc the discrimination hateful folks justify as “help” has been going on for decades both in education and the workplace. 25 years ago several female HS classmates filled token slots in our honors program despite poor grades. In college I saw a huge disparity in financial aid given to different races and sexes independent of academic performance. My personal favorite a few years ago was a female HR manager announcing that she would not approve hiring any white males until we had met her personal diversity and inclusion goal - in rural Indiana that meant not hiring engineers until she gave up ~6 months later. All of it is disgraceful, and worse yet it creates negative stereotypes about the groups it “helps.” It also creates ethical issues, one of the best female engineers I’ve worked with resigned rather than accept a promotion into management that she wasn’t remotely qualified for.

Sadly, I don’t see this nonsense stopping anytime soon. We have far too many ethically and morally corrupt individuals in society trying to justify their shortcomings by screeching about their perception of others.

 

[Milliontown]

I came 40/150 in my graduating class. A girl who was in the 130-140 / 150 range had 20+ job offers for every internship placement, and likewise after graduation. Most male peers would typically get 1 or 2 offers at best, usually none

Is grade or GPA all that matter? What do you know about her life outside of academics that might improve her chances? Do you think that because someone is automatically good at school that they're a good engineer? I think we all know that isn't true, we're all worked with strong academics who are terrible engineers

 

[SPDL310]

Is grade or GPA all that matter?

No but at an undergraduate level when applying to internship programs a students GPA is one of the most significant indicators of an applicants engineering knowledge. It shows that they at least know the basic science, and were able to demonstrate that in an environment many find stressful.

What do you know about her life outside of academics that might improve her chances? Do you think that because someone is automatically good at school that they're a good engineer? I think we all know that isn't true, we're all worked with strong academics who are terrible engineers

Geotechguy1 may not know much about this persons life, but what do the 20+ internship programs know about it either? There may well be some relevant experience that would place a candidate from the bottom 15% of the class to the top of the pile, but it would seem unlikely to her peers. When there are diversity programs looking to fill 50% of engineering positions with women, and only about 20% of engineering graduates are women, women are much more likely to be offered employment than men. The simplest explanation of that disparity of outcomes is that when looking at a graduating class of 150 with a low percentage of female gradates is that companies that want to up their diversity figures offered internships to all or most of the female graduates, and a hand full of the most distinguished male applicants. I encountered a similar experience applying to internship programs when I graduated from a small school close to a decade ago. Some recruiters openly disclosed that they were only considering applications from the top 10% of the class or women and minorities, as they had filled all of their other positions with applicants at larger more prestigious universities.

 

[geotechguy1]

I actually knew her quite well, and many others like her; it was an anecdote in response to an earlier anecdote in thread along the same lines. I'm certain that the disparity in number of offers and employability is due to affirmative action policies / quotas and not because year after year all the female students are more employable.

 

[davefitz]

There is a strong case for giving women and minorities the opportunity to prove themselves in positions that were earlier unavailable to them, as there would always be a later opportunity to see if they provided results that justify their keeping the position or moving them out " to spend more time with their families" if they do not deliver good results.

I recall working for a large company in New Jersey , when the dept manager asked me to offer an opinion as to whether a job applicant's name sounded " african american". If the opinion was that he was an african american, then the manager would not offer the applicant an interview opportunity, because the laws were interpreted to mean that if you interviewed an african american but did not offer them a job then it was a de facto case of discrimination, so they simply moved the discrimination back one step and simply refused to provide the interview opportunity, regardless of qualifications. Most laws are written with loopholes that a moderate lawyer could figure out and bypass the intent of congress.

"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen, sloppy dead..." Grace Slick

 

[JohnRBaker]

It's like back in the late 60's when the federal government ruled that companies could no longer include an entry on job applications asking the race of the applicant. So what did companies do... They immediately started to ask that a photo be attached to all job applications. That didn't last long...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[IRstuff]

They immediately started to ask that a photo be attached to all job applications. That didn't last long...

It's actually really easy now, with the advent of explicitly ethnic names on resumes, which has been reported on previously. One of my sons' high school friend changed his last name to his mother's Latino maiden name, thinking it might help on his college application.

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[Milliontown]

It's like back in the late 60's when the federal government ruled that companies could no longer include an entry on job applications asking the race of the applicant. So what did companies do... They immediately started to ask that a photo be attached to all job applications. That didn't last long..

No the trend is to send in prerecorded video interviews. That's a way to get around all of those regulations.

So we all know that hiring is discriminatory based on these last messages, so what do we do? just go back to that where a picture would deny you?

 

[WARose]

I do have to say that-considering what is happening/about to happen in Afghanistan-that I certainly will take any affirmative action policy (no matter how crazy) over some of the old time/third world thinking that is still (unfortunately) out there.

 

[IRstuff]

I think I just saw a pig fly by ;-)

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[Steel Gal]

I can testify that I was on the receiving end of AA when I got a phone call to work at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as a contract engineer. Another gal was also on my contract with about 30 guys working. At the time I didn't have the credentials to be there, so I hunkered down and concentrated on learning the job to the best of my ability. It wasn't right for me to be there when other men had better qualifications.

 

[JohnRBaker]

But you kept your mouth shut and did the job, eh? Whether you were more qualified or not, were you able able to do the job? Did you comport yourself well? Was management satisfied with your contribution? Were you happy with your situation, other than your second guessing of the your qualifications? Did you stay on the job for what would have been expected to be a normal tenure?

If so, it would seem that the system produced the desired results.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Steel Gal]

I have never felt comfortable saying I was an NASA engineer when on my resume I could only document a BA in History as a college degree. However, I completed extensive corporate courses in nuclear, ferrous metallurgy, statistical analysis, and program management with some of the biggest names in the day as instructors or bosses. I completed a machinist apprenticeship and still have my table top bench mill, drill press, and two lathes. I had a welding inspection certificate from AWS and have done many types of NDT work and have qualified welders tests.

Next week I start a new job after a hiatus of about twenty years from the official work force. In the interim with my late husband we had own prototype welding and machine shop business. So, my question is with this audience, am I an engineer, too?

Lately, I have been looking at the requirements for a PE. I have looked over the exams and I think I could pass the one for metallurgy. Mathematics was always my strong suite in school, and I have been professionally tested twice for mechanical aptitude for employment purposes and did quite well. I am thinking about it only because of the essence of the challenge at this stage of my life.

Your thoughts are appreciated.