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Story time!
A valid question from a Google engineer lead to this video.
At all night hackathons, folk get tired. Because that's how humans work.
When I've judged hackathons at Claremont, they run around the building at 2am. At Howard, it's the 2am turn up.
#BlackTechTwitter
A valid question from a Google engineer lead to this video.
At all night hackathons, folk get tired. Because that's how humans work.
When I've judged hackathons at Claremont, they run around the building at 2am. At Howard, it's the 2am turn up.
#BlackTechTwitter
The valid question was:
Mekka, you say talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. You say there's brilliance at HBCUs. But in my years doing it, no HBCU grad has passed my interview. Ever. But Stanford kids do.
Why do you think that is?
And yes, this is a valid question.
Mekka, you say talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. You say there's brilliance at HBCUs. But in my years doing it, no HBCU grad has passed my interview. Ever. But Stanford kids do.
Why do you think that is?And yes, this is a valid question.
I asked the Google SWE:
: Did you know that there is literally a class in Stanford's CS curriculum, that is basically "How to pass Google's Interview?"
: Wait... what?! Really?
: Yep! They spend the semester practicing. Here's the course details:
https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs9/
: Did you know that there is literally a class in Stanford's CS curriculum, that is basically "How to pass Google's Interview?": Wait... what?! Really?: Yep! They spend the semester practicing. Here's the course details:https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs9/
: Stanford students also have ready access to Googlers for doing mock interviews. Ready access to SV tech workers also humanizes these mythical Google and Amazon engineers, into "kids I took classes with" or "my research teammate.": That all makes sense...
: The power of mock interviews cannot be overstated. Consider basketball.
If the 1st time you ever try to shoot a 3 point shot, is in the NBA finals with LeBron James guarding you, you're probably gonna miss. Similarly, if your 1st real interview is at Google HQ, you'll miss.
: I get that. So what do we do about it?: Two years ago, we started traveling to HBCUs, giving mock interviews, and we downloaded the publicly available syllabus from that Stanford interview prep class, and gave it to CS students at Howard. 3 guesses what happened next. 
: More Howard CS grads started passing the Google interviews!: That's correct! And anothe--: *Interrupting* We were interviewing for the wrong thing! For access rather than ability!: Yes, and so---: *Interrupting* We need to do more! How can I volunteer?: 
Over the years, hundreds of Googlers have volunteered to create materials that level the playing field for engineer evaluation.
The best way to remove "access to interview information" as an advantage... Is to give away interview prep materials to _everyone_.
The best way to remove "access to interview information" as an advantage... Is to give away interview prep materials to _everyone_.
You don't have to be Google scale to do this. And this doesn't only have to be tech.
In tech, we are often interviewing for "Do you know who Gayle Lackmann McDowell is?"
In business, we're often interviewing for, "Are you familiar with the Bain or McKinsey interview format?"
In tech, we are often interviewing for "Do you know who Gayle Lackmann McDowell is?"
In business, we're often interviewing for, "Are you familiar with the Bain or McKinsey interview format?"
Ask yourself, how much of your interview process is really testing for access, and how much is really indicative of ability to perform and excel in the environment of your company.
Doing so will reduce false negatives, but also reduce false positives...
Doing so will reduce false negatives, but also reduce false positives...
