Global Human Resources Chief Denise Young Smith said at Fortune Brainstorm Tech on Tuesday morning that Apple’s next “diversity report” will come “sometime this summer” and will reveal some progress on recruiting diverse employees. “We did have some movement in our hiring or women and hiring of minorities,” said Young Smith, noting that about 35% of Apple’s recent recruits are women. The upcoming report, which Young Smith claims will have “more transparency” than its report last year, will show an uptick in hiring African-American and Hispanic recruits as well.
Apple should hire the most qualified person for the job, regardless of their gender or color of their skin.
Amen Jim!
The question isn’t whether or not Apple should hire the most qualified person for the job. Of course they should.
The question is much more complicated. Hiring someone is the last part of the process. Before you can hire someone, you have to find them. And if you present yourself with 90% white male candidates, guess what happens?
So how you go about filling your pool of applicants is critically important. If you keep going to the same places to find your talent, you find the same type of people. So it’s critical to find new sources of talent. If you want more women, find sources of talent that specialize in finding highly qualified women.
Then, how do you go about reviewing the applicants? Compensating for subtle, unconscious biases during the review process is notoriously difficult. For example, masking the names of candidates on resumes can substantially change the number of female candidates considered for technical positions.
This is a deeply challenging problem. Apple is not alone in working hard to tackle these issues. But they’re wonderfully open about it.
But still this should have nothing to do with gender or skin color. If there is a historically black college that is pumping out smart engineering grads of course that should be part of Apple’s pool. But they shouldn’t be choosing institutions just because they have a large minority or female population.
Also we can’t just assume that a lack of female and/or minorities in tech workforce is due to bias or discrimination. Perhaps females just aren’t that into engineering? Perhaps there are other professions more interesting to women. We can’t force women into engineering just because some chart shows tech companies have a lack of female representation.
That’s right, we can’t assume. But there is data showing that the relative lack of female and minorities in tech is due to bias and discrimination, so kudos to Apple for working to address it.
“Apple should hire the most qualified person for the job, regardless of their gender or color of their skin.” Why is this rhetoric always tossed around when we talk about diversity numbers? Is there a huge problem with companies hiring unqualified people?
I’m sorry you feel my statement is rhetoric, it wasn’t intended that way.
If they are hiring the most qualified people, regardless of gender or race, then the demographics of their staff would much more closely resemble that of the general public. That is doesn’t means they are not hiring the most qualified people, as are most companies. They are generally hiring the most white and male people.
Why? Good question, and one Apple is trying to address with their hiring practices. But Apple can only fix Apple. What can Apple do to balance the books? Make a greater effort to improve diversity in their workplace. If they don’t, then they will continue to hire based on maleness and whiteness, rather than qualification.
My bad, I misread your intent there. I’ve had to listen to too many dudes rant about how diversity and affirmative action are stealing their jobs away.
Speaking of assumptions, it is commonly believed that “females just aren’t that into engineering”. It turns out we wrong really, really wrong. There’s tons of data on the subject.
We may not be able to force women (or anyone else) into engineering. But we do a bang-up job of convincing them that it’s a man’s job – from a very early age.
And this highlights some of the enormous challenges for companies like Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, etc. These companies create products and services for hugely diverse populations. They know that a bunch of white men make things that a bunch of white men think the world wants. It’s not our fault. We see the world from our own eyes. These companies need diversity. It’s actually really important – even beyond the benevolent, ethical, and legal reasons – all of which are important. Diverse teams can create breakthroughs that less diverse teams will never be able to create. Study after study shows this.
This.
This ignore inherent human biases. When people are faced with two similarly qualified candidates, they’re going to choose the one most similar to them (not necessarily racially, if you have a bunch of people from urban areas, they’re more likely to choose an urbanite rather than someone rural).
Also, there’s value in diversity for diversity’s sake. When Mobil was first looking to roll out pay at the pump technology, the all male board members initially voted it down. However, a secretary said to one of the board members that it would be hugely convenient for her because she wouldn’t have to pack up all of her kids, go inside to pay and then load them back in the car. That eventually led to board approval for the technology. If you have a monoculture, you miss insights that will help you serve your customers.
“Perhaps females just aren’t that into engineering?” Attitudes like this is precisely why there need to be a shift towards more consciously diverse hires.
Do you have a link to this evidence that the lack of female and minorities in tech is due to bias and/or discrimination?
Where is the evidence that the demographics of the general public mirror those interested in math, science and engineering degrees? Do we know that there is a larger percentage of women and minorities graduating with math, science and engineering degrees than is represented in Apple’s demographics?
Qualified… Hrm…
So the diversity itself is of NO use to Apple. To have diverse perspectives in tech, HR, Design, engineering, marketing, advertising, Media Relations, etc. is of NO use.
And we really think Apple is hiring “unqualified” people? Or you think they get 3 resumes from “qualified” people and they only hire the woman, or the gay guy, or the black dude? Why wouldn’t they hire all 3. ESPECIALLY in engineering where their talent pool is so small to begin with.
This is the type of stuff that has the Health Kit App not have Menstrual Cycle as one of its “tracking” items? Sure it gets added later, when OUTSIDE people point out how obvious it would be…
Go looking to hire people that would “fit the profile” that might not think they would BE hired at Apple, for example…
Hmm. “Apple should hire the most qualified person for the job, regardless of their gender or color of their skin.”
How about overall disability status? When Tim Cook was challenged to commit to a “revenue based decision model” he pushed back rather emphatically. To paraphrase him, how should he attach profit or revenue to incorporating accessibility features into iOS? Sometimes it’s just the right thing to do.
Now consider hiring. The idea that there’s always a clear “qualified” candidate is ludicrous for those who’ve ever been in that decision process. It’s partially a crap shoot, and diversity – with all the inherent value it provides to a decision making process within a job – is just as important as raw skills for the particular role.
Not to misinterpret the comment, but the term “qualified” can be rather simplistic.
Thanks Jim. It seems nobody is talking about qualifications anymore.
If you’re actually interested in this topic, use the Internet. It’s all over the place. If not, stop trolling.
If Apple was just jamming women into positions to fill some quota, regardless of qualifications, 51% of their new hires would have been women.
Instead it was only 35%.
You and Jim are not the only ones talking about qualifications. Clearly Apple is, too, and their numbers show it. In fact, the vast majority of organizations are.
There are profound and subtle biases throughout the hiring process, well before anyone is looking at actual qualifications. If it sounds like nobody is talking about qualifications anymore, that’s why; we’re busy talking about the stuff that sneaks in well before qualifications.