Everyday Racism And Sexism IT Recruitment

The below is an account everyday racism and sexism in the world of work. If you believe in the saying the devil is in the detail then read on. In conclusion we need to be vigilant and call out this unacceptable testing in IT recruitment as a way to decide employment as it can be very subjective. This has been sent to everydaysexism.com

Although names have been taken out, these are real emails from real people and live websites in the recruitment of staff for shelter the UK charity based in London.

This Is A Case Study In How IT Technical Testing Can Discriminate

The Technical Test Instructions

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For this challenge, of the files provided to you, ONLY those listed here are editable.

    JavaScriptWordGame/wordgame.js

You can add files to your submission, but if you edit any of the provided files, other than those specified, your changes will be IGNORED.
Please read these instructions carefully before starting to code:

    When you assemble your code challenge solution for submission please create it as a ZIP file.
    Please do NOT include generated files in your submitted solution.
    Your ZIP upload will be cleaned to remove ignored (e.g. generated) files.
    Files will be removed and ignored based on standard gitignore files as specified in this GitHub project: github/gitignore.
    When you upload your code, you will be shown which files are accepted for code review and which will be ignored.
    The ignored files will NOT be provided to the reviewer.
    Create your solution WITHIN the structure of the starting ZIP file that you have downloaded.
    When you are ready to upload your code, you can re-ZIP from the starting top-level directory and upload the entire ZIP by clicking the Upload Solution button below.

Create an application to deliver a word game.

    The game is constructed with a random base string of letters a to z, e.g. the string areallylongword or dgeftoikbvxuaa.
    This base string can contain repeated letters.
    The player attempts to create words out of the letters, and scores one point for each letter used.
    The maximum score is therefore the length of the starting string (IF a valid English word can be made using ALL the letters).
    Individual letters can be used as many times as they appear in the base string.
    To score, a submission must be a valid English word.
    Validity should be checked by loading the word list file available here: wordlist.txt provided and confirming that the submitted word is present in the list.

    For example, when starting with the base string “areallylongword”:
        "no" is an acceptable submission, with score 2
        "grow" is an acceptable submission, with score 4
        "bold" is NOT an acceptable submission (there is no “b” in the base string)
        "glly" is NOT an acceptable submission (it is not present in the word list)
        "woolly" is an acceptable submission with score 6
        "adder" is NOT an acceptable submission (there is only one “d” in the base string)

    The game should maintain in memory a list of the top ten highest-scoring submissions (word and score).
    Duplicate words are NOT allowed in the high score list i.e. a word can only appear once in the high score list.
    Throughout this test, you need not worry about whitespace, special characters, or uppercase: you may assume that both the base string of letters and all submissions contain none of these.
    THERE IS NO NEED TO MAKE A USER INTERFACE
    It is sufficient to implement the functions described in the wordgame.js JavaScript file provided.
    If any of the instructions is unclear, please make a reasonable assumption and document your assumption in the code with a comment.
    You have two hours to complete the test.
    Please submit your code by clicking the Upload your Solution button and following the instructions..
    Your implementation should be production quality. Use any tools, approaches, resources, and information you would normally use to complete production-quality code. However, please bear in mind that this test is intended to allow you to show your ability with pure JavaScript rather than your skill in utilising frameworks and libraries.

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CLICK ON THE WORD LIST for acceptable words in this game. Expect to find.

arse, bitch, cunt, coons, motherfucking, nigger

and more

The test bring up lots of questions?

  • Who programmed it?
  • Are there other tests like it?
  • You can have all the qualifications and yet still have to take more testing?
  • If you accept the test, pass and get the job. How do you feel about your boss?
  • This is Shelter, what is going on?
  • Has this happened to you?

Grey Areas In Our Lives

Rap music and your place at work. You need to check yourself when you listen to the music that repeats these words above. Yes it is found in American rap music. It will come back to haunt you.

The evidence that this happened is below.

The Recruitment Email Messages

From: LL
Sent: 08 January 2018
To: LW

It has taken me some time to reply as the test was upsetting and I wanted to consultant with someone else about it. In short the test was not acceptable to me.

 

See the instructions attached then the list of words which are acceptable in this test. Care has to be taken in the use of third parties by shelter in their use for hiring. Did TC take this test himself? I know he has to review it so it is acceptable to him. I can not imagine a black woman sending on a test like this.

 

My question to you is, IS this part of the test. Identifying and calling out racism and sexism (and other profanities) under the radar in IT recruitment? Have other candidates called this out? Did they get the same test? Has this been sent to female candidates?

 

I am glad I have seen this which is a test of programming, attention to detail and reaction to unconscious bias which the company geektastic wish to eliminate. How ironic.

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FROM THEIR WEBSITE

 

https://geektastic.com/hirers

 

Remove Unconscious Bias

Deliver diversity within your team with anonymous peer reviews. All reviews are carried out anonymously to remove unconscious bias from the technical assessment phase of your hiring flow. The candidate is not identified to the reviewer and the reviewer is not identified to the candidate.

 

By its very nature unconscious bias is difficult to pick up within the interview processes. Eliminate it by using our on-demand team (or your internal team) who don't know who they are reviewing.

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Now that I have told you this I am wondering what you think and what you will do? Will you let your boss know. Would the boss just say it is one of those things. This test is on a webserver file but it is a test which can be deleted and all records of it erased. People can hide behind privacy and terms/conditions. But I have taken screen shots. Maybe you should ask for a copy of the test. Are there other tests like it? If you have women in your office send it to them and let them give you their views.

 

In short I could not concentrate on the test. I wish you all the best with finding the right person for the role.

 

Thank you.

L

 

From: LW
Sent: 08 January 2018
To: L
Subject: Re: Drupal Developer-
 

Hi L, it’s quite frustrating that you are pulling out at this point in the process and I did feel that you could have, at this point, gotten back to my emails and texts. I have a responsibility to manage my client’s expectations and so it does make me look bad that I’ve had to chase you for an update, I think I’ve been quite helpful and supportive throughout the process and all I’d ask is for is the same in return.

 

You’re a nice guy, no hard feelings.

From: LW
Sent: January 2018
To: L
Subject: Re: Drupal Developer-

I hope you enjoyed the Christmas break, I wanted to get back to you with further details of your interview next week.

 

 When?

14:00pm on Monday 8th January.

Where?

The interview will be at Shelter’s HQ on Old Street, 88 Old Street London EC1V 9HU.

Who?

You will be meeting TC who is the tech team lead.

What?

 

The questions within the interview are as follows (below), I would recommend thinking of specific examples for each and adding as much detail as possible- don’t learn your answers or you’ll sound like a robot- I suggest thinking of relevant examples that you know you can speak in depth about.

 

I would also suggest doing as much research as you can into Shelter, as discussed.

 

This link will be helpful: https://www.thebalance.com/behavioral-job-interviews-2058575

 

.....

 

Can you shoot me an email back to confirm you have received this? I’ll give you a call shortly to go through this.

 

Thanks,

 

LW

From: LW
Sent: 2017
To: L
Subject: Re: Drupal Developer-

Your Skype interview has been confirmed for Thursday 13th December at 10:00am. T will call you on your account, can you confirm your Skpe ID? The interview is with TC who is the head of technology at Shelter.

 

The format will be traditional and you should be prepared to talk about the various tech stacks you’ve worked with, PHP will be most relevant and your technical ability with frontend tools such as JS, ES6, SASS, HTML and any server side experience you may have. As always, I’d recommend speaking about your experiences with specific examples that clearly demonstrate the skills on the job description  

 

It’ll be really important to consider the following:

  • Environment- agile, product development, UX- The team has a product dev model, how would you fit into that?
  • Sector- you will definitely be asked why you want to work for Shelter so do your research- http://england.shelter.org.uk/
  • Tech stack and how it relates to your previous experience

 

I’ll call a little later to explain this in a bit more detail.

 

Thanks,

 

From: LW
Sent: 2017
To: L
Subject: Re: Drupal Developer-

No worries mate, I hope you don’t mind me running prospective jobs past you? Shelter are looking forward to having you in on Monday, I’ll give you a call at some point tomorrow to run through some last minute prep before the weekend.

 

I also have another role that I feel may be of interest to you, it’s with another charity client who is currently significantly growing their tech team- Shelter UK.

 

I’ve attached the JD and will give you a call about it tomorrow. Can you have a look and review before then?

 

Thanks,

 

LW