> Companies do not have the resources to make that happen as it would require decades of training, education, therapy, life adjustments... just to get to the same level as some people have coming through the door (including some poor people who were self driven).
Well, then perhaps they'll be missing out on some of the advantages that you've listed as your own selling points - perhaps a stronger sense of entrepreneurship, problem solving, and hardiness?
In any case, I disagree that the burden on businesses would be that significant. I've seen coding bootcamps churn out pretty decent frontend engineers in 3 months. Make it 6 and who knows what a company could do.
Furthermore, I don't believe it is necessarily a company's job to solve, like, illiteracy. That would be the governments' job, and considering a higher literacy would drive a greater GDP (and make a better society), that should be an objective everyone strives for. To do that, we need people that have lived through those situations to find the best way to lift people out of bad situations. To do that, we need their perspective. To get their perspective, we need them working for us... which means we need diversity.
> Well, then perhaps they'll be missing out on some of the advantages that you've listed as your own selling points - perhaps a stronger sense of entrepreneurship, problem solving, and hardiness?
I don't think they miss out on this though. The people from disadvantaged backgrounds that have these traits will have leveraged them throughout their life to get in the door based on merit alone.
> In any case, I disagree that the burden on businesses would be that significant. I've seen coding bootcamps churn out pretty decent frontend engineers in 3 months. Make it 6 and who knows what a company could do.
My experience is the opposite of yours. I've done a lot of hiring, managing and mentoring and I can say without a doubt that businesses do not have the resources to grow people to the extent that you're suggesting and they certainly can't pass on people who already meet the requirements needed for a role in favor of someone who doesn't.
> To do that, we need people that have lived through those situations to find the best way to lift people out of bad situations.
As someone who has lived through these situations I can say that people who are capable and want out of poverty can get out today. If you can code, you can get a job and learning to code is within reach for any smart person with enough drive regardless of how poor they grew up. I couldn't afford a computer growing up and had to write code by hand on paper then type it into our school's 20 year old Apple IIe. Where there's a will there's a way.
>The people from disadvantaged backgrounds that have these traits will have leveraged them throughout their life to get in the door based on merit alone.
Generally speaking, diversity efforts are targeting those that were "missed" by this. That is, the people who life just threw too much at, and slipped through the cracks. "How many Einsteins died hungry in Africa?" is along the lines of what I mean.
> As someone who has lived through these situations I can say that people who are capable and want out of poverty can get out today.
Huh, disagree. I know people that are too ill from addiction or mental illness, but still quite smart. Or, they have a socially debilitating illness that means they have all the tools to crank out incredible code, but the social illness (high anxiety, autism at a level that makes them "uncomfortable to work with") prevents gainful employment, to no real "fault" of their own. When I was a recruiter, some people didn't get hired because they were of vaguely Arabic or Hispanic descent, and some oil and gas company owners were straight racist and simply wouldn't hire, merit be damned.
> I couldn't afford a computer growing up and had to write code by hand on paper then type it into our school's 20 year old Apple IIe. Where there's a will there's a way.
There's kids in America that are too hungry to do this. I've taught some. Smart, but too hungry. Or too sleepy, because of fighting at home.
I want to be perfectly clear - I am not knocking your achievements. I am sure you worked hard and I don't want to devalue that. I want to just highlight that there are people out there working as hard if not harder and yet don't "win," because we have built an unfair society. I don't think that's ok (i.e. the "life aint fair" argument won't hold water with me) and I think there's a lot we can do about it. I think we can increase "capability" to align with the "want" (desire) people have to get out of poverty.
I appreciate your response. I don't agree with all of it (I'm in the 'life ain't fair' camp) but certainly there are people whose latent ability is there but can't be utilized due to one reason or the other. The thing is though, that there's no way a company can correct for that. Let's take addiction as an example. A company most definitely should not be hiring addicts. Getting work done is difficult in the best of situations but having drug addicts as co-workers would make it impossible to succeed. Managing even mentally healthy individuals is a great challenge. I think you're expecting too much from organizations and managers as individuals if you can think they can repair drug addicts, people with mental illness...
Fair. I don't expect companies to manage drug addicts.
But what about ex-drug-addicts? Or convicted felons that have served their time? The government "fixes" the problem and them drops them into society and says "good luck!" (well, it actually doesn't, but for the sake of argument)
I'm saying in cases like this, these people can offer valuable insight due to their circumstances. Perhaps valuable enough to spend a couple extra months on upskilling an ex-felon on, I dunno, product design. You do it, then they turn around and create an educational product for inmates that you can sell to a state penitentiary system for millions, which you do for all 50 states. A silly example, but do you see my point?
I think we've gone way into the weeds here and I'm confusing myself at this point, but I appreciate the dialogue.
I actually practice this more than my argument probably leads on. Coming from an unorthodox background means that I don't really evaluate potential hires based on their school, upbringing... I look solely at ability to do the job. I don't have the liberty of gambling on unqualified people though. I personally would hire an ex-felon if they could demonstrate the ability to code at the level required for a position. That's a pretty personal choice though and I wouldn't fault someone for not being comfortable doing that.
What I won't do is hire someone who's unqualified. I've seen (and passed on) plenty of unqualified people with degrees from high end schools so this cuts both ways.
Well, then perhaps they'll be missing out on some of the advantages that you've listed as your own selling points - perhaps a stronger sense of entrepreneurship, problem solving, and hardiness?
In any case, I disagree that the burden on businesses would be that significant. I've seen coding bootcamps churn out pretty decent frontend engineers in 3 months. Make it 6 and who knows what a company could do.
Furthermore, I don't believe it is necessarily a company's job to solve, like, illiteracy. That would be the governments' job, and considering a higher literacy would drive a greater GDP (and make a better society), that should be an objective everyone strives for. To do that, we need people that have lived through those situations to find the best way to lift people out of bad situations. To do that, we need their perspective. To get their perspective, we need them working for us... which means we need diversity.