If I understand what you are saying, we can look at the results of an interview test and say, “this test has few or no false-positives,” meaning that everyone who passes the test is competent.

But the way that the industry is set up, we have very little knowledge of whether the test produces false negatives, meaning we don’t know how many of the people who failed the test turn out to be successful or even spectacular somewhere else.

> The fact that Fog Creek has 0% gender diversity is evidence of this

No it's not. Do the math - at the rate of women in the application pool, and the total number of devs Fog Creek has ever hired, it would actually be fairly surprising if they'd ever hired a woman. The internship program, on the other hand (larger sample size) runs at more or less the expected rate, if memory serves.

This seems to make it pretty clear that the applicant pool is the problem, no?

When I applied at Fog Creek, I asked about diversity in the workplace and got what I considered to be a hasty, defensive, almost-canned response.

Prior to their jarring, incongruous answer, I was worried I was not good enough at software development to get the job. Afterward, I suspected it was just another "cultural fit" thing. They did use videoconferencing in the interview process, if I recall correctly. I thought at the time that maybe age discrimination could have been a factor, or regionalism.

Of course, Fog Creek, just like everyone else I have ever interviewed with, declined to give any sort of meaningful feedback afterward. "No, you were great, really; we just didn't pick you. No, we won't say why."

Not knowing any of the real reasons why I didn't make the cut, I am free to imagine any stupid, bogus reason that I can rationalize to myself. The only reason I would really accept with finality, in a way that wouldn't diminish my image of the company, is "we don't think your software skills are good enough to work here." But they very carefully implied that was not the reason. So my image of the company is diminished.

And a lengthy and arduous screening process only makes it more frustrating when the company won't provide any useful feedback.

I guess that sword swings both ways. They also don't know why they don't get more female applicants. I must admit feeling a little schadenfreude over that. It's mean and petty, of course, but I still feel it.

How about "Your software skills were great, but so-and-so's were better"? Of course, not knowing you and not working at Fog Creek, there's no way to know if that was the actual reason or not - but I would think it would be an acceptable reason.

Something I've realized since ending up on the hiring side of things is that there's a bit of a mismatch between how candidates and companies see the hiring process. As a candidate applying for jobs, I used to think I was applying to "the company" as an entity, and I was either good enough or I wasn't. The company, however, sees its candidates as applying for a specific position - like college admissions, there may be more qualified applicants than spots the budget allows for - especially at a place like Fog Creek.

(And, anecdotally, I am female and many years ago applied to Fog Creek for an internship. I didn't get it, but I enjoyed the interview process - it was one of the more interesting and challenging technical interviews I've done.)

I have heard that before, actually. It doesn't help if they won't tell you who they hired, and why they were better. The fact that they picked someone "better" is obvious if they picked someone at all, and it wasn't you.

Also, when I hear that particular line, I follow up with "I'm glad you were able to find someone you like. Will you keep me in mind the next time you're hiring?" If I get a response at all, it is something noncommittal, like "We keep all applications for a minimum of six months."

Perhaps companies should not focus so narrowly on the current position. I have applied multiple times to the same companies for different positions, provided my experience with them remains positive.

But if, for instance, a company like SAIC schedules an interview with me on a military base, sends an escort to the gate to bring me to the work site, and only then tells me that no one is available to interview me that day, because the supervisors are all halfway across the country, that company lands itself on my blacklist. Later experiences with employees of that company moved them to my permanent, public blacklist. Not only will I not apply for any of their positions, but if they appeared on my doorstep with an offer letter in hand, I'd order them off the property. And I would recommend that everyone else do the same, for both SAIC and for spinoff spawn Leidos. They are the sole reason why I ask "Who's the prime contractor?" whenever I interview with a contracting company.

When you create an energy potential by posting an opening, candidate-anticandidate pairs don't pop into existence to interview with you and then self-annihilate after you reject them. Actual, persistent people stick around, remember how you treated them, and talk to each other about their experiences. They stay in the industry, and may one day be customers or competitors.

As it happens, Fog Creek is not on my blacklist, either temporarily or permanently. But I do feel like their interview process would be a waste of my time if I had to endure it again from the beginning, and I don't expect them to ever pick me up again from where we left off. So I ignore their job postings now. It won't hurt them any, because they get plenty of candidates anyway.

But it doesn't surprise me at all that anyone who doesn't believe that they are good enough to top the 99 other people all applying for the same position wouldn't bother investing all that energy to compete, especially when that won't help them in their search if they fail. With no feedback, no referrals, and no helpful suggestions, it really is a lot of effort for a high probability of no reward whatsoever.

There may be something embedded in our tribal caveman brains that makes high-risk behaviors more attractive to men than to women. If so, Fog Creek might be able to attract more female applicants just by guaranteeing something of value at the end of the interview process, regardless of whether the candidate is selected for the next round.