DEI Rant
Is it just me or has DEI gotten out of control? It has gotten to the point where white and asian males are underrepresented despite making up the majority of applicants. I support diversity. Nobody wants a homogenous workplace. But at some point this is just racism and sexism against many people who are hard-working and qualified candidates. Quota systems for race, gender, unis, and sexual orientation are trivializing meritocracy. Why are all firms ranging from BBs to HFs so focused on diversity hiring?
What is bad about a homogenous workplace? Be specific.
Are homogenous Norwegian or Japanese companies inherently worse than "diverse" companies?
Should it be a goal not to have homogenous workplaces, and therefore candidates should be given preference for things other than ability?
Your acceptance of "homogeneity = bad" completely negates your criticism of DE&I since it is the exact reason we've allowed DE&I to be shoved down our throats. If we want institutions to hire only based on ability, we have to accept that some will be homogenous (including all black), and that that it is perfectly fine.
Some diversity is good. But seeing analyst classes filled 50 to 60% with DEI is ridiculous unless they really were the most qualified candidates.
Why?
I am not saying diversity is bad. I am questioning why it is inherently good. Is a team of 5 white people and 5 black people inherently better than a team of 10 white people or 10 black people?
If you are accepting that diversity for diversity's sake is somehow good, you've already accepted the DE&I worldview and the rest is a negotiation of how much effectiveness you are willing to trade for diversity before planes start falling out of the sky.
Hire for performance. Ignore everything else.
Had a good laugh lol - good find.
It doesn't matter lets just get money
"Ignore simmering social issues, and just get yours"
Boomer take. That is how we got here in the first place. Ignore ignore ignore, let things trend in a poor direction as long as you are fat and happy- leave it to greater men to solve
I'm 18
These threads from losers bitching about DEI are getting really old. Yeah I dont agree with DEI either given I am part of the most objectively discriminated racial groups but somehow excluded for being a flavor of asian, but we don't need a new thread on it every 5 minutes because you're too stupid to git gud.
Attitude should be no excuses all around.
No excuses for not busting your ass enough to get the gig.
And no excuses for thinking skin color is an appropriate criterion for hiring someone.
Everyone can do better.
You raise an excellent and completely original point! I'm sure if I googled this topic, I would find exactly zero results, because, as aforementioned, you are the first person to ask this question and have this thought, congratulations!
I have a friend who is a CFA charterholder at a large asset management firm. She used to do asset management, but now she is the DEI Chair for the whole company. All her posts on LinkedIn are all about Pride and Diversity. That’s all she does all day now.
Prestige = big companies = public companies. Public companies have incentive to hire a diversity candidate. I’m sure most private companies don’t care about diversity.
The problem isn’t hiring, it has more to do with the way diversity has been defined. Companies are only playing by the rules.
interned at a few firms now but white/asian/indian males still make up the vast majority. Have seen some egregious DEI hires tho
Fascinating- who makes up the vast majority of high GPA finance/accounting/econ majors?
because it makes them feel better about themselves, they don't give a fuck about anything but money (duh)
I'm mixed (black & white) and admittedly I wanted to be an agent of change at my BB. sensing that we were spouting a bunch of self congratulatory bullshit just to feel better without doing things, I decided to jump straight into the belly of the beast and try to do something positive. broaden our horizons with recruiting (e.g. not just looking for kids from Howard, the token black kid who's not poor just happens to be dark) rather than committing reverse segregation. I was able to get resources to local HBCUs, do some community events, I sat on national councils, had the ear of the head of HR, head of DEI, president of my division and on one occasion our CEO.
it's a fucking lost cause and I'm so done with diversity it actually makes me a little upset to write this post. I've trained my mind to be somewhat immune to outside events, and maybe it was me wanting to do what my grandparents did for black people that made me abnormally naive, but it's all bullshit so companies can feel better about themselves.
DEI gets well funded during boom times but it's the first to go during bad times rather than bloated technology systems, marketing people, executive stock grants, and the like. like everything in corporate america, it takes a ridiculously short term view (ok we did this event last month, how many qualified candidates can we count from this effort?) rather than realizing that cultural changes don't happen overnight. to top it all off, diversity is literally an afterthought to people's daily work. it's the only part of corporate america that is talked about as if it's its own division yet becomes responsibility #17 to an already overworked mid level manager, so guess how much attention gets paid to it?
I was part of a national effort to mentor young diverse candidates throughout the process, showing them the ways of the world, trying to help them succeed bc the success rate in PWM for diverse folks is way worse than the already abysmal success rate for the entirety of PWM. it failed miserably. zero organization, zero support from on high, no buy in from various divisions that were all stakeholders in this effort, and worst of all - no genuine excitement even from my fellow black/mixed colleagues. the newbs were all fired up for this and I felt like I was the only one who was actually enthusiastic.
to make matters worse, all of the "networking" that gets done is actually just black people hanging out with other black people, not "diversity" as it's commonly called. and guess what happens at these outings? bitchfests galore, almost ZERO talk about how to make things better, just complaining about the state of things, political issues, or harping on allocation of resources
so take it from someone at one of the largest PWM firms who happens to also be a top BB who worked on diversity from the inside, it's all fucking bullshit
Could you elaborate a bit on why you’d say it’s a “lost cause”?
This probably won’t make you feel particularly better, but I’ll say that if nothing else, at least you can look at yourself in the mirror and say that you made an earnest effort. Based on your post, I’m presuming your goal was targeting those born in working-class families, or even below the poverty line, rather than wealthier folks who happen to tick a particular HR box.
It's a lost cause in the sense that it should be bottom up not top down
Regarding the last point, spot on
I'm not the one who threw MS but want your thoughts-
Do you think there is a financial or performance edge to be gained by a company with diverse teams? ie, does diversity in and of itself lead to higher performance?
If so, what would companies who only care about money ignore (or give zero support and buy-in, as you mention) this performance edge?
If not, should companies pursue diversity at all?
I agree with you that the efforts need to come from the bottom up. Ensure there are no barriers imposed from the top down, but any meaningful, lasting change must come from the bottom up. Corporate or government efforts should be directed at root causes and community investment rather than changing the standards for people who tick a specific box.
I think to your question it's impossible to know ex ante as all of the things that say companies with more diversity perform better is probably a spurious correlation. For example I could say that companies with lower CO2 emissions are better performers but is that just because tech has outperformed and happens to be cleaner or is it something about them being green? Again, probably spurious
that said I'm not saying it shouldn't be pursued I'm just saying the way it's currently being pursued is top down bullshit and it attacks the wrong issue (diversity of color rather than diversity of economic background)
People should've never allowed it in the first place.
Once you normalize reducing people to meaningless characteristics like race and gender, you lose the credibility to later say "OK now this is too much."
The entire concept is dumb and should be scrapped.
I wouldn’t exactly say they’re “meaningless”.
For me they are. For all the talk about how someone’s demographics can bring a diverse perspective, it pales in comparison to the uniqueness of each individual. Even when you compare siblings from the exact same family and circumstances, you see huge personality differences. So to me it’s a joke that we would attempt to use demographics as way to categorize individual performers.
“Diversity” isn’t organic, it’s being forced top-down by major asset managers and internationalist lobbying organizations. They score these companies on “diversity” and it affects how much capital gets allocated to them and therefore their cost of capital. It’s also now being seen with random small towns getting into controversies where they inexplicably paint permanent “trans/pride” flags on crosswalks and so forth. The reason is they’re being assigned a “municipal equality index” score that is affecting their cost of debt capital.
James Lindsay and others have done quality investigative journalism on this.
Identity Marxism would be a damaging enough ideology if it has sprung up organically, but it didn’t. This is being forced on society by rich/powerful crazy people.
No one wants a homogeneous work place says the person ranting about diversity. Private companies can hire whoever they want within the law. I have a difficult time believing that urms represent a high percentage of employees in investment banking or related areas. In fact, a little Google showed that black people represent about 5% of IB jobs. (Hispanics represent about 11% of IB while Whites and Asians represent the rest. White representation has declined a little while Asian representation has increased a little.
Whites an Asians are the new urms at 80%.
What percentage of top GPA Finance/Accounting/Econ majors do black people represent? I would venture to guess something similar.
"Ok ok ok then we need to stop the discrimination in college admissions!!"
Fine- but what percentage of top GPA and extracurricular highschoolers do black people represent? I would venture to guess something similar.
"Ok ok ok then we need to put more money towards schools in minority neighborhoods!!"
That's been tried. Go ahead and try it again. Good luck.
The issue is accountability. Minority communities need family stability, role models, and to take responsibility for things that they are indeed responsible for. All this pearl clutching and placing 100% of the blame on "the system" is detrimental. Nothing will ever change if no one is willing to say that the root causes (unstable family structure, belief that doing well in school is "acting too white") need changing.
You are arguing with facts. The OP prefers alternative facts.
Why can’t companies have head of talent for each group?
- Head of DEI and Pride Talent
- Head of White Hetero Talent
- Head of Asian Talent
- Head of Black Talent
***brain explodes***
Whoever's throwing MS, don't be a coward, give a rebuttal to what I said instead of just flinging poo because you don't like the truth
Marathons are DEI now? whaaaaaa
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