There is a strange nearly perfect analogy with the dysfunctional problem of hiring "good programmers". Complete with expensive and time consuming rituals, unrealistic requirements vs the actual job, blind faith in technological silver bullets to improve the process, and elaborate psychological rationalization houses of cards all of which make little rational sense from an external viewpoint.
Some of the similarities are insane, like the laser like focus on demographic membership, first impressions, ageism, all the way down to stereotypical trivialities like wailing "there's no good ones left out there" despite obviously living in a sea full of fish.
I'm not sure if its baked into the cake because of something as simple and obvious as the rather extreme gender ratios in HR and Programming bleeding thru into the business processes, or both rituals come from the same larger culture so naturally human selection processes would be similar, or of there's a third more elaborate, probably more interesting, explanation.
> Some of the similarities are insane, like the laser like focus on demographic membership, first impressions, ageism
I don't think demographic membership and age are invalid criteria when trying to find someone to marry and raise children with. Different demographics have different cultures, and different cultures have different ideals of what is good and bad, how to raise children &c. Age is rather pertinent if one wishes to have children. Even if one wishes to marry and not have children, culture fit is pretty important (and age determines a heck of a lot about culture!).
> wailing "there's no good ones left out there" despite obviously living in a sea full of fish.
In both dating & hiring, the issue is not so much that there are no good options, but that sieving the wheat from the chaff is incredibly difficult. In both cases, so far as I can tell, it's an unsolved problem (or possibly it's solved but we don't like the solutions: I've not quite made up my mind).
Some of the similarities are insane, like the laser like focus on demographic membership, first impressions, ageism, all the way down to stereotypical trivialities like wailing "there's no good ones left out there" despite obviously living in a sea full of fish.
I'm not sure if its baked into the cake because of something as simple and obvious as the rather extreme gender ratios in HR and Programming bleeding thru into the business processes, or both rituals come from the same larger culture so naturally human selection processes would be similar, or of there's a third more elaborate, probably more interesting, explanation.