4 ms·

How does one gain a reputation for being "female-friendly" (or hispanic-firendly, or gay-friendly, or whatever) without going through one of the three steps abo

How does one gain a reputation for being "female-friendly" (or hispanic-firendly, or gay-friendly, or whatever) without going through one of the three steps above? Personal networks are huge in hiring, but you have to have a lot of women working for you before you'll have access to a lot of female personal networks. And given how many companies in SV are scrambling to hire women, you have to work pretty damned hard to get them. If you were running a company in SV and wanted to get the best ROI on your time and money, you'd probably be better off hiring 50 year old straight white men who vote Republican and have been at it since the days of Netscape. Massive market inefficiencies exist in hiring. Zigging where your competitors zag is likely to pay off more than following the trend. Or, just throwing this out there: you could decide what you're really looking for in an employee and hire people who satisfy those criteria and ignore everything else. Perish the thought.

dsp1234 10y ago
Have a public track record (company policy, actual actions) of preemptively dealing with the topics that those groups care about (sexual harassment, glass ceiling, transgender friendly accommodations, etc). I don't think that falls under any of the three items from above, unless you feel like taking those actions, and having those people seek your company out is a form of "get lucky".
- amyjess 10y ago
  So, off the top of my head, largely inspired by the Vox article on how to eliminate the wage gap [0]: - Have strong sexual harassment policies and aggressively enforce them. - Require employees to keep up-to-date documentation on everything they work on so somebody else can jump in and take over their stuff in an absence. - Nobody should ever work more than 8 hours in a day. Even voluntary overtime should be strictly banned (if it's not banned, then people who work overtime voluntarily will look better on performance reviews than people who can only put in 8 hours). - If there's truly an emergency situation where someone has to be called in, those emergencies should be exceedingly rare, should only happen when there is an existential threat to the company, and accompanied by a massive bonus and/or extra vacation days ("hey, I know it's Saturday, but the servers are on fire, and we'll get sued if they're not back up ASAP, so if you come in and fix them now we'll give you the next week off"). If anything actually needs 24/7 attention on the regular, then hire people to work in shifts instead of calling people in on their days off. - Flexible hours. As long as an employee works ~8 hours a day, it doesn't matter what those 8 hours are. They don't even have to be contiguous. If you want to work 11:00-14:00, go home for a few hours, and then come back and work 19:00-22:00, you should be able to do that. - Absences should only count against PTO if you take off at least four hours in a day. If you have to leave two hours early for your kid's doctor's appointment, it won't count against you. (this is actually policy at my employer, and it works very well) - Allow people to work from home whenever they want. Imagine you're a parent, and your kid is stuck at home sick and needs you to stay home and keep an eye on them: you won't have to eat a vacation day to keep an eye on your kid. - Avoid any other hallmarks of brogrammer culture I can't think of right now. Basically you want to create an environment where women, especially mothers, would kill to work at. [0] http://www.vox.com/2016/8/1/12108126/gender-wage-gap-explained-real http://www.vox.com/2016/8/1/12108126/gender-wage-gap-explain...
groby_b 10y ago
> but you have to have a lot of women working for you before you'll have access to a lot of female personal networks. You underestimate how well-networked women are. For most of us, before we take a new job, we extensively inquire through those networks about the company, the team, and the manager. And your reputation spreads - if your company is considered a good environment for women, word travels fast. (If it's a bad one, faster) > you have to work pretty damned hard to get them. Not really. You have to be a place that treats women with respect, is not socially dysfunctional, and doesn't tolerate harassment. That's it. Word will travel. And given SVs culture, that means a rather small set of companies. > you'd probably be better off hiring 50 year old straight white men who vote Republican and have been at it since the days of Netscape In terms of finding people, maybe. In terms of building a team - hell no. Not because any of these attributes are undesirable, but because monoculture is undesirable. (Well, it is for the kind of projects I care about. When it's purely about execution and has a very limited set of customers, it might be less of a problem)
- redthrowaway 10y ago
  >monoculture is undesirable. I agree. I would also gently suggest that the Silicon Valley monoculture is not one of 50 year old Republicans.
  - groby_b 10y ago
    I do not disagree with you. 25 year old white male libertarians from Stanford (or earnest 28 year old hippies) is a more likely description. Merely staying with the example given by the OP. For that matter, I wouldn't want to be in a company of progressive women only, either. Any monoculture is a bad idea. I'm happy to have friends and colleagues who span the spectrum, thankfully. Given the massive downvoting the comment got, that doesn't seem to be a concept that the HN crowd agrees with. I'm not surprised about that, either.
st3v3r 10y ago
"If you were running a company in SV and wanted to get the best ROI on your time and money, you'd probably be better off hiring 50 year old straight white men who vote Republican and have been at it since the days of Netscape." Citation Needed.
- sctb 10y ago
  Let's not get into the habit of using [citation needed] as a generic objection to anything.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    Only if people get into the habit of providing backup for their claims. I feel it is completely warranted, as there really is no evidence whatsoever for their claim.
geofft 10y ago
> you'd probably be better off hiring 50 year old straight white men who vote Republican and have been at it since the days of Netscape. Yeah, but look at where Netscape is now. Why would I trust them? I'm serious—I've worked for a lot of 50-year-old straight white men who wouldn't vote for anyone left of Kerry and have a resume of mediocre but famous companies, and they're genuinely not good at their jobs. Unless their job is making more mediocre but famous companies, of course, which I'm starting to suspect. > Massive market inefficiencies exist in hiring. Zigging where your competitors zag is likely to pay off more than following the trend. I think you're overestimating how many companies are genuinely putting effort into hiring women. Are you getting your data from news articles instead of walking around companies and looking at who's actually employed? The people that are zigging are those who are honest about trying to hire women / minorities instead of just looking for media attention.

dsp1234 10y ago

Have a public track record (company policy, actual actions) of preemptively dealing with the topics that those groups care about (sexual harassment, glass ceiling, transgender friendly accommodations, etc). I don't think that falls under any of the three items from above, unless you feel like taking those actions, and having those people seek your company out is a form of "get lucky".

amyjess 10y ago
So, off the top of my head, largely inspired by the Vox article on how to eliminate the wage gap [0]: - Have strong sexual harassment policies and aggressively enforce them. - Require employees to keep up-to-date documentation on everything they work on so somebody else can jump in and take over their stuff in an absence. - Nobody should ever work more than 8 hours in a day. Even voluntary overtime should be strictly banned (if it's not banned, then people who work overtime voluntarily will look better on performance reviews than people who can only put in 8 hours). - If there's truly an emergency situation where someone has to be called in, those emergencies should be exceedingly rare, should only happen when there is an existential threat to the company, and accompanied by a massive bonus and/or extra vacation days ("hey, I know it's Saturday, but the servers are on fire, and we'll get sued if they're not back up ASAP, so if you come in and fix them now we'll give you the next week off"). If anything actually needs 24/7 attention on the regular, then hire people to work in shifts instead of calling people in on their days off. - Flexible hours. As long as an employee works ~8 hours a day, it doesn't matter what those 8 hours are. They don't even have to be contiguous. If you want to work 11:00-14:00, go home for a few hours, and then come back and work 19:00-22:00, you should be able to do that. - Absences should only count against PTO if you take off at least four hours in a day. If you have to leave two hours early for your kid's doctor's appointment, it won't count against you. (this is actually policy at my employer, and it works very well) - Allow people to work from home whenever they want. Imagine you're a parent, and your kid is stuck at home sick and needs you to stay home and keep an eye on them: you won't have to eat a vacation day to keep an eye on your kid. - Avoid any other hallmarks of brogrammer culture I can't think of right now. Basically you want to create an environment where women, especially mothers, would kill to work at. [0] http://www.vox.com/2016/8/1/12108126/gender-wage-gap-explained-real http://www.vox.com/2016/8/1/12108126/gender-wage-gap-explain...

groby_b 10y ago

> but you have to have a lot of women working for you before you'll have access to a lot of female personal networks. You underestimate how well-networked women are. For most of us, before we take a new job, we extensively inquire through those networks about the company, the team, and the manager. And your reputation spreads - if your company is considered a good environment for women, word travels fast. (If it's a bad one, faster) > you have to work pretty damned hard to get them. Not really. You have to be a place that treats women with respect, is not socially dysfunctional, and doesn't tolerate harassment. That's it. Word will travel. And given SVs culture, that means a rather small set of companies. > you'd probably be better off hiring 50 year old straight white men who vote Republican and have been at it since the days of Netscape In terms of finding people, maybe. In terms of building a team - hell no. Not because any of these attributes are undesirable, but because monoculture is undesirable. (Well, it is for the kind of projects I care about. When it's purely about execution and has a very limited set of customers, it might be less of a problem)

redthrowaway 10y ago
>monoculture is undesirable. I agree. I would also gently suggest that the Silicon Valley monoculture is not one of 50 year old Republicans.
- groby_b 10y ago
  I do not disagree with you. 25 year old white male libertarians from Stanford (or earnest 28 year old hippies) is a more likely description. Merely staying with the example given by the OP. For that matter, I wouldn't want to be in a company of progressive women only, either. Any monoculture is a bad idea. I'm happy to have friends and colleagues who span the spectrum, thankfully. Given the massive downvoting the comment got, that doesn't seem to be a concept that the HN crowd agrees with. I'm not surprised about that, either.

st3v3r 10y ago

"If you were running a company in SV and wanted to get the best ROI on your time and money, you'd probably be better off hiring 50 year old straight white men who vote Republican and have been at it since the days of Netscape." Citation Needed.

sctb 10y ago
Let's not get into the habit of using [citation needed] as a generic objection to anything.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  Only if people get into the habit of providing backup for their claims. I feel it is completely warranted, as there really is no evidence whatsoever for their claim.

geofft 10y ago

> you'd probably be better off hiring 50 year old straight white men who vote Republican and have been at it since the days of Netscape. Yeah, but look at where Netscape is now. Why would I trust them? I'm serious—I've worked for a lot of 50-year-old straight white men who wouldn't vote for anyone left of Kerry and have a resume of mediocre but famous companies, and they're genuinely not good at their jobs. Unless their job is making more mediocre but famous companies, of course, which I'm starting to suspect. > Massive market inefficiencies exist in hiring. Zigging where your competitors zag is likely to pay off more than following the trend. I think you're overestimating how many companies are genuinely putting effort into hiring women. Are you getting your data from news articles instead of walking around companies and looking at who's actually employed? The people that are zigging are those who are honest about trying to hire women / minorities instead of just looking for media attention.