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TLDR: >the retailer has managed to attract technical women by recruiting with an eye toward candidates’ potential rather than specific skills >“Even if a fema

TLDR: >the retailer has managed to attract technical women by recruiting with an eye toward candidates’ potential rather than specific skills >“Even if a female candidate doesn’t have all the requirements for a technical job, we want that person to come in and show what they can do,” says Yvette Nichols, the company’s vice president of talent. They hire women without the regular qualifications and are willing to train them on the job, which is refreshing to see. It's a shame they only apply it to female candidates though. >At Sephora, Nida Mitchell, 29, got her chance to grow into a new role when she was promoted from web developer to IT project manager after two years at the company. The new job put her in charge of 14 male engineers, most of whom were at least 10 years her senior. She encountered roadblocks on one of the team’s first big projects, updating Sephora’s computing infrastructure ahead of the chain’s expansion to Brazil. “My first week, I had a one-on-one with my boss and said, ‘No one listens to me,’ ” Ms. Mitchell says. She's concerned that within a single week of being promoted above 14 male engineers that they don't take her seriously when she comparatively has very little technical background (5 months with HTML and CSS) and no management experience (per her linkedin)? The issue here isn't that she's a woman. It's cool that women in tech roles have found a home at Sephora. Something feels a little weird seeing them about bragging about the hiring process being exclusive to women though.

withoutclass 9y ago
Virtue signaling is all the rage. So is targeting equality of outcome over equality of opportunity.
- WaxProlix 9y ago
  Funny, I was just wondering who'd bring up the talking points about virtue signaling, which seem to be all the rage these days.
  - rhcom2 9y ago
    I was just thinking that most people who use the term "virtue signaling" are also "virtue signaling" against other people's "virtue signaling".
- adjkant 9y ago
  Equal opportunity is reflective of the applicant pool given, which can kick the problem down to lower levels. The problem with women in tech is that seeing strong female role models will change the lower levels and society's conceptions, but it seems the only way to change those conceptions is to have them there in the first place. There's plenty of people focused on early education, but I don't know if we're going to see those results for even as much as a decade, and the cultural problems in high school and college are still there too, even if we solve early education. This type of hiring is a positive step, not a perfect one. All that said, it appears this tech team is not apples to apples with the roles of big SV firms it's being compared to, and I fully agree with other posters that other factors (such as the brand itself) are at play here. There are positive lessons to learn here still. These types of policies are similar to affirmative action - they are trying to correct a problem at the symptom, not the source. While correcting the source is more important, and I understand why you have the objection to correcting the symptom, I think the effect is far more positive than negative. I don't expect you to be convinced by this or agree, but I think it's important to have the understanding behind why the policy is not applied uniformly, agreement or not. I think your categorization of "virtue signaling" is inaccurate here.
  - symlinkk 9y ago
    Most nurses are women, maybe we should favor men in the hiring process there? Most garbage collectors and construction workers are men, maybe we should favor women in the hiring process there?
    - dang 9y ago
      There is a never-ending stream of users ready to step up to the plate to post this canard to HN, no matter how many times we've chided their predecessors. It has been repeated a thousand times, never changes, and provokes degraded discussion that also is always the same. That makes it royally off topic here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - adjkant 9y ago
      This is obviously a huge can of worms being opened up here by the topic itself, but to keep it short and general, here are a few considerations, by no means exhaustive: 1. Are there cultural factors and discrimination preventing men from being nurses or women from garbage/construction like there are in tech? 2. Say there should be an aim for other thing X - whichever leads to more equality in power (aka is currently a big inequality of power) should be a focus, yes? Do women have less power because they are not garbage collectors? I think the answer is no. Tech is focused on because of the reasons for the imbalance, and the resulting unjust power imbalance.
- dang 9y ago
  So are generic ideological tangents, which the HN guidelines specifically ask people to avoid here because of their boring and diluting effect on discussion. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and please don't post like this here.
BearGoesChirp 9y ago
>They hire women without the regular qualifications and are willing to train them on the job, which is refreshing to see. It's a shame they only apply it to female candidates though. I'm trying to imagine what would happen if a company decided to do the opposite of this. Hires men on what they might one day do, while hiring women only on what they do right now. How is this not outright sex based discrimination?
- whamlastxmas 9y ago
  It likely is from a legal perspective, but if you pressed them I'm sure they'd respond "Of course we treat all applicants the same". Demonstrating in court that you were discriminated against like this is difficult, and especially when it's a non-minority (some white man).
- adjkant 9y ago
  See my comment below for more, but essentially it is like affirmative action. Simply reversing a constraint in a vacuum removes tons of other contexts. It's not X + Y = Z, there and many more variables at play. This action is trying to balance variables outside of the control of Sephora.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    > This action is trying to balance variables outside of the control of Sephora. But if those variables exist in the applicant pool, they are discriminating against individual people on the basis of sex. It is not for Sephora's (or anyone else's) recruiters to wax philosophical on what they think the statistics should look like for the population at large, when considering a candidate.
    - adjkant 9y ago
      This brings into focus a very nuanced question of discrimination versus unjust discrimination. The affirmative action debate is divided by these lines. I don't think we're going to make progress on that here, but the summary is that people who agree with you believe both discriminations are unjust, while those who disagree see this discrimination as a temporary action that will lead overall to more justice long term. Along with that comes the question of consequentialism versus deontology, and if the consequential balance is accurate to the world. > It is not for Sephora's (or anyone else's) recruiters to wax philosophical on what they think the statistics should look like for the population at large, when considering a candidate. This is not a question of statistics of the population but one of morality. This is what Sephora views as acting ethically. As noted above, not all agree, but that is why they are doing this (assuming they didn't do this for PR, which would be a far stretch, even if this story itself is for PR, which I think is a case of both/and). It is the job of Sephora's recruiters to act within the company's ethics.
matt_wulfeck 9y ago
It’s weird to see them openly proclaim the bar is lower for women. I think the bar should always be openly lower for less-represented demographics, and companies should make sure they provide the resources to train such individuals.
airza 9y ago
I don't know a lot of project managers who have deep technical experience.
- mistermann 9y ago
  Being put in charge of 14 engineers each with 10+ years experience usually requires some experience in something. But then I guess that's literally what the article is about, that Sephora found away over this restrictive approach (moving the restrictions to a different attribute of course, but I digress).
  - whamlastxmas 9y ago
    Looking at her linkedin, it looks like management simply liked her work as a project manager on the tech team or liked her as a person.
rdtsc 9y ago
> It's cool that women in tech roles have found a home at Sephora. Something feels a little weird seeing them about bragging about the hiring process being exclusive to women though It's a fine line I think. I was in charge of recruiting before. Here are some observation and some things I did, some or many probably wrong: * I'd try to bring more women onsite if I could. I justified it as giving them a another opportunity to prove themselves. Was it sexist to do it, I don't know. It maybe have been... The reason I did was that we were not a very diverse company. But I didn't do it to fulfill some generic diversity quota, so we can brag on Facebook about it or anything. It seemed to me that a diverse team would work better. There would be more strengths and perspectives. Same went for foreign candidates or people who are older and simply have more experience. I think it worked, we hired women who were very good, hard working and they met and exceed all the expectations. Aside from us spending a bit more resource on travel and time interviewing they still had to pass all the tests and interview steps. So I don't think we lowered the bar too much there. * I found women were more reluctant to approach companies at college career fairs. Maybe it's sexist to say women are shy, so I might be stepping on some toes here. Sorry if it sounds that way. Not sure what to do there. One needs to be a bit aggressive and pushy in the context of how the interview works. Same applies to asking for raises and salary negotiations. Heck I am shy too. But when push comes to shove, I can at least pretend to be aggressive, but that might be hard for others. * Not related to my personal interviewing experience, but in general, I wonder if women want to work in the tech field. Is it desirable profession at all? I am not so sure. We think this is an awesome career, we get to sit and solve cool problems, with cool technology, but maybe not everyone out there thinks that's so exciting. Programming pays relatively well compared to many professions out there, but again, maybe it's presumptuous to think that everyone out there will put money first above all and will want to maximize that element in their future career. I have the perspective of my wife for example, she really just wanted to be a mom and take care of the household. She graduated with the highest honors, but she's just not excited about being in her field, being at home and raising kids is what she enjoys. And yes, she has gotten criticism and negative remarks from "career" people about her "throwing her schooling and life away".

withoutclass 9y ago

Virtue signaling is all the rage. So is targeting equality of outcome over equality of opportunity.

WaxProlix 9y ago
Funny, I was just wondering who'd bring up the talking points about virtue signaling, which seem to be all the rage these days.
- rhcom2 9y ago
  I was just thinking that most people who use the term "virtue signaling" are also "virtue signaling" against other people's "virtue signaling".
adjkant 9y ago
Equal opportunity is reflective of the applicant pool given, which can kick the problem down to lower levels. The problem with women in tech is that seeing strong female role models will change the lower levels and society's conceptions, but it seems the only way to change those conceptions is to have them there in the first place. There's plenty of people focused on early education, but I don't know if we're going to see those results for even as much as a decade, and the cultural problems in high school and college are still there too, even if we solve early education. This type of hiring is a positive step, not a perfect one. All that said, it appears this tech team is not apples to apples with the roles of big SV firms it's being compared to, and I fully agree with other posters that other factors (such as the brand itself) are at play here. There are positive lessons to learn here still. These types of policies are similar to affirmative action - they are trying to correct a problem at the symptom, not the source. While correcting the source is more important, and I understand why you have the objection to correcting the symptom, I think the effect is far more positive than negative. I don't expect you to be convinced by this or agree, but I think it's important to have the understanding behind why the policy is not applied uniformly, agreement or not. I think your categorization of "virtue signaling" is inaccurate here.
- symlinkk 9y ago
  Most nurses are women, maybe we should favor men in the hiring process there? Most garbage collectors and construction workers are men, maybe we should favor women in the hiring process there?
  - dang 9y ago
    There is a never-ending stream of users ready to step up to the plate to post this canard to HN, no matter how many times we've chided their predecessors. It has been repeated a thousand times, never changes, and provokes degraded discussion that also is always the same. That makes it royally off topic here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - adjkant 9y ago
    This is obviously a huge can of worms being opened up here by the topic itself, but to keep it short and general, here are a few considerations, by no means exhaustive: 1. Are there cultural factors and discrimination preventing men from being nurses or women from garbage/construction like there are in tech? 2. Say there should be an aim for other thing X - whichever leads to more equality in power (aka is currently a big inequality of power) should be a focus, yes? Do women have less power because they are not garbage collectors? I think the answer is no. Tech is focused on because of the reasons for the imbalance, and the resulting unjust power imbalance.
dang 9y ago
So are generic ideological tangents, which the HN guidelines specifically ask people to avoid here because of their boring and diluting effect on discussion. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and please don't post like this here.

BearGoesChirp 9y ago

>They hire women without the regular qualifications and are willing to train them on the job, which is refreshing to see. It's a shame they only apply it to female candidates though. I'm trying to imagine what would happen if a company decided to do the opposite of this. Hires men on what they might one day do, while hiring women only on what they do right now. How is this not outright sex based discrimination?

whamlastxmas 9y ago
It likely is from a legal perspective, but if you pressed them I'm sure they'd respond "Of course we treat all applicants the same". Demonstrating in court that you were discriminated against like this is difficult, and especially when it's a non-minority (some white man).
adjkant 9y ago
See my comment below for more, but essentially it is like affirmative action. Simply reversing a constraint in a vacuum removes tons of other contexts. It's not X + Y = Z, there and many more variables at play. This action is trying to balance variables outside of the control of Sephora.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  > This action is trying to balance variables outside of the control of Sephora. But if those variables exist in the applicant pool, they are discriminating against individual people on the basis of sex. It is not for Sephora's (or anyone else's) recruiters to wax philosophical on what they think the statistics should look like for the population at large, when considering a candidate.
  - adjkant 9y ago
    This brings into focus a very nuanced question of discrimination versus unjust discrimination. The affirmative action debate is divided by these lines. I don't think we're going to make progress on that here, but the summary is that people who agree with you believe both discriminations are unjust, while those who disagree see this discrimination as a temporary action that will lead overall to more justice long term. Along with that comes the question of consequentialism versus deontology, and if the consequential balance is accurate to the world. > It is not for Sephora's (or anyone else's) recruiters to wax philosophical on what they think the statistics should look like for the population at large, when considering a candidate. This is not a question of statistics of the population but one of morality. This is what Sephora views as acting ethically. As noted above, not all agree, but that is why they are doing this (assuming they didn't do this for PR, which would be a far stretch, even if this story itself is for PR, which I think is a case of both/and). It is the job of Sephora's recruiters to act within the company's ethics.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago

It’s weird to see them openly proclaim the bar is lower for women. I think the bar should always be openly lower for less-represented demographics, and companies should make sure they provide the resources to train such individuals.

airza 9y ago

I don't know a lot of project managers who have deep technical experience.

mistermann 9y ago
Being put in charge of 14 engineers each with 10+ years experience usually requires some experience in something. But then I guess that's literally what the article is about, that Sephora found away over this restrictive approach (moving the restrictions to a different attribute of course, but I digress).
- whamlastxmas 9y ago
  Looking at her linkedin, it looks like management simply liked her work as a project manager on the tech team or liked her as a person.

rdtsc 9y ago

> It's cool that women in tech roles have found a home at Sephora. Something feels a little weird seeing them about bragging about the hiring process being exclusive to women though It's a fine line I think. I was in charge of recruiting before. Here are some observation and some things I did, some or many probably wrong: * I'd try to bring more women onsite if I could. I justified it as giving them a another opportunity to prove themselves. Was it sexist to do it, I don't know. It maybe have been... The reason I did was that we were not a very diverse company. But I didn't do it to fulfill some generic diversity quota, so we can brag on Facebook about it or anything. It seemed to me that a diverse team would work better. There would be more strengths and perspectives. Same went for foreign candidates or people who are older and simply have more experience. I think it worked, we hired women who were very good, hard working and they met and exceed all the expectations. Aside from us spending a bit more resource on travel and time interviewing they still had to pass all the tests and interview steps. So I don't think we lowered the bar too much there. * I found women were more reluctant to approach companies at college career fairs. Maybe it's sexist to say women are shy, so I might be stepping on some toes here. Sorry if it sounds that way. Not sure what to do there. One needs to be a bit aggressive and pushy in the context of how the interview works. Same applies to asking for raises and salary negotiations. Heck I am shy too. But when push comes to shove, I can at least pretend to be aggressive, but that might be hard for others. * Not related to my personal interviewing experience, but in general, I wonder if women want to work in the tech field. Is it desirable profession at all? I am not so sure. We think this is an awesome career, we get to sit and solve cool problems, with cool technology, but maybe not everyone out there thinks that's so exciting. Programming pays relatively well compared to many professions out there, but again, maybe it's presumptuous to think that everyone out there will put money first above all and will want to maximize that element in their future career. I have the perspective of my wife for example, she really just wanted to be a mom and take care of the household. She graduated with the highest honors, but she's just not excited about being in her field, being at home and raising kids is what she enjoys. And yes, she has gotten criticism and negative remarks from "career" people about her "throwing her schooling and life away".