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> Our ultimate goal is to have the best people here, doing their best work. Yet you have to tailor your ad language so more women apply because they get scared

• nilkn 9y ago
  I do worry that this is deeply circular logic. Words like "challenging" are considered strongly masculine by the Gender Decoder they linked to. I don't see how calling that word masculine is doing anything other than entrenching gender stereotypes even further.
  • Techonomicon 9y ago
    I'll take a company trying to be cognizant of such things, and over adjusting, over not at all. I think it's great that Circle is trying to do their part in being as inclusive-minded as the can be from the research they've collected. If at the end of the day that is somewhat misguided, I'm sure they'll readjust, given that they have already proven they will, where many others have either explicitly not cared, or never even thought to.
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  • ModernMech 9y ago
    I think you're right about treating language this way can further entrench those stereotypes. But I think if we want to change that, we do have to recognize that people respond differently to different language, and adjust our messaging accordingly. Then maybe some of the damage can be undone.
    • AboutTheWhisles 9y ago
      Or, they could just make sure to figure out what they really want and say that directly, instead of having a bag of positive attributes they like then picking the ones that give the right amount of a certain demographic that they want to hire.
      • ModernMech 9y ago
        There are multiple ways to say the same thing. Why do you think they aren't saying what they want directly if they aren't using language that deters women?
  • chmln 9y ago
    And what if feminine-coded job descriptions are a turn-off for men of under-represented backgrounds? Or non gender binary persons? By trying this hard to become "inclusive" for women they are potentially discriminating against others.
• lghh 9y ago
  Maybe at the beginning? I'm not sure I see a problem.
• ictoan 9y ago
  Did you read the full article? Or are you cherry-picking to tailor your criticism? > Studies have shown that that women are less likely to respond to an ad that has overly masculine or aggressive language (despite being qualified), whereas men will apply regardless. Having a job description more gender friendly encourages more women to apply and men will apply regardless. You should read the article liked to this article - https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless... Women apply to jobs only if they are 100% qualified whereas men doesn't get deterred by lack of qualification.
  • alehul 9y ago
    Won't less aggressive language result in more applications from those who are less than 100% qualified, whether male or female? I don't see where the article shows that men will apply at the same rate regardless of aggressive language.
    • paxys 9y ago
      What's wrong with having more applications from less qualified candidates? The point of the interview process is to filter them out. The goal of having inclusive language is to encourage qualified candidates, who otherwise wouldn't have, to apply.
      • alehul 9y ago
        As cited in the study, a common reason to not apply if under-qualified is 'to avoid wasting the time of the interviewer', and I think this is a likely reason. The trade-off of less aggressive language resulting in both more applicants but also a higher percentage of under-qualified applicants will eventually reach some inflection point where it becomes unproductive, as you're almost certain to already have a well-qualified fit in the batch of interviewees.
        • ictoan 9y ago
          Men apply if they are 60% qualified and most women apply if they feel they are 100% qualified. Making the application description more female-friendly does not bring more under-qualified candidates. It brings those who doesn't feel as confident in their own ability but ARE qualified. What you miss here is that men are often overconfident and women are under-confident. It has nothing to do with qualification. It has everything to do with confidence. And yes, women are often less confident because tech is an industry often marketed for men.
• deleted 9y ago
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