8 ms·

Another male friend of mine, working for a U.S.-based tech startup, told me the following story: They are hiring a backend engineer right now. What applicants

Another male friend of mine, working for a U.S.-based tech startup, told me the following story: They are hiring a backend engineer right now. What applicants don't know: They want to hire a woman. Word came down from on high, that a team of 10 backend engineers being all-male is a situation that's going to end. So they're hiring a woman, doing whatever it takes, as in: (a) making a conscious effort to lower the bar (b) making up a role that they don't even need with a job description that will appeal to women (c) paying high premiums for recruiting channels that will deliver female applicants (d) running the process in such a way that, unbeknownst to applicants due to legal ramifications, all applications by men are dead on arrival.

MichaelGlass 7y ago
Especially in Europe, it's very clear that in tech, there's a huge unfair bias for women. I mean look at the speaker lineups of conferences and management / tech teams of large tech organizations. It's hard to spot a single man among the ranks. https://corporate.zalando.com/sites/default/files/media-download/Zalando-SE_annual_report_2018.pdf https://corporate.zalando.com/sites/default/files/media-down... https://www.curry-on.org/2019/ https://www.curry-on.org/2019/
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- xnHA 7y ago
  It is better in the garbage collection business in Munich. Witness two women in bureaucrat positions and a man actually collecting the garbage: https://www.awm-muenchen.de/ueber-uns/struktur/werkleitung.html https://www.awm-muenchen.de/ueber-uns/struktur/werkleitung.h... This is Europe now.
- doersino 7y ago
  I'm assuming you're being sarcastic, but for anyone who didn't check out the links: Zalando: > On top of this improved focus, we remain committed to increasing female leadership – our target is to have 25% of positions at the first level and 30% at the second level below the Management Board filled by women by 2022 (currently 11% and 16% respectively). Curry On: 2/4 keynote speakers are men, 11/12 invited speakers are men, 29/32 presentations are held by men (as far as I can tell based on names and pictures).
  - the-dude 7y ago
    I assume it is a typo. The comment is inconsistent.
- the-dude 7y ago
  Is there a bias, or might they not be interested in the fields?
  - skocznymroczny 7y ago
    Even if they're not interested in the fields, they're definitely interested in well-paid jobs in air-conditioned offices.
    - the-dude 7y ago
      Are you sure? The impression I get in NL is that women don't particular like to work too much : they favor 32 over 40 hrs. I even overheard a young woman say she went to 24 hrs ( from 32 hrs ), because 'why not?', they could afford it. My impression is women are less ambitious and value quality of life much more than men ( I don't blame them, I try to do as little as possible as well ).
      - redleader9345 7y ago
        Can't one be ambitious about not getting overworked?
        mises 7y ago
        Since when is 40hrs/wk overworked? I work significantly more than that and don't consider myself overworked.
        losvedir 7y ago
        Sure, if one can be lazy about doing recreational activities.
      - silveroriole 7y ago
        My perception is that if a man works less than full time, people think he must be a go-getter who isn’t afraid to ask his boss for it, must be earning a lot already, etc. It’s seen as an enviable position to be in. When women work less than full time they tend to be called “unambitious”.
- krageon 7y ago
  I've been working in the EU for some time, and I have A. Not seen evidence of these policies B. Continued to note an overwhelming majority of my colleagues (90+%) is male. When I go to conferences and look at management/tech teams, I see the opposite of what you are talking about: Very few women (or no women). I would like to know some of these woman-friendly conferences that you go to so I can actually attend, it might be nice.
- roenxi 7y ago
  I assume the sociologists do actually ask a lot more questions and they simply don't filter through to tech boards, but the really interesting ones seem to me to be: * Are average women making a more rational decisions than average men in avoiding these fields? * Is there a difference in how much pain average men and women will tolerate before they leave? Ie, is the average man desperate to achieve a certain type of success, leading to increased competitiveness? I think we all know that leadership positions in STEM companies and academia (and beyond) tend to skew male, the entry level incentives skew female and that females are the target of lots of unwanted male attention. This obviously implies a bias, because half the apt are going to be female. However the efforts to correct this bias don't seem to have done their due diligence to figure out what the cause is; because at the moment the entry level incentives are clearly unfair in and of themselves. Two wrongs don't make Right, they make Very Wrong - it is a bad idea to correct bias by introducing more biases. Also, my experience in the mining industry makes me think that these incentives aren't likely to work because the cause of the bias is not concern about monetary compensation. I'll spare the crowd my personal theories.
  - shawnz 7y ago
    > However the efforts to correct this bias don't seem to have done their due diligence to figure out what the cause is; because at the moment the entry level incentives are clearly unfair in and of themselves. Two wrongs don't make Right, they make Very Wrong - it is a bad idea to correct bias by introducing more biases. What if the cause is due to the existing precedent? Then wouldn't positive discrimination be an effective solution?
batbomb 7y ago
they could always admit their ratios are way off, fire everybody, and create 10 new backend job applications - 5 of which will go to men and 5 to women, so that way their hiring is more fair to both men and women. ... Or the could do it the way they are doing it.
- bin0 7y ago
  The way you're phrasing it, they need to "admit guilt". They are guilty of nothing. First of all, what kind of heartless jerk fires every one to win PC points? That's a really bad practice, not fair to your employees, and I certainly wouldn't want to work for a company who did that. Clearly, there are problems finding women. There are fewer women; that means it is not possible to have 50/50 across the board. He just said that they are lowering the bar. What are they doing about hiring that is unfair? Probably nothing, if they have to hire less-qualified women or a more-qualified man. There are fewer women in tech. Why is immaterial to the current discussion. For better or for worse, that's where we are. If you want my two cents, I think part of it is risk. I worked in a start-up for a few years (not in the valley), and there was one female developer in a company of thirty. Why? I think men (especially young ones) are more willing to pick up and move for a high risk/high reward opportunity. But all that aside, seriously, who actually advocates firing every one so you can have a nice press release? Would you want to lose your job to give some random woman one?
  - batbomb 7y ago
    > not fair to your employees Certainly it's not fair to the employees. Certainly they probably didn't expect to get 10 men and 0 women in their current makeup. There may be no intentional guilt, but it's also not possible to know how they ended up with the makeup they have, 10 to 0, though it was probably incremental and without reflection on the makeup of the team along the way. Assuredly it probably wasn't malicious, but it's also like the people doing the hiring didn't reflect along the way - "hey, we've got 9 engineers and we need 10 and we are going to hire _another_ man for this role". It's clear they (in this case the company) want to fix this in some way, as instructions "from on high" came down. Again company may or may not know how they got there. The company may also be failing to attract clients who want to vote with their dollars for a diverse company - so there could be a valid business case for this. Or not, maybe they just don't want a company with all dudes. The original post was pointing out an unfair hiring practice due to this policy. I'm pointing out there is an alternative equitable hiring practice which actually leads to a fairer hiring practice for men and doesn't necessarily involve affirmative action, but that involves starting from scratch again (nobody said you'd necessarily lose your job - they could also easily make those positions available). Obviously this is not a tenable thought experiment, especially in academia thanks to tenure, so that's why we have these systems which, on the surface, may appear to discriminate against men. That said, many people interview for their current jobs in corporate restructurings all the time. That's probably not fair either, but it's accepted practice in the US.

MichaelGlass 7y ago

Especially in Europe, it's very clear that in tech, there's a huge unfair bias for women. I mean look at the speaker lineups of conferences and management / tech teams of large tech organizations. It's hard to spot a single man among the ranks. https://corporate.zalando.com/sites/default/files/media-download/Zalando-SE_annual_report_2018.pdf https://corporate.zalando.com/sites/default/files/media-down... https://www.curry-on.org/2019/ https://www.curry-on.org/2019/

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
xnHA 7y ago
It is better in the garbage collection business in Munich. Witness two women in bureaucrat positions and a man actually collecting the garbage: https://www.awm-muenchen.de/ueber-uns/struktur/werkleitung.html https://www.awm-muenchen.de/ueber-uns/struktur/werkleitung.h... This is Europe now.
doersino 7y ago
I'm assuming you're being sarcastic, but for anyone who didn't check out the links: Zalando: > On top of this improved focus, we remain committed to increasing female leadership – our target is to have 25% of positions at the first level and 30% at the second level below the Management Board filled by women by 2022 (currently 11% and 16% respectively). Curry On: 2/4 keynote speakers are men, 11/12 invited speakers are men, 29/32 presentations are held by men (as far as I can tell based on names and pictures).
- the-dude 7y ago
  I assume it is a typo. The comment is inconsistent.
the-dude 7y ago
Is there a bias, or might they not be interested in the fields?
- skocznymroczny 7y ago
  Even if they're not interested in the fields, they're definitely interested in well-paid jobs in air-conditioned offices.
  - the-dude 7y ago
    Are you sure? The impression I get in NL is that women don't particular like to work too much : they favor 32 over 40 hrs. I even overheard a young woman say she went to 24 hrs ( from 32 hrs ), because 'why not?', they could afford it. My impression is women are less ambitious and value quality of life much more than men ( I don't blame them, I try to do as little as possible as well ).
    - redleader9345 7y ago
      Can't one be ambitious about not getting overworked?
      - mises 7y ago
        Since when is 40hrs/wk overworked? I work significantly more than that and don't consider myself overworked.
      - losvedir 7y ago
        Sure, if one can be lazy about doing recreational activities.
    - silveroriole 7y ago
      My perception is that if a man works less than full time, people think he must be a go-getter who isn’t afraid to ask his boss for it, must be earning a lot already, etc. It’s seen as an enviable position to be in. When women work less than full time they tend to be called “unambitious”.
krageon 7y ago
I've been working in the EU for some time, and I have A. Not seen evidence of these policies B. Continued to note an overwhelming majority of my colleagues (90+%) is male. When I go to conferences and look at management/tech teams, I see the opposite of what you are talking about: Very few women (or no women). I would like to know some of these woman-friendly conferences that you go to so I can actually attend, it might be nice.
roenxi 7y ago
I assume the sociologists do actually ask a lot more questions and they simply don't filter through to tech boards, but the really interesting ones seem to me to be: * Are average women making a more rational decisions than average men in avoiding these fields? * Is there a difference in how much pain average men and women will tolerate before they leave? Ie, is the average man desperate to achieve a certain type of success, leading to increased competitiveness? I think we all know that leadership positions in STEM companies and academia (and beyond) tend to skew male, the entry level incentives skew female and that females are the target of lots of unwanted male attention. This obviously implies a bias, because half the apt are going to be female. However the efforts to correct this bias don't seem to have done their due diligence to figure out what the cause is; because at the moment the entry level incentives are clearly unfair in and of themselves. Two wrongs don't make Right, they make Very Wrong - it is a bad idea to correct bias by introducing more biases. Also, my experience in the mining industry makes me think that these incentives aren't likely to work because the cause of the bias is not concern about monetary compensation. I'll spare the crowd my personal theories.
- shawnz 7y ago
  > However the efforts to correct this bias don't seem to have done their due diligence to figure out what the cause is; because at the moment the entry level incentives are clearly unfair in and of themselves. Two wrongs don't make Right, they make Very Wrong - it is a bad idea to correct bias by introducing more biases. What if the cause is due to the existing precedent? Then wouldn't positive discrimination be an effective solution?

batbomb 7y ago

they could always admit their ratios are way off, fire everybody, and create 10 new backend job applications - 5 of which will go to men and 5 to women, so that way their hiring is more fair to both men and women. ... Or the could do it the way they are doing it.

bin0 7y ago
The way you're phrasing it, they need to "admit guilt". They are guilty of nothing. First of all, what kind of heartless jerk fires every one to win PC points? That's a really bad practice, not fair to your employees, and I certainly wouldn't want to work for a company who did that. Clearly, there are problems finding women. There are fewer women; that means it is not possible to have 50/50 across the board. He just said that they are lowering the bar. What are they doing about hiring that is unfair? Probably nothing, if they have to hire less-qualified women or a more-qualified man. There are fewer women in tech. Why is immaterial to the current discussion. For better or for worse, that's where we are. If you want my two cents, I think part of it is risk. I worked in a start-up for a few years (not in the valley), and there was one female developer in a company of thirty. Why? I think men (especially young ones) are more willing to pick up and move for a high risk/high reward opportunity. But all that aside, seriously, who actually advocates firing every one so you can have a nice press release? Would you want to lose your job to give some random woman one?
- batbomb 7y ago
  > not fair to your employees Certainly it's not fair to the employees. Certainly they probably didn't expect to get 10 men and 0 women in their current makeup. There may be no intentional guilt, but it's also not possible to know how they ended up with the makeup they have, 10 to 0, though it was probably incremental and without reflection on the makeup of the team along the way. Assuredly it probably wasn't malicious, but it's also like the people doing the hiring didn't reflect along the way - "hey, we've got 9 engineers and we need 10 and we are going to hire _another_ man for this role". It's clear they (in this case the company) want to fix this in some way, as instructions "from on high" came down. Again company may or may not know how they got there. The company may also be failing to attract clients who want to vote with their dollars for a diverse company - so there could be a valid business case for this. Or not, maybe they just don't want a company with all dudes. The original post was pointing out an unfair hiring practice due to this policy. I'm pointing out there is an alternative equitable hiring practice which actually leads to a fairer hiring practice for men and doesn't necessarily involve affirmative action, but that involves starting from scratch again (nobody said you'd necessarily lose your job - they could also easily make those positions available). Obviously this is not a tenable thought experiment, especially in academia thanks to tenure, so that's why we have these systems which, on the surface, may appear to discriminate against men. That said, many people interview for their current jobs in corporate restructurings all the time. That's probably not fair either, but it's accepted practice in the US.