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I mean, being qualified is never the only piece of the "getting hired" puzzle, right? You want someone who fits well in your team, is generally interesting, is
by mlent 14y ago
I mean, being qualified is never the only piece of the "getting hired" puzzle, right? You want someone who fits well in your team, is generally interesting, is eager to learn, and possibly fills some other niche that you feel your team is missing. I think it's a fair question to ask, "Will this person provide a unique perspective within our team?"
It seems simply that Etsy is trying to fill a female niche and add female perspective. It's not like they're hiring random ladies off the street, their hires have gone to hacker school and are clearly capable given the opportunity. Software isn't written is silos where you don't talk to other people about what/how/why you are going what you're doing.
- randomdata 14y agoYou definitely right that being the overall best is more complicated than being the best at one specific thing. However, doesn't the idea of "female perspective" reintroduce the exact same gender bias issues? If you can justify hiring for "female perspective", what about the companies who only want "male perspective"?
- mlent 14y agoI don't think Etsy is acting as though they want only the female perspective, just more of it than what they have. I'm sure there are other areas where they are trying to get more male perspective (e.g. at small liberal arts colleges, to a degree). Etsy is obviously not starting to hire only women or even mostly women.
- randomdata 14y agoTeaching is an industry that openly seeks male perspective, but I'm not sure that is right either. Why can't men just reach the level of being the obvious choice for the job, without even needing to consider gender?
- mlent 14y agoI think, as the article alludes to, men and women are less likely to consider certain careers/colleges/whatever. So if you ignored gender at a liberal arts school and blindly selected candidates, and the ratio was as skewed towards women as the tech industry is towards men, do you think men would be as comfortable there? Having a gender balance (as well as a balance on other axes that include more minorities) is good for everyone. Maybe that overall environment is better than an environment full of mega left-wing lady commies, or, in the case of tech, "hotshot" male engineers with poor social graces. These are all generalizations, obviously, but I think it's true to the overarching trend.