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I'm glad the "rigorous testing process" was mentioned. The facade of "we only hire superninja-kickass-hyperexperts and we will verify that you are such a progra

I'm glad the "rigorous testing process" was mentioned. The facade of "we only hire superninja-kickass-hyperexperts and we will verify that you are such a programmer before we hire you" attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. But the article seems to glide past that and presents the idea that five years of experience might change someone's willingness to apply. And it probably will help, but that amount of experience is unlikely to change someone's basic perception of their ability to succeed in a high-stakes one-chance prove-yourself situation.

tghw 12y ago
It doesn't draw the connection directly, but part of the training program deals with technical interviews and getting the fellows more practice, and hopefully more comfort, with them. My guess is that once people have been through some mock interviews, the intimidation factor goes down quite a bit.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mason240 12y ago
>attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. This is classic horseshoe theory, where extremists on both ends of a spectrum actually wrap around and start to sound the same. In this case they both believe that women are delicate flowers who can't handle the pressure, stress, and competition of the working world like men can.
- cauterized 12y ago
  There's a difference between "lower self-confidence" and "can't handle pressure, stress, and competition". It's also possible that even women who have high self confidence in their abilities are less confident that they will be judged positively by others. There's plenty of research to the effect that men will apply to a job if they meet 40% of the listed requirements, whereas women won't until they meet 90%. And when you don't meet someone's default expectations of what kind of person a "software developer" (or a "nurse" or a "CEO") is, you often have to work harder to prove that you are one. But also, why does the working world have to be competitive rather than collaborative?
  - mason240 12y ago
    I'm not saying that working world has to be competitive rather than collaborative. The OP is talking situations that are presented as being competitive.
    - cauterized 12y ago
      To me at least, what's intimidating about applying for a job described as Fog Creek's are isn't that they're competitive -- they don't say "you'll be in a knock-down drag-out competition to beat 100 other candidates". It's that the criteria for acceptance are high -- only those who have an extremely high opinion of their own abilities will consider themselves likely not only to meet those criteria but to be judged by others as meeting those criteria. And many people who are very capable are unlikely to judge themselves so favorably. Women in particular are socialized to underrate our own abilities and conditioned to expect our abilities to be underrated by others, especially in STEM fields.
api 12y ago
"And it may be that it intimidates more women than men." I've been looking around for a developer recently, and in looking at the profiles of women vs. men at places like AngelList I noticed a few key differences in how they described themselves. We're talking about people with very similar academic backgrounds here with similar levels of experience. Women would say things like "I worked on a team that did X," while men -- who obviously did the same kind of work -- would simply say "I did X." Women would highlight the cooperative nature of their work, while men would give the impression that they did it all themselves. In my experience the former is typically more honest, especially if you actually were working on a team or on a team-oriented college project. Women also tend to highlight team-oriented and non-technical skills more than men in general, which to techie-minded hacker types gives the impression that they are not strong on the technical end. I also noted my reaction to these differences. Introspecting, I noticed that I tended to assume that "being on a team" meant riding the coattails of the other team members. If I noted this bias in myself, it's probably pretty common. I decided to try to de-program myself of this bias by thinking of all the counter-examples I've seen. I do believe in the "10X programmer" -- for the simple reason that there are 10X everything elses. There are 10X athletes, 10X businesspeople/salespeople, 10X artists, 10X anythings. When we look for employees or contractors we are looking for that 10X standout, or at least someone who's going to grow into one. But being really good at something is not mutually exclusive with working on a team or highlighting non-technical skills, and the inverse is also not correlated. I've met plenty of monomaniacal "closet programmers" who really aren't any good. They sit alone stewing in their huge egos and churn out crap. (But then again I've met some who are. There does not seem to be a strong correlation.) There's probably quite a few really talented female programmers out there who are being passed over because they don't conform to the "whip it out and let me measure it" customs of technical recruitment. I also suspect that this does drive women from the field.
- picks_at_nits 12y ago
  > " Women would highlight the cooperative nature of their work, while men would highlight that they did it all themselves. In my experience the latter is typically more honest, especially if you actually were working on a team or on a team-oriented college project. Did you mean to say the former was more honest, i.e. that saying “we did X” is more honest than “I did X?"
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ashray 12y ago
We (www.gapjumpers.me) are trying to solve the gender diversity issue in tech by using blind auditions as a first filter. Our data shows that blind auditions result in greater diversity numbers. By using a technical challenge as the first step and fast forwarding people to an advanced interview stage, we're eliminating candidate reluctance and increasing transparency (the candidate interacts directly with the hiring manager through our platform). In our experience, telling the candidate "Show us your skills, impress us, and you'll get an interview" is better than "Tune up your resume to pass every possible filter". Showing your skills early on also removes a lot of stress from the candidate and gives you something solid to talk about during the interview. Edit:Our homepage shows some numbers and case studies are available on request: http://www.gapjumpers.me/#genderResults http://www.gapjumpers.me/#genderResults
- Kalium 12y ago
  Do you have any numbers you can share? Do your results look significantly different from the background population?
  - petar23GJ 12y ago
    Hi Kalium, for numbers, please have a look here at what our data is showing to date: www.gapjumpers.me/#genderResults
    - Kalium 12y ago
      Uhm. I was hoping for something much more comprehensible and comprehensive than a series of blurbs and unlabeled pie charts. A statistical comparison of your cohort compared to the background population and relative performance is what interests me. I want to know how your program does compared to a hypothetical ideal gender-bias-free hiring system. If what you present there is truly all that your data shows, I have some grave concerns about your company.
- brighteyes 12y ago
  I wonder if you could also make the matching part of the process blind as well? That is, the article mentions that women might be less likely to apply to places like Fog Creek - but if you matched applicants to employers blindly both ways (blindly to them, of course, you the matcher would not be blind), so the applicants didn't know who they were interviewing for during the interview? Then developers with lower self-esteem but great skills might end up interviewing for high-end places, and not even be stressed during the interview, because they don't know who it's with.
dreamweapon 12y ago
I'm glad the "rigorous testing process" was mentioned. The facade of "we only hire superninja-kickass-hyperexperts and we will verify that you are such a programmer before we hire you" attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. Yup. And I've always suspect that this cant was ultimately something of a foil, and that the actual messages it's intended to send are of a rather different sort. To wit: Internal: Hoo-ray for you! You made it through the gauntlet! Aren't you just swell and awesome! External: You know you have to invest in us / buy our products because we only hire the top 0.001 percent! And we have a rigorously testing process (as verified by the magic of survivorship bias) to prove it!

tghw 12y ago

It doesn't draw the connection directly, but part of the training program deals with technical interviews and getting the fellows more practice, and hopefully more comfort, with them. My guess is that once people have been through some mock interviews, the intimidation factor goes down quite a bit.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

mason240 12y ago

>attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. And it may be that it intimidates more women than men. This is classic horseshoe theory, where extremists on both ends of a spectrum actually wrap around and start to sound the same. In this case they both believe that women are delicate flowers who can't handle the pressure, stress, and competition of the working world like men can.

cauterized 12y ago
There's a difference between "lower self-confidence" and "can't handle pressure, stress, and competition". It's also possible that even women who have high self confidence in their abilities are less confident that they will be judged positively by others. There's plenty of research to the effect that men will apply to a job if they meet 40% of the listed requirements, whereas women won't until they meet 90%. And when you don't meet someone's default expectations of what kind of person a "software developer" (or a "nurse" or a "CEO") is, you often have to work harder to prove that you are one. But also, why does the working world have to be competitive rather than collaborative?
- mason240 12y ago
  I'm not saying that working world has to be competitive rather than collaborative. The OP is talking situations that are presented as being competitive.
  - cauterized 12y ago
    To me at least, what's intimidating about applying for a job described as Fog Creek's are isn't that they're competitive -- they don't say "you'll be in a knock-down drag-out competition to beat 100 other candidates". It's that the criteria for acceptance are high -- only those who have an extremely high opinion of their own abilities will consider themselves likely not only to meet those criteria but to be judged by others as meeting those criteria. And many people who are very capable are unlikely to judge themselves so favorably. Women in particular are socialized to underrate our own abilities and conditioned to expect our abilities to be underrated by others, especially in STEM fields.

api 12y ago

"And it may be that it intimidates more women than men." I've been looking around for a developer recently, and in looking at the profiles of women vs. men at places like AngelList I noticed a few key differences in how they described themselves. We're talking about people with very similar academic backgrounds here with similar levels of experience. Women would say things like "I worked on a team that did X," while men -- who obviously did the same kind of work -- would simply say "I did X." Women would highlight the cooperative nature of their work, while men would give the impression that they did it all themselves. In my experience the former is typically more honest, especially if you actually were working on a team or on a team-oriented college project. Women also tend to highlight team-oriented and non-technical skills more than men in general, which to techie-minded hacker types gives the impression that they are not strong on the technical end. I also noted my reaction to these differences. Introspecting, I noticed that I tended to assume that "being on a team" meant riding the coattails of the other team members. If I noted this bias in myself, it's probably pretty common. I decided to try to de-program myself of this bias by thinking of all the counter-examples I've seen. I do believe in the "10X programmer" -- for the simple reason that there are 10X everything elses. There are 10X athletes, 10X businesspeople/salespeople, 10X artists, 10X anythings. When we look for employees or contractors we are looking for that 10X standout, or at least someone who's going to grow into one. But being really good at something is not mutually exclusive with working on a team or highlighting non-technical skills, and the inverse is also not correlated. I've met plenty of monomaniacal "closet programmers" who really aren't any good. They sit alone stewing in their huge egos and churn out crap. (But then again I've met some who are. There does not seem to be a strong correlation.) There's probably quite a few really talented female programmers out there who are being passed over because they don't conform to the "whip it out and let me measure it" customs of technical recruitment. I also suspect that this does drive women from the field.

picks_at_nits 12y ago
> " Women would highlight the cooperative nature of their work, while men would highlight that they did it all themselves. In my experience the latter is typically more honest, especially if you actually were working on a team or on a team-oriented college project. Did you mean to say the former was more honest, i.e. that saying “we did X” is more honest than “I did X?"

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

ashray 12y ago

We (www.gapjumpers.me) are trying to solve the gender diversity issue in tech by using blind auditions as a first filter. Our data shows that blind auditions result in greater diversity numbers. By using a technical challenge as the first step and fast forwarding people to an advanced interview stage, we're eliminating candidate reluctance and increasing transparency (the candidate interacts directly with the hiring manager through our platform). In our experience, telling the candidate "Show us your skills, impress us, and you'll get an interview" is better than "Tune up your resume to pass every possible filter". Showing your skills early on also removes a lot of stress from the candidate and gives you something solid to talk about during the interview. Edit:Our homepage shows some numbers and case studies are available on request: http://www.gapjumpers.me/#genderResults http://www.gapjumpers.me/#genderResults

Kalium 12y ago
Do you have any numbers you can share? Do your results look significantly different from the background population?
- petar23GJ 12y ago
  Hi Kalium, for numbers, please have a look here at what our data is showing to date: www.gapjumpers.me/#genderResults
  - Kalium 12y ago
    Uhm. I was hoping for something much more comprehensible and comprehensive than a series of blurbs and unlabeled pie charts. A statistical comparison of your cohort compared to the background population and relative performance is what interests me. I want to know how your program does compared to a hypothetical ideal gender-bias-free hiring system. If what you present there is truly all that your data shows, I have some grave concerns about your company.
brighteyes 12y ago
I wonder if you could also make the matching part of the process blind as well? That is, the article mentions that women might be less likely to apply to places like Fog Creek - but if you matched applicants to employers blindly both ways (blindly to them, of course, you the matcher would not be blind), so the applicants didn't know who they were interviewing for during the interview? Then developers with lower self-esteem but great skills might end up interviewing for high-end places, and not even be stressed during the interview, because they don't know who it's with.

dreamweapon 12y ago

I'm glad the "rigorous testing process" was mentioned. The facade of "we only hire superninja-kickass-hyperexperts and we will verify that you are such a programmer before we hire you" attracts a certain type of person, and intimidates another. Yup. And I've always suspect that this cant was ultimately something of a foil, and that the actual messages it's intended to send are of a rather different sort. To wit: Internal: Hoo-ray for you! You made it through the gauntlet! Aren't you just swell and awesome! External: You know you have to invest in us / buy our products because we only hire the top 0.001 percent! And we have a rigorously testing process (as verified by the magic of survivorship bias) to prove it!