

How to Hire More Women at Your Startup - cristinacordova
http://cristinajcordova.com/post/45132333029/how-to-hire-more-women-at-your-startup

======
tokenadult
How about, just hire the people who can do the work, as verified by a work-
sample test, and set up a company culture that welcomes everyone who can do
the work?

AFTER EDIT: Another reply asked, "How about a guide to hiring the best person
for the job?" I notice that the user's username is green, which means he is
new here, so perhaps he hasn't yet seen my FAQ on that subject, which I
compiled from the helpful comments of many other HN participants. The latest
full posting of that FAQ

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227923>

provides lots of details.

~~~
thetabyte
While I agree with you completely, I think what you are saying isn't at odds
with what she is saying.

While most pieces of writing about getting more women in tech seem to propose
the problem as "How to Add Women to Tech", the real issue they're addressing
is "How to Remove the Unnoticed Barriers to Women in Tech".

Like any other majority, the male majority of the tech industry often take for
granted a number of things as "normal", "everyone does them".

People should absolutely "just hire the people who can do the work", but they
should assure that their company and process are not set up in a way that,
unbeknownst to them, turns off a certain minority whose needs they fail to
recognize. These posts are trying to highlight those needs or differences so
that it's easier to break that "normal" barrier.

~~~
mrjaeger
I think the article might blur the line in some places between things that
really are invisible barriers to hiring women and some that are just about
hiring who you want.

For example I could totally see the point about making sure at least one woman
interviews every new hire to be a great policy. You always want to feel like
you will fit in wherever you work, and being a woman and then seeing only men
can feel a bit disconcerting and alienating. However I am lucky enough to work
with a lot of great female coders and for some of them free chips and beer
(and especially whisky shots!) would be a great perk.

~~~
thetabyte
I have to agree with you there. That comes back to the biggest problem when
dealing with any group of people:

No two people are alike, despite whatever label you give them. There will
always be exceptions, and no list of simple statements will cover all of them.

However, that doesn't mean that an effort to compile a reasonable set of
standards based on inputs from a large number of that group can't make
significant strides in improving their situation, which is what really should
be the focus.

------
duaneb
It's all good advice, and you'll not only increase the quality and quantity of
your potential female applicants but the male ones as well. I think, however,
that there are many women who like beer, know what "hacker" means, and can
manage a traditionally masculine environment very well, probably better than
many men. I _did_ find it a little insulting that the OP thought these values
are somehow unique to women. Well this is of course silly. The image of a
coder with the hygiene and social skills of a teenage boy and the social
skills to match has always been exaggerated (see: Grandma's Boy), probably to
negative effects for women considering CS as a career.

My point is, most of those things are just good advise for companies
regardless of gender. I sure don't want to work in a "dirty hacker house".

~~~
cristinacordova
Agreed, this is not solely for recruiting women, but also for building a team
that is more accepting of diversity in general.

Note this video of a messy hackerhouse: <http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/04/tc-
cribs-likealittle-lal/> Not a single commenter is a woman.

------
monochromatic
> Most people understand why it’s important to have more women in the
> workplace (and more diversity in general beyond gender).

Actually, I have never heard a satisfactory explanation of why this is
important.

~~~
cristinacordova
Data shows that companies with more women in leadership roles outperform
companies with fewer women in leadership roles. [1]

Women drive economic growth. Women went from holding 37 percent of all jobs to
47 percent over the past 40 years. This has accounted for about a quarter of
current GDP. [2]

If your company is selling products to women or households (for which women do
the majority of spending), it makes sense to have people on your team who can
understand what they want.

Studies show diversifying the workplace helps businesses increase their market
share. [3]

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/katetaylor/2012/06/26/the-new-
ca...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/katetaylor/2012/06/26/the-new-case-for-
women-on-corporate-boards-new-perspectives-increased-profits/)

[2]
[http://www.mckinsey.com/client_service/organization/latest_t...](http://www.mckinsey.com/client_service/organization/latest_thinking/unlocking_the_full_potential.aspx)

[3] [http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-
UnitedStates/Local%20Ass...](http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-
UnitedStates/Local%20Assets/Documents/Deloitte%20Review/Deloitte%20Review%20-%20Winter%202011/US_deloittereview_Diversity_as_an_Engine_of_Innovation_Jan11.pdf)

~~~
barry-cotter
1\. How muc of the growth in women's share of those employed comes from
growing female labour force participation and how much is declining male
labour force participation?

2\. A quarter of current GDP? How much of that is accounted for by the
movement of goods and services from the non-monetarty sector to the monetary
sector? Because that's not growth, that's accounting.

------
mackem
How about a guide to hiring the best person for the job? Given that's what
actually matters and not the gender of the person.

If your workplace culture is getting in the way of hiring the best person for
the job, then that's a problem that transcends gender. By the logic that women
won't be comfortable taking a job where there aren't other women, then
businesses should make sure to have someone of every race, gender, religion
and age so they don't put off any potential applicants.

I'd love to see any empirical evidence whatsoever to support the myriad
assumptions made in this article.

Don't say that "we only hire the top 1% of candidates" because women aren't
confident enough to apply to those jobs? Female tech workers don't know/like
what the word "hacker/hack" means?

This quote in particular seems to sum up a bizarre focus on gender above all
issues:

"If you can’t find potential female candidates, you’re just being lazy."

An employer being lazy about hiring people? We live in a society where there
are often hundreds or even thousands of applications for a single position
because of a massive labor surplus.

The vastly disproportionate effort that's being recommended towards hiring
women smacks of rank tokenism.

It's hard to see how the women that Cristina Cordova envisions inhabit the
tech industry have the necessary metacognitive skills to be an
effective/assertive member of any workforce. If they're so insecure as to be
put off from a good position by the term "hacker", or so intimidated by groups
who don't look like them, how can they be expected to handle other tasks that
require confidence, assertiveness, and ability to deal with people different
from yourself?

Thankfully all the women I've met in the tech industry seem to be a far cry
from this stereotype. They've all been perfectly capable and confident, and
the only effort I needed to extend to them is the same I'd extend to any
colleague; respectful professionalism, aka not being an asshole and not
letting other people down.

~~~
lwf
> We live in a society where there are often hundreds or even thousands of
> applications for a single position because of a massive labor surplus.

You must be new here.

At least that's entirely inconsistent with my experience in technology; there
are a huge number of companies looking for talented developers and very few
developers to fill those positions.

~~~
aeonsky
No joke. Been looking for a mid Java dev for a year. 4 C#/C++/Python/Ruby
applicants later, we promoted from within.

~~~
bearmf
What I see from your comment is: 1) There was no immediate need to hire 2) You
turned down 4 candidates. C#/C++ experience is quite transferrable to Java
except at very advanced levels 3) Finally, you promoted the guy who was there
all along and could have been doing the job for the whole year already

Basically, there is a shortage of software engineers, but they must possess
very specific skills and have lots of experience. All the others are not
considered suitable candidates for most positions.

------
rhdoenges
Every time a "how to hire women" article pops up on HN, there's a flurry of
comments that argue we should hire whoever can do the work best. That isn't
what this article is about. In order to bring more diversity into your
workplace or community, you have to consciously make the environment more
welcoming to people who are different from you. When you let the "who can do
the work" question decide your hires, prejudices control your decision without
you even noticing. We must fight prejudice consciously or we contribute to
oppression--not just the oppression women, but the oppression of any
disadvantaged or underrepresented group.

------
dspeyer
I had a really bad feeling reading this article. Especially the parts about
cleanliness and alcohol. Empathy's always a tricky thing, but I'm picturing
something like this:

Welcome to $company. Here at $company we understand that $your_group people
are different from $most_of_us_group people, especially with regards to
$list_of_old_stereotypes, and we've made accommodations on that basis to make
you feel more comfortable. We hope you appreciate this.

~~~
cristinacordova
If this philosophy is antithetical to your culture, you certainly don't have
to follow it. These were not meant to be hard and fast rules, but something
companies might want to take into consideration when recruiting.

For example, while I certainly enjoy chips and beer, it's not the _first_
thing I want to see on a company's recruiting page.

~~~
dspeyer
It's not about culture. It's about assumptions.

If my employer tried to support my masculinity by giving me beer, I would be
offended.

~~~
cristinacordova
Sure, but supporting femininity with significant paid maternity leave would be
welcome support.

------
hakaaaaak
I'm all for diversity on the team. Strong efforts should be put forth to hire
the best person for the job, regardless of their sex, etc., though. I have all
daughters, so I want them to be able to be considered, hired, etc. on an even
playfield with men. I don't expect special treatment for them, just respect
and equal opportunity.

And, I like almost everything in this post, except that I think the OP might
be playing to stereotypes a little too much; some of these are not problems
specific to women. Like not playing oneself up as much or focusing on the
actual monetary results of work.

Something I experienced that wasn't mentioned related to hiring women was
"same sex competition" (which I'm sure is not specific to women, but I've
never worked on a team with all women where I was the only male). When only
one woman was on a team with a bunch of other men for a long time, that woman
was much more critical of female interviewees. After the hire of another woman
on the team, this competition continued for the first several months, before
they became friends.

~~~
RaphiePS
I thought "If you think a woman is going to join your company for free whiskey
shots, you can stop reading here" was a bit stereotypical.

I'm sure there are women who would love free whiskey shots, and men who hate
them.

~~~
Ensorceled
Are you saying women and men are equally likely to be attracted to a company
by free whiskey shots?

Because, unless you are, the comment was NOT stereotypical.

------
clbrook
This is a 25-minute video given by Shelley Correll, Professor of Sociology at
Stanford University, Director of the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender
Research. She discusses some ways to try and counter known biases when hiring
and promoting.

<http://leanin.org/education/creating-a-level-playing-field/>

------
auctiontheory
All the same advice applies if you're trying to hire someone over the age of
30.

Of course, if you prefer NOT to hire anyone over 30, and you don't want your
hiring process to appear illegally discriminatory, then advertising your
alcohol culture (etc.) can be a great way to induce those applicants to weed
themselves out. I do believe some company founders thought of this before I
did.

------
warmwaffles
More over, this article should be how to hire people who fit in with your
culture better. I find many of the key points to be satisfying to me.

------
rachelbythebay
People ask me about this, too. I think I don't want to knowingly bring people
into a harsh environment (that being certain nontrivial parts of the
industry). That leaves me conflicted with how I should answer.

I came up with an analogy about this. It might not be a good one, but it's a
start of trying to express my mixed feelings on the matter.
<http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/10/14/fish/>

------
naftaliharris
If I were running a company, I think I'd try the following approach to hiring:
Every time I received a resume or job application, I would run it through some
script that would find the individual's name, store it somewhere hidden, and
then replace it with a unique id. Only after the applicants' names were
blocked out like this would I read through the resumes or job applications.

I think not knowing a person's name would prevent some of our unconscious
biases about the person's gender or race from entering into the early-stage
hiring process, and promote a culture of meritocracy. Of course, this only
works until you give somebody a phone screen or invite them in for an
interview, but it's a step towards a more meritocratic hiring process.

------
s_baby
>So, you’re doing all of the above, but you still don’t have any women
applying to work at your startup? Well go out and find them. As someone who
was recruited or referred to each of their last four jobs, I know that most of
the candidates you want aren’t out there looking. Take the situation into your
own hands and search Github, LinkedIn, Facebook or whatever other networks you
frequent. One day, in about two hours, I put together a list of about 50
prospective female candidates. If you can’t find potential female candidates,
you’re just

Isn't this illegal in America? That would be considered a discriminatory
hiring practice.

~~~
cristinacordova
No, it's not illegal to engage in recruiting efforts aimed at diverse
candidates. Many large companies have programs to specifically to recruit
historically under-represented candidates:
[http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/students/sga/undergrad/in...](http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/students/sga/undergrad/internships/uscanada/)

------
Ensorceled
Interestingly enough, the article was ALL about how to expand your available
candidates to include more qualified women and had absolutely not even a whiff
of "hire the less qualified candidate if a women".

Contrast with the number of comments here about affirmative action and
steorotypes and gender bias ...

