
There’s a simple solution to tech’s gender imbalance – Hire more damn women - crufo
https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/08/theres-a-simple-solution-to-techs-gender-imbalance-hire-more-damn-women/
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jfv
An all-female recruitment cycle could also be called a no-male recruitment
cycle, but I suppose that wouldn't sound good.

Direction from the top of the company followed by accountability from everyone
will probably move toward any desired outcome, but I contend that the main
issue is that most companies secretly don't believe that "percentage of female
engineers" is a goal worth pursuing to the exclusion of hiring as much top
talent as possible.

My guess on this experiment is that the company didn't hire as much talent as
they could have otherwise because of such strict quota measures, and that this
isn't something most companies are going to jump to do. Most companies just
want to succeed.

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alehul
Completely agree with this, and I don't think there's anything wrong with the
notion of companies wanting success, and they should be allowed to pursue
that.

The increased female applicants seems to show that many still don't believe
they're capable in the field due to their gender, though, and it seems like a
great case for more female-only code camps or lessons. This would likely draw
more female applicants as well, and thus entice more into the field while
still hiring by talent.

Hiring should be purely meritocratic, though, both for company success and
often societal.

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sidlls
This particular anecdote isn't particularly useful.

It doesn't generalize and in many jurisdictions (in the US and elsewhere)
would expose companies to accusations of gender discrimination (against men).

It also elides significant context: there just aren't as many women with tech
backgrounds (be it education or experience). So one company's gain in this
regard is others' loss, in some sense. The root causes for this gender
imbalance are varied in kind and complexity.

Discrimination that starts early in students' lives discourages female
participation in STEM. That is, in my view, the most pernicious and
significant problem. A generally sexist culture that is cultivated in tech by
"adults" certainly compounds the issue and is in some measure an extension of
the discrimination that starts early.

I'm skeptical that the article's "supply side solution" will actually resolve
the more severe and widespread problems that serve as barriers to having an
equal representation of women in technical roles.

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DashRattlesnake
> We started conducting all-female recruitment cycles and suddenly things
> really started to change

> I then made the percentage of women hired a KPI of the Director of
> Operations for every office

Wouldn't that (especially the quota stuff) be considered illegal gender
discrimination in the US?

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jrnichols
You would think so, but it passes muster rather often. All female hiring
sessions for civil service positions (police/fire) are not uncommon at all.

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alva
13 out of 15 senior positions are men.

[https://andela.com/about-us/meet-the-team](https://andela.com/about-us/meet-
the-team)

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alehul
Not sure why you're being downvoted -- this seems perfectly relevant, either
against Andela's claims or as further representation of the fact that, even if
women have an advantage getting in the door of companies, they have a much
harder time moving up.

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savanaly
>On all measurable indicators — technical skills, professional soft skills,
and psychometric profiles of what correlates with happy clients — our female
developers compete, and many cases out-compete, with their male colleagues.

This seems to be going beyond the null hypothesis that female engineers are
identical to male engineers in expectation, and claiming that in some areas in
expectation they were better. Although I know it's not the focus of the
article I'd like to see that expanded on, and would be very interested to know
about what areas those were, and by how much the females exceeded males.

As for the meat of the article, I'm supportive of such experimental practices
as the all-female hiring cycles to change the applicant pool. If there is a
wealth of untapped engineering talent out there then it's in humanity's best
interests to find it.

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alehul
However ideal it would be to have more female representation in the tech
field, I don't see this specific story as a 'success.' All-female recruitment
cycles just seem more drastic and worse than quotas, although the increased
female applicants is a positive and shows many don't even apply out of feeling
intimidated or inadequate in the tech world due to their gender.

Only interviewing females definitely lacks meritocracy, but we could test this
gender-exclusivity at an earlier age to encourage more female applicants to
apply into a fair, meritocratic job application process.

The increased engagement of female applicants in this has definitely affected
my opinion (positively) on the usefulness of female-only code camps and things
of that sort.

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owebmaster
Other approaches could help too, like Women who free code. There are literally
millions of jobs to be done in the free and open source world and it would
improve everyone's lifes.

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Tloewald
Why is this flagged?

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mcbruiser
seems like a "simpler" and more egalitarian solution would be to just
encourage more females to be interested in science and technology from an
early age in the first place. quota hiring is never a fair system to anyone.

