
Why Women Don’t Apply for Jobs Unless They’re 100% Qualified (2014) - kawera
https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified
======
Namrog84
Anecdotal evidence. I used to feel more strongly of the 100% qualified and I
know many other men who have as well.

There was a point in college that I didn't apply for a scholarship because I
didn't have the 3.0 GPA requirement at the time, I had like a 2.95

About 7 months later I found out that a student with a 2.2 GPA had received
the scholarship because so few people had applied, they were able to give them
to everyone who applied, regardless of qualifications. That was the moment I
realized that not everything is written in stone and even if you don't stand a
chance, you still should make an attempt at pursuing things.

Indirectly, since then I have encouraged all my friends, both men and women to
apply for jobs or things that they are interested in, regardless of
qualifications. Sometimes interest/passion alone can help get you a job, or
perhaps they will create a more junior position just for you; it is not
unheard of to do such a thing.

Since I learned the lesson, there has probably been at least 7 different times
in my life, that a rule/qualification was bent or changed that benefited me,
because I simply tried for it.

~~~
Mz
_Since I learned the lesson, there has probably been at least 7 different
times in my life, that a rule /qualification was bent or changed that
benefited me, because I simply tried for it._

If you are "the wrong kind of person," the rules are much less likely to bend
for you. If you are the wrong skin color, wrong gender, wrong religion,
whatever, _going for it_ can get the rules thrown in your face while everyone
accuses you of being an asshole who is trying to break the rules while, at the
exact same time, they make exceptions for "the right kind of people."

So, maybe consider that is what a lot of women are complaining about when they
decry _male privilege._

~~~
ntsplnkv3
> going for it can get the rules thrown in your face while everyone accuses
> you of being an asshole who is trying to break the rules while,

I don't doubt discrimination exists, and if this has been your personal
experience, I'm sorry.

It just seems foreign to me that someone would actually do this for a private
role.

If you don't match the skill set the algorithm will filter you out before
anyone even knows you exist. If you get by it clearly the reviewer saw
something they liked anyway.

What recruiter is going to berate someone and call them an asshole for
applying to a job they aren't qualified for? And if that was the case, I'd
view it as a dodged bullet.

~~~
Mz
I was making a more general statement. I assume no recruiter would actually
call you an asshole to your face, but that does not stop them from thinking
you are an asshole who is trying to break the rules, while they fail to see
that it works just fine that way for (insert whatever category it works for).

I have made other pertinent remarks in this same discussion that support the
idea that what keeps women out is not straight up sexism in terms of "No girls
allowed in the boys club." But that doesn't change the fact that women do, at
times, get excluded due to their gender and it is maddening when people try to
act like that simply isn't a thing at all.

The rules do get applied differently for different people. This is not just
losers making excuses.

------
liquidise
Chief among these requirements is likely the "years of experience" line. I
categorically ignore it in every job post i read. Every job post i write
leaves it consciously absent.

A candidate's ability should be judged strictly on what are their abilities
today and what is their perceived ceiling. While you can argue that years of
experience correlates to those details, it certainly does not inform them.

Anecdotally, my most recent developer job post had an exactly 50:50 male to
female applicant ratio. Without exception the women applying were juniors. If
this article is to be believed, my putting even "1+ years of experience" might
have arbitrarily rejected some number of otherwise qualified candidates.

------
Mz
This is the take away here:

 _What held them back from applying was not a mistaken perception about
themselves, but a mistaken perception about the hiring process.

This is critical, because it suggests that if the HP finding speaks to a
larger trend, women don’t need to try and find that elusive quality,
“confidence,” they just need better information about how hiring processes
really work._

This fits exactly with my experience in terms of being female seems to have
somehow denied me certain kinds of information, skills and experience that are
critical to getting things done. If I can somehow access that info, then I
start getting stuff done more on par with the guys.

It has nothing to do with suggesting women lack confidence or are filled with
anxiety. In fact, the article is basically rebutting that idea.

~~~
wrs
The "old boy network" isn't just literally about knowing the other "old boys"
(though that's obviously important), it's about a shared understanding of how
things actually work, as opposed to how the publicly-exposed information says
things work. So just networking with people isn't enough--you need to know the
unspoken reality of how to make further progress.

(This from someone who has painfully learned not to take _any_ rule or process
literally in the real world. There's a reason I like computers.)

~~~
Mz
I agree. But in a predominantly heterosexual world, simply being female makes
it hard to access that info. Many of the men who have that knowledge only want
to talk to me in order to determine if I will sleep with them. (So if they are
faithfully married, they may just not want to talk to me.) That's a genuine
barrier to gaining that knowledge.

But I have found it helpful to focus on finding a way to get access to the
information I need rather than just bellyaching about "sexism."

Thank you for commenting.

~~~
wrs
My comment wasn't directed at you, but at people who seem to feel that simply
exposing someone to the literal subject matter of an industry, whatever it
might be ("Learn to code!" "Get an MBA!" etc.), is sufficient to bring them
in.

In reality the "in" crowd can't just do that, pat itself on the back for being
so "inclusive" this week, and continue with business as usual. Overcoming
unconscious cultural biases to actually bring people into the "success
network" requires a lot more commitment than that.

The good news is, some people are really trying. But there are still plenty of
people who are too lazy, don't understand the problem, or don't care.

~~~
Mz
I thought it was a good comment. I think both of your comments here are good.
I was just conversing, not rebutting, defending nor arguing.

------
Dirlewanger
Hate to sound like a strawman, but: why should this my problem? Unfortunately
that's the nature of the game. Many software roles are like that. You just
have to apply anyway. Other hidden biases women face, OK, got it, but this is
a problem that occurs before any dialogue takes place.

Now whether or not that advice gets properly dispensed is another issue.

~~~
rebelwebmaster
If you want to hire the best person for the job, why wouldn't you want to do
what you can to avoid discouraging good candidates from even applying in the
first place?

~~~
rarec
If they are so timid as to not even rise to the challenge of applying for a
job with some uncertainty, how can you expect them to deal with uncertainty in
the field?

~~~
beowulf_cluster
Because that's a nonsensical strawman; those things aren't even related.

Personally, I see any employer advertising for a position with stricter
requirements than what they'll hire as advertising their own dishonesty. It
just makes them look bad.

~~~
rarec
It's mildly dishonest, but it does help you as the employer get closer to the
ideal fit for the position. Especially one that is likely posted to a public
forum.

The fact that candidates that pre-select themselves out of being chosen is not
really a big concern. Why should it be? The way around this is knowing exactly
who it is you want for the job, but in that case I wouldn't be posting the job
in a public forum. It's kind of what recruiters are intended for.

------
alistproducer2
I had to convince female I know to apply for a position she wasn't exactly
qualified for. She did and got the job. Women are socialized to not be as
aggressive here in the US, which is a shame because there are lots of bad
people in jobs just because a better woman never thought to apply.

------
ng12
Here's a question: what if I don't want to hire people like that? If you know
something about underwater basket weaving I absolutely expect you speak up
when we're considering switching to twine from seagrass. I don't want you to
keep quiet and let us make a bad decision because you're concerned your
knowledge is invalid.

~~~
Fraztastic
Then you're selecting for people who are overconfident blowhards, who don't
really know as much as they think they do.

~~~
str33t_punk
but what ng is saying is that if someone is lacks too much confidence they are
not useful. His example shows this --- the under confidant but knowledgable
person does not contribute their knowledge when needed so they are not useful
despite their knowledge.

~~~
themashedmind
Not useful? That's harsh.

Could it be argued that not enough care is being taken by the team to solicit
the thoughts of the less shouty members? If an organisation didn't want to
hire or _deal_ with said folk, perhaps it's a good thing for those looked
over?

Research seems to suggest that a more diverse workforce (of all varieties)
leads to more successful businesses. And my own personal experience leads me
to believe that skilled folk come in some weird and wonderful packages. I know
which path I would choose.

------
ikeyany
This is why job descriptions shouldn't require a hard set of qualifications,
but preferences (e.g. strong background in scripting, exposure to database
systems, comfort using git, deep understanding of object-oriented
development).

Potentially strong employees don't want to get where they are by lying or
stretching the truth.

------
draw_down
> You’ve probably heard the following statistic: Men apply for a job when they
> meet only 60% of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100%
> of them.

Ah, I had not. Landing a job I don't know how to do 2/5ths of sounds awful.

~~~
liopleurodon
depending on who's writing up the "qualifications" though, a lot of them are
probably bullshit

~~~
cholantesh
"10+ years of experience writing production systems in Elm" was a nice gem I
saw recently.

------
tezzer
I mean every single qualification I put on my job reqs. I also know from
experience I'm not going to find that person. If I hire you, I'll pay you to
learn the rest of the things.

------
J-dawg
As a man who struggles with low confidence and self-esteem, I hate the way
women are given special attention over this stuff.

I frequently don't apply for jobs I see that I could probably do, for all of
the reasons listed in the article. A couple of times I have even pulled out
after a successful first round interview due to anxiety about continuing.

This is an example of how the "women in tech" movement alienates men who would
otherwise be potential allies.

Instead of focussing on women, why not leave gender out of it and focus on
"low-confidence candidates" (or whatever you want to call this cohort of
people). That way if it's true that women are more likely to be "low-
confidence" then you'll end up helping more women anyway, but you'll do it
without alienating men.

Ignoring the root cause and jumping straight to helping women is exactly what
what makes feminists look like man-haters.

I'm sick of the stereotype that because I'm an oh-so-privileged white male I
must have had a ridiculously easy life and be full of confidence.

~~~
danso
I'm sorry for your situation but articles like these are looking at trends
across groups. They're not meant to insinuate that every man is in a better
position than every woman. The article talks about surveying 1,000+ men and
women. Undoubtedly, some of the men in that sample had less confidence than
some of the women. It doesn't make it invalid to analyze statistics across the
group overall.

~~~
metaphorm
why doesn't it make it invalid? there are many situations where considering
the mean is so deeply distorting as to make any conclusions drawn from it
either unreasonable or outright false.

I think calls for greater clarity and attention to detail when doing data
analysis are well-considered and we should be _deeply suspect_ of claims made
based on statistical aggregates, and particularly the mean average which is
one of the most distorting and lossy aggregates there is.

~~~
danso
I don't argue that statistical analysis can be distorting, in fact, of course
it can be. All data collection of any sort is at best a limited picture of
what we think is reality. But that doesn't make aggregates useless because
outliers exist. Just because Stanford freshman swimmer Katie Ledecky is faster
than some Olympic gold medal-winning mens relay teams [0] doesn't invalidate
the observation that the average man is a faster swimmer than the average
woman.

In the GP, I don't think he's making a "well-considered" call for "greater
clarity." He's using the fact that because he lacks self-confidence, that
focusing on women as a group is bullshit, as if the purported problems that
women face are only substantial once it can be proven that all women are worse
than all men.

[0] [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/katie-ledecky-is-the-
pr...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/katie-ledecky-is-the-present-and-
the-future-of-swimming/)

~~~
J-dawg
> _as if the purported problems that women face are only substantial once it
> can be proven that all women are worse than all men._

This is a total misrepresentation of what I'm saying. I'm more than fine with
women being helped. What I'm saying is, don't do it in a way that excludes men
with the same problem.

~~~
danso
Where does this article exclude men with the same problem? You're mad because
this article focuses on what the author found interesting in her survey of
professionals, a survey she conducted because she was initially skeptical of a
widely-quoted aphorism from pop best-sellers like _Lean In_?

The article's author decided to challenge that belief with a systematic
analysis and she reports that it is _not confidence_ that is the main factor.
Yet you choose to interpret the problem as self-confidence because you,
yourself, feel a lack of confidence. Furthermore, you accuse the author of
excluding men, because you choose to see her efforts as a zero-sum game.

