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Apply HN: Over 40% of women leave tech mid-career, help us decrease that

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Re: Apply HN: Over 40% of women leave tech mid-career, help us decrease that

#11

Post by Mz »

dozzie wrote: post #3
MrTonyD wrote: post #2

I read an article in the New York Times about unpublished research. A major company hired researchers to figure out why they had fewer women employees. They found that women quit more than men. Surprisingly, women had exactly the same work issues as men - poor management, lack of work-life balance, unreasonable demands, unreasonable expectations. But women, more often than men, had the freedom in their life to quit -…

> But women, more often than men, had the freedom in their life to quit - while more men simply didn't have that option. It would mean that women have it better than men, which is not a popular narrative today.

Well, I think it is really a lot more complicated than that.

I also think it would be nice if folks who posted to Apply HN posts tried a little harder to engage with the application. This is not really the place to just make chit chat about gender issues.

Re: Apply HN: Over 40% of women leave tech mid-career, help us decrease that

#12

Post by ryporter »

userium wrote: post #7
ryporter wrote: post #5

This just looks like a job board with ads for companies. Of course they are going say that they take diversity seriously. What have you done to curate this site? I expected to see some sort of data about the companies.

> "Of course they are going say that they take diversity seriously." Actually this is what we were also worried about, but we have been in contact with many companies, and not all of them see diversity as a priority. Those companies who take diversity seriously are excited about our mission and want to showcase their company to our users. We have had long conversations with all the companies on our site, and heard wh…

Fair enough. I should have instead claimed that many companies will inflate how much they care about diversity, some to large extent.

For adding content. I was about to suggest creating a diversity ranking, but of course this has already been done (e.g., [1] and [2]). How do you intend to become a thought leader in this space?

[1] http://www.diversityinc.com/the-diversityinc-top-50-companie...

[2] http://fortune.com/best-workplaces-for-diversity/

Re: Apply HN: Over 40% of women leave tech mid-career, help us decrease that

#13

Post by userium »

Mz wrote: post #10

I applaud your effort. I have upvoted this. I will suggest you devote more effort to developing a means to talk to companies about "best practices" and how to do this better. Try to frame it in a non judgey fashion. Try hard to avoid sounding like you are moralizing. People will interpret your position that way anyway simply because of the space you are in. You will need to kind over compensate for that to have any h…

Thank you, great advice. Companies who we have talked with have done work with e.g. improving their maternity leave policies, adding remote work opportunities, making job ads more gender neutral and building diverse hiring teams.

Companies seem eager to improve, many of them ask us what more could they do to successfully to attract and retain diverse talent.

We are in the process of writing more content, also about what companies can do to attract and retain a diverse workforce.

You are absolutely right, finding good research is paramount and framing it in terms of how it benefits the company.

We have lots of work ahead in contacting and adding companies on the website, to have a useful resource for users. But the feedback we have gotten so far from users is very positive and ensures us that we are on the right path.

Thanks!

Re: Apply HN: Over 40% of women leave tech mid-career, help us decrease that

#14

Post by userium »

ryporter wrote: post #12
userium wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Of course they are going say that they take diversity seriously." Actually this is what we were also worried about, but we have been in contact with many companies, and not all of them see diversity as a priority. Those companies who take diversity seriously are excited about our mission and want to showcase their company to our users. We have had long conversations with all the companies on our site, and heard wh…

Fair enough. I should have instead claimed that many companies will inflate how much they care about diversity, some to large extent. For adding content. I was about to suggest creating a diversity ranking, but of course this has already been done (e.g., [1] and [2]). How do you intend to become a thought leader in this space? [1] http://www.diversityinc.com/the-diversityinc-top-50-companie... [2] http://fortune.com/…

> "How do you intend to become a thought leader in this space?"

Those are great resources. However, our users are mostly from the USA, Canada and Europe, which is why are planning to add companies and jobs from all of those locations.

In user testing we found out that women would like to see targeted job ads for them. Research shows that men apply for a job when they meet only 60% of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100% of them [1]. If a tech job is advertised directly to women in tech, it lowers the barrier for applying for a job.

There are lots of campaigns and initiatives for encouraging young women to start tech careers, but we are taking a different approach by encouraging women to stay in tech.

[1] Harvard Business Review (2014) “Why women don’t apply for jobs unless they’re 100% qualified” Source: https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless...

Re: Apply HN: Over 40% of women leave tech mid-career, help us decrease that

#15

Post by Mz »

userium wrote: post #13
Mz wrote: post #10

I applaud your effort. I have upvoted this. I will suggest you devote more effort to developing a means to talk to companies about "best practices" and how to do this better. Try to frame it in a non judgey fashion. Try hard to avoid sounding like you are moralizing. People will interpret your position that way anyway simply because of the space you are in. You will need to kind over compensate for that to have any h…

Thank you, great advice. Companies who we have talked with have done work with e.g. improving their maternity leave policies, adding remote work opportunities, making job ads more gender neutral and building diverse hiring teams. Companies seem eager to improve, many of them ask us what more could they do to successfully to attract and retain diverse talent. We are in the process of writing more content, also about w…

This is the article with the stats I referenced and it is based on a study:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2015/12/06/why-divers...

Best of luck.

Re: Apply HN: Over 40% of women leave tech mid-career, help us decrease that

#17

Post by lettergram »

Do you have any statistics on why they leave tech?

From my experience, in a big tech corporation, there are two major issues:

1. Women starting out (fresh out of college) don't appear to want to be software engineers, yet do it to pivot to another job.

2. They decide to have children, which often means they leave work for a time, and decide never to come back (although the offers are there)

Everyone should take diversity seriously, but I am curious if you have any hard stats on why women leave in the first place? That'll actually allow this problem to be solved.

Re: Apply HN: Over 40% of women leave tech mid-career, help us decrease that

#18

Post by userium »

lettergram wrote: post #17

Do you have any statistics on why they leave tech? From my experience, in a big tech corporation, there are two major issues: 1. Women starting out (fresh out of college) don't appear to want to be software engineers, yet do it to pivot to another job. 2. They decide to have children, which often means they leave work for a time, and decide never to come back (although the offers are there) Everyone should take diver…

Research shows that women leave tech due to various reasons, e.g. working conditions (no advancement, low compensation), work-life balance (too much travelling, commuting), or the company environment (cultural "fit") [1].

Based on discussions we have had with users each story is unique. Many of our users are worried about getting "too old" to learn the latest technologies, and are trying to figure out how to get to a managerial position.

Many of our users have also told us that by switching to a company that promotes women, and supports diversity in other ways, was a better fit for them. A career in tech can be very rewarding if you find the right environment / company / job.

[1] Harvard Business Review (2008) The Athena factor: Reversing the brain drain in science, engineering and technology http://documents.library.nsf.gov/edocs/HD6060-.A84-2008-PDF-...

Re: Apply HN: Over 40% of women leave tech mid-career, help us decrease that

#20

Post by userium »

In the intro we wrote quite shortly about our company, so here is some more information about our motivation for doing this:

It's known that diversity improves organisational performance and competitiveness. Diverse teams improve ROI, increase innovation and solve problems better.

Still only 25% of the IT workforce are women, and over 40% of them leave tech mid-career. We think people who build technology should represent the people who use it.

There is a lack of talent in STEM, so in addition to attracting new talent, we need to find ways to retain current talent, who will build the future of technology. A career in tech can be very rewarding if you find the right company and job.

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