There’s a simple solution to tech’s gender imbalance – Hire more damn women
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Re: There’s a simple solution to tech’s gender imbalance – Hire more damn women
#213 out of 15 senior positions are men.
Re: There’s a simple solution to tech’s gender imbalance – Hire more damn women
#3> 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?
Re: There’s a simple solution to tech’s gender imbalance – Hire more damn women
#4>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.
Re: There’s a simple solution to tech’s gender imbalance – Hire more damn women
#5This 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.
Re: There’s a simple solution to tech’s gender imbalance – Hire more damn women
#6However 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.
Re: There’s a simple solution to tech’s gender imbalance – Hire more damn women
#713 out of 15 senior positions are men. https://andela.com/about-us/meet-the-team
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.
Re: There’s a simple solution to tech’s gender imbalance – Hire more damn women
#8An 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.
Re: There’s a simple solution to tech’s gender imbalance – Hire more damn women
#9Other 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.
Re: There’s a simple solution to tech’s gender imbalance – Hire more damn women
#10An 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…
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.