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Why some job adverts put women off applying

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Why some job adverts put women off applying

#21

Post by dfdffsdfff »

doubletgl wrote: post #6
dfdffsdfff wrote: post #4

"ads with lengthy bullet points detailing the role's responsibilities will face a drop-off in women applying for the job" Maybe women just don't like too much responsibility or hard work? Maybe for that matter, no one does? Have they even checked what effect their proposed changes have on male applicants? For example "coding ninja" would surely also be off putting to many men.

Wasn't there a study concluding that women tend to under-estimate their skills and men the opposite? If we assume that to be true, a long list of responsibilities is more likely to put off women because they don't think they can cover everything (or enough of it).

There are all sorts of feminist studies. I bet most of them will be found to be flawed and unsubstantiated - like many of sociology studies have been found in recent times.

In any case, I don't think there is a law of nature or a biological force that makes women underestimate their skills. Plenty of women don't underestimate their skills.

Re: Why some job adverts put women off applying

#22

Post by paidleaf »

1ba9115454 wrote: post #2

She says Textio taught her company to avoid terms such as "coding ninja" - a common phrase in Silicon Valley job ads. This would also put me off applying for the role. It makes the company sound immature and anyone who calls themselves a coding ninja may not have great self assesment skills.

Saying it was "common" is simply a lie. I would love to see her stats because I've been working in tech for a while now and I've never seen the term "coding ninja" in a job ad.

I've seen ludicrous demands like more experience in a tech than the tech has been out.

Like "must haves : " - 5 years experience in visual studio 2017 and sql server 2017. Non negotiable.

Re: Why some job adverts put women off applying

#23

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

r-a-w wrote: post #10

I would like to see the scientific evidence of this unconscious bias they are referring to. Im also skeptical of the claims that gender diversity alone will boost revenue 41%. That is a extremely bold claim.

> I would like to see the scientific evidence of this unconscious bias they are referring to.

Here's a study, for example [1]. There's enough out there that you'd probably want to qualify that request a bit. There's even a study on the association between gender and evaluation of gender bias studies (men are more skeptical/critical of studies showing gender bias) [2].

[1] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/12/4403.full

[2] http://www.pnas.org/content/112/43/13201

Re: Why some job adverts put women off applying

#24

Post by Latty »

paidleaf wrote: post #22
1ba9115454 wrote: post #2

She says Textio taught her company to avoid terms such as "coding ninja" - a common phrase in Silicon Valley job ads. This would also put me off applying for the role. It makes the company sound immature and anyone who calls themselves a coding ninja may not have great self assesment skills.

Saying it was "common" is simply a lie. I would love to see her stats because I've been working in tech for a while now and I've never seen the term "coding ninja" in a job ad. I've seen ludicrous demands like more experience in a tech than the tech has been out. Like "must haves : " - 5 years experience in visual studio 2017 and sql server 2017. Non negotiable.

I don't think it's a lie, I think it's just an old example. Just as the media loves using "epic fail" in a "How do you do, fellow kids?" kind of way, it's easy to assume something is still happening because it was big the last time you checked.

Re: Why some job adverts put women off applying

#25

Post by vertex-four »

dfdffsdfff wrote: post #21
doubletgl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't there a study concluding that women tend to under-estimate their skills and men the opposite? If we assume that to be true, a long list of responsibilities is more likely to put off women because they don't think they can cover everything (or enough of it).

There are all sorts of feminist studies. I bet most of them will be found to be flawed and unsubstantiated - like many of sociology studies have been found in recent times. In any case, I don't think there is a law of nature or a biological force that makes women underestimate their skills. Plenty of women don't underestimate their skills.

Nobody suggested there’s a force of nature or biology behind women underestimating their skills, only you - have you considered that many women may be socialised to do so?

It’s not like the job application/interview/etc dance is perfectly neutral towards every characteristic and background a person might have all the time as it is - words used, interview styles, and so on and so forth are never neutral.

Re: Why some job adverts put women off applying

#26

Post by dfdffsdfff »

vertex-four wrote: post #25
dfdffsdfff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are all sorts of feminist studies. I bet most of them will be found to be flawed and unsubstantiated - like many of sociology studies have been found in recent times. In any case, I don't think there is a law of nature or a biological force that makes women underestimate their skills. Plenty of women don't underestimate their skills.

Nobody suggested there’s a force of nature or biology behind women underestimating their skills, only you - have you considered that many women may be socialised to do so? It’s not like the job application/interview/etc dance is perfectly neutral towards every characteristic and background a person might have all the time as it is - words used, interview styles, and so on and so forth are never neutral.

"Being socialized" would be a force of nature. Anyway, they are not - who would do that, and why? The mostly female teachers? And somehow girls would still do better than boys in school, despite constantly being told they are bad? Actually the opposite is the case - studies have shown that boys tend to get worse grades than girls for the same level of performance. So wouldn't that be socialization of underestimating their skills for boys? (Of course those studies might also be flawed, like the feminist ones).

Re: Why some job adverts put women off applying

#27

Post by vertex-four »

dfdffsdfff wrote: post #26
vertex-four wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody suggested there’s a force of nature or biology behind women underestimating their skills, only you - have you considered that many women may be socialised to do so? It’s not like the job application/interview/etc dance is perfectly neutral towards every characteristic and background a person might have all the time as it is - words used, interview styles, and so on and so forth are never neutral.

"Being socialized" would be a force of nature. Anyway, they are not - who would do that, and why? The mostly female teachers? And somehow girls would still do better than boys in school, despite constantly being told they are bad? Actually the opposite is the case - studies have shown that boys tend to get worse grades than girls for the same level of performance. So wouldn't that be socialization of underestimating…

Being socialised is not a force of nature, because that implies that it’s non-changeable. It’s a societal choice to prioritise certain things and deprioritise others, to raise our kids to believe certain things, to allow the use of marketing in ways that reinforce existing beliefs, and so on and so forth. I find it weird that you consider “women” to be a homogenous group who all want the same thing and agree on exactly the method of achieving it, btw, as implied by your suggestion that a female teacher would never do anything that might hurt a girl’s sense of self worth.

I don’t know why studies suggest that boys are often better at correctly estimating (or maybe overestimating?) their skill level, but there’s lots of potential reasons aside from “biology” and “bad study”. Perhaps boys are just told “fake it til you make it” more often, and do so. Perhaps girls focus more on grades than boys in school for whatever reason, and the grading system is just set up to demoralise people in general. There’s a hundred thousand possible explanations - but they’re irrelevant to the point being made that if this is happening, then in order to encourage people who already believe these things about themselves to apply for a job, thinking about how to change your job posting to fit people with those beliefs is a good idea.

Re: Why some job adverts put women off applying

#28

Post by scarface74 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #17
r-a-w wrote: post #10

I would like to see the scientific evidence of this unconscious bias they are referring to. Im also skeptical of the claims that gender diversity alone will boost revenue 41%. That is a extremely bold claim.

I keep reading that tech is not very female-inclusive, and I keep wondering where these people are looking. Maybe San Francisco is different than any of the places I've worked in the past 25 years? I've been all over: deep south, midwest, north texas - I don't know if the gender ratio was 50/50 since I never did a headcount, but I sure remember an awful lot of women in technical roles everywhere I've ever worked. May…

Technical roles yes. How many are developers? I’m not dismissing QA, but QA I’ve found is so much more female than male that in a group of developers, the female will be asked are they QA.

Re: Why some job adverts put women off applying

#29

Post by scarface74 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #14
fimdomeio wrote: post #8

Replacing uncounscious bias, with conscious bias based on words that take into account both the employer and the canditate prejudices towards some words is a crazy tricky line of thought. To me it seems there's a problem, let's add an aditional layer of complexity to make it more intentional and less visible. The end result is that adverts get even more filled with prejudice.

Yeah, that's what always makes me uncomfortable about diversity efforts. Diversity? Sure, that sounds good. How you propose to get there? Ummm... not so sure about that. If you go back to the origin of the term "white privilege" as coined by Peggy McIntosh (in 1989, mind you, not 1972), you'll find that she defends to concept with such dubious claims as "being able to find music that represents your group" is a concr…

You start working at diversity by recruiting from places like historically black colleges for minorities and women only colleges for women(?).

Re: Why some job adverts put women off applying

#30

Post by qbaqbaqba »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #20
theandrewbailey wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that the Catholic church employs many fathers and sisters.

I'm no expert on the Catholic Church, but what I've seen on TV (e.g. Father Ted) suggests that men work from certain locations, and women work from others. So each of the workplaces is single-sex, even if the overall organisation is not.

> Father Ted Also, priests tend to have pet bricks and drink motor oil.
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