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How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome

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Re: How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome

#51

Post by masterzora »

codex wrote: post #46
masterzora wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but remember that in this example everyone sees the posting (or, if you prefer, the recruiter only reaches out to women who see the posting) so your scenario is impossible. The recruiter's role isn't to increase visibility but rather to be a signal to women that they wouldn't be wasting their time with this company. When programs like the one briefly mentioned in the article are done well their net effect is real…

Both of the students are CS majors. They presumably will both eventually work for similar companies. Why would the woman who is equally interested in computer science pass over the job posting, requiring an actual recruiter to be present, when the man does not? Do women get CS degrees and then leave to work in some other field post-graduation, not writing code? If so, that is a huge problem. Do they lose interest in…

I hope you don't mind if I'm not interested in spending a few hours tracking down all the sources I've referenced before but to give you a short answer to your first paragraph: for the past decade or so women have held 20-30% of the CS degrees with recent times being somewhat higher. Women also hold less than 20% of the software positions (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/04/science-engineer... ctrl-F for "19 percent"; it cites the Bureau of Labor Statistics but I'm not sure what part). Obviously there's not a perfect correlation between degrees and jobs for a number of obvious reasons but it's evidence against equal chance of CS majors staying jobs. And I've seen separate sources more clearly showing that there is larger fall-off for women than men. Unfortunately, I don't know what the cause is exactly.

However, your second paragraph sort of has things backwards. The current scheme of things strongly signals to women (pretty accurately) "your odds of getting hired are lesser than your equally talented male friend." Such signalling as I described before isn't about saying that their odds are better than their male friend but rather that the company is actively trying to not disadvantage women.

Re: How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome

#52

Post by krichman »

jackpirate wrote: post #14
codex wrote: post #8

A long time ago, I was once a Microsoft intern attending a party at Bill Gates' house. At that party, a high-ranking Microsoft HR employee told me that it was Microsoft's goal to have twice the percentage of female interns in their program than female CS majors. For example, if women only made up 10% of college CS majors, Microsoft wanted to have 20% female interns. I replied that, if that were their goal, they would…

... But that's still not really fair ... "Fairness" as you use it should have no part in a business decision. The Microsoft HR team identified that for them to maximize their competitiveness (i.e. profit), they need more female staff members. That means that an "underqualified" woman suddenly becomes more qualified because she brings a business advantage to the table that a man does not. I have no problem with this.

So it's also fine if they determined that having half as many women would increase their competitiveness?

Re: How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome

#53

Post by espyb »

samspot wrote: post #6
petercooper wrote: post #3

Say, "You so deserve that promotion/scholarship/interview offer." I read something recently that suggested using language like "You really earnt that [whatever]" when complimenting people. That is, you define the merit in terms of the person's effort which, hopefully, the recipient of the compliment is less able to deny. We often deserve nice things, but when we think we earnt them it's a more concrete achievement th…

Good suggestion. I never really liked using 'deserve' for this anyway.

I agree, using the term 'earned', rather than 'deserved' is an excellent suggestion. For some reason 'deserve' has always bothered me. I believe in working for and earning what I receive. Deserve in my mind implies something given to you, or perhaps something you feel you are entitled to, rather than something you earned. So for me, earning something would provide a greater sense of accomplishment/achievement, than being told I 'deserved' it. Though I've never heard the reference to 'Imposter Syndrome'. That to me seems like a case of low self-confidence?

Re: How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome

#54

Post by petercooper »

shrikant wrote: post #16
petercooper wrote: post #3

Say, "You so deserve that promotion/scholarship/interview offer." I read something recently that suggested using language like "You really earnt that [whatever]" when complimenting people. That is, you define the merit in terms of the person's effort which, hopefully, the recipient of the compliment is less able to deny. We often deserve nice things, but when we think we earnt them it's a more concrete achievement th…

From here perhaps: > The point is to praise children's efforts, not their intelligence, she said. http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2007/pr-dweck-020707.html

It wasn't that, but it does seem to tie into that whole idea for sure. Good link.

Re: How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome

#55

Post by espyb »

swampthing wrote: post #9

Deeper thoughts aside, what kind of good friend says that to someone?

Exactly. A good friend wouldn't. That's a comment from someone looking to find a reason to explain their own lack of success. A good friend would congratulate you, regardless of whether you beat them out for the job or not. Sounds like a case of sour grapes to me... and some people don't just have a few, they have entire vineyards. Nothing will ever be their fault, it can't be because the other person was more skilled, or had more more experience, they must have had an unfair advantage. That's easier than taking a hard look at yourself, being honest and addressing the real issues.

Re: How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome

#56

Post by codex »

nostrademons wrote: post #49
codex wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the population is divided into discrete tiers, the process is still rife with unfairness no matter how you dice it. If you have 1,000 slots, 10,000 candidates in your tier, and 1,000 of them are women, you can hire any ratio of women to men that you like and all will be equally talented. Great, right? It's great for those that are hired; not so much for everyone else. Say you make the gender ratio 50%. You hi…

Right, but you're going to get this unfairness no matter what criteria you use, gender or otherwise. Say you leave the gender ratio unspecified and instead decide based upon the interviewer's gut feeling. Then you'll bias the hiring process toward schmoozers with good social skills. Or you decide based on which college the applicant went to. Then you bias it towards people who were willing to shell out for a prestigi…

I completely agree. I make this point, though, because the parent article begins,

“You only got that internship because you’re a woman.”

Note that this statement does not imply she is unqualified. She could be absolutely qualified (and probably is). However, in the ficticious tiering example above, the female applicant has 10x higher odds than a male applicant of getting a sought after job at a first-lass company, even though both are equally qualified. For this example, at least, the above statement is explainable (minus the "only" part, which is just mean) by the huge difference in probability between her and her friend. Her friend would have to apply to ten times more internships in order to land an equivalent gig.

Re: How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome

#57

Post by azakai »

nostrademons wrote: post #25
codex wrote: post #8

A long time ago, I was once a Microsoft intern attending a party at Bill Gates' house. At that party, a high-ranking Microsoft HR employee told me that it was Microsoft's goal to have twice the percentage of female interns in their program than female CS majors. For example, if women only made up 10% of college CS majors, Microsoft wanted to have 20% female interns. I replied that, if that were their goal, they would…

Not really - there's a really simple solution for hiring more women without dropping the bar for them. Make your company the most desirable place for anyone to work, so that you have vastly more applicants than positions, and then you can pick whoever you want as the incoming cohort. Math: Say that your goal is to hire from the top 1% of the field, and the top 1% is indistinguishable from each other. There are 1 mill…

> Say that your goal is to hire from the top 1% of the field, and the top 1% is indistinguishable from each other.

That's not how the world is.

Re: How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome

#58

Post by kylebrown »

Smudge wrote: post #23
esrauch wrote: post #7

Unfortunately I think the dismissive attitude of your friend is a direct product of very real reverse discrimination. Anecdotally it really does exist; a female friend of mine was able to easily get interviews at Google, Microsoft and Apple every year despite lousy technical chops and a 2.5 GPA at a mediocre state university. My ex girlfriend had her hand held for literally years by Microsoft recruiters on the stated…

> Anecdotally it really does exist You can take just about any conceivable trend and anecdotally "confirm" its existence based on a small enough sample size or the right anecdote. That doesn't mean it is statistically relevant.

And yet when people make decisions, they are much more influenced by anecdotal relevance than statistical soundness. Reminds me of the time when my buddy was trying to get a spot doing research as an undergrad in one of the biochem labs. More than one prof had labs where female undergrads outnumbered the males, so he said he wished he was female so he could "wiggle my ass" to get into a lab.

edit: Also, there are statistics of overall populations and statistics of subpopulations. Sometimes the smaller sample sizes (the subpopulations) are more relevant.

Re: How to Reinforce Impostor Syndrome

#60

Post by kylebrown »

espyb wrote: post #55
swampthing wrote: post #9

Deeper thoughts aside, what kind of good friend says that to someone?

Exactly. A good friend wouldn't. That's a comment from someone looking to find a reason to explain their own lack of success. A good friend would congratulate you, regardless of whether you beat them out for the job or not. Sounds like a case of sour grapes to me... and some people don't just have a few, they have entire vineyards. Nothing will ever be their fault, it can't be because the other person was more skille…

A good but insensitive friend. And maybe he was right (though overstated), perhaps being female was an advantage in getting the intership. If she wasn't sensitive, she could have responded, "maybe so, but you had the advantage of being male." And she'd be right.
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