# Applying for jobs



## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

Question for the women here in tech fields. 

I recently posted an engineering job req. It didn't have really tough experience requirements, I could take someone just out of school, but specifically asked for people with a strong interest in solving challenging and unique technical problems. (which is what we do). 

Only about 3% of the applicants were female. Our organization has a strong interest in increasing the number of women here and tries to post in places where the job will be seen. 

Any thoughts on how I can get more women to apply?


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

At the risk of being stoned...

If you want computer science, it's only about 10% female in many schools. Engineering, not a lot better. 

Identify key skill sets, problem solving is too general. Reach out to women's liberal arts colleges or placement offices in any college. Don't mention the women part.

Pay well. I like died the first time I hired an intern. We pay interns 50% of FTE, and coops 50% year 1 to 80% year 4. My lab gets 3 or so, never had trouble attracting women.


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## Red Sonja (Sep 8, 2012)

uhtred said:


> Question for the women here in tech fields.
> 
> I recently posted an engineering job req. It didn't have really tough experience requirements, I could take someone just out of school, but specifically asked for people with a strong interest in solving challenging and unique technical problems. (which is what we do).
> 
> ...


I have the same problem. Go to the federal department of labor website and look at the number of engineering graduates by gender ... the female pool of engineers is very small.


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## Tatsuhiko (Jun 21, 2016)

It must be a sign of sexism against women that the number of female engineers is so small. It must be a sign of sexism that the number of male elementary school teachers is so small. Or... it might just be a sign that the genders are different and have different proclivities. 

Seriously, I don't know how companies handle this other than actively recruiting, targeting females, or by offering higher salaries to females. It seems like this is something your company needs to develop over many years--a longer-term recruiting strategy and getting a reputation as a female-friendly workplace. 

Could you hire a male and ask him to identify as a female for 8 hours a day? She wouldn't even have to dress differently. She could just act very belligerent when someone called her "he" or "him". There are plenty of young people who are naturally belligerent these days.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

We actually pay quite well. 

We do want people with a good background so It probably doesn't make sense to go to liberal arts colleges. About half my group is PhD's from technical schools. 






john117 said:


> At the risk of being stoned...
> 
> If you want computer science, it's only about 10% female in many schools. Engineering, not a lot better.
> 
> ...


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

Female engineer here. 

First, it depends on where you live. I'm in the DC metro area and there are lots of female engineers here. Not as many as men, but a good bit of them. 

There are "women in engineering" professional societies that will hold career fairs or even perhaps have their own online job announcement boards. Perhaps try recruiting through that channel. 

Second, take a look at your company website. I tend to look over the companies website prior to sending in my resume and if I see all older white men featured on the page and no sign of diversity at all, I tend to take away an assumption that your company may not be as friendly to non-white or female workers. My advise would be that if you are trying to diversify but you aren't there yet, at least remove some of the photos of your senior staff so that it leaves the prospective applicant guessing rather than confronted with a sea of the same faces. 

Third, it could be to do with the way your announcement is written. Something too vague can make people (in general) shy away from applying. I want to know exactly what I am applying for, exactly what you would need me to do and what you are expecting before I send in my resume. It helps me to make sure I am not wasting my own time in applying for something that likely wouldn't be a good fit for me. 

Also, if you have a lot of degree or licensing requirements for the your position (i.e., must have advanced degree, plus 2-3 different professional certifications) that can be hard to fill in general, and in my experience women tend to be more... modest... about their accomplishments than men are. In other words, a woman might check off 9 out of 10 items on your criteria checklist on the job posting, but then wouldn't apply to your posting because she gets stuck on not having the 10th item. Whereas a man might be more likely to think - I'm a catch even if I am missing that one item, I can show them what I'm worth in the interview and convince them to overlook that one item. That is a gross generalization but just something I've seen play out in my own experience in hiring in the field. Women tend to be less willing to overstep perceived boundaries and tend to underestimate their abilities. 

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/the-10-best-colleges-for-females-in-stem-fields/

Care to share what areas you're looking for? EE? CSE? Compsci? 

I'm in a high tech company and women are barely 10%.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

The thing is, we really are a female-friendly place. We have several female high level managers including for a while the top manager of our organization. I honestly think that we are way above average in minimizing harassment and discrimination. 

We can't offer higher salaries to women who don't apply. The typical process is that someone applies, then if they look good, the get a salary offer. We haven't had problems with women not taking the offers, just with too few women applying.



Why there are so few female engineers is a different question, but I think a part of that is discrimination. 





Tatsuhiko said:


> It must be a sign of sexism against women that the number of female engineers is so small. It must be a sign of sexism that the number of male elementary school teachers is so small. Or... it might just be a sign that the genders are different and have different proclivities.
> 
> Seriously, I don't know how companies handle this other than actively recruiting, targeting females, or by offering higher salaries to females. It seems like this is something your company needs to develop over many years--a longer-term recruiting strategy and getting a reputation as a female-friendly workplace.
> 
> Could you hire a male and ask him to identify as a female for 8 hours a day? She wouldn't even have to dress differently. She could just act very belligerent when someone called her "he" or "him". There are plenty of young people who are naturally belligerent these days.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

Some good suggestions. 


The women on the website is a good point. We used to be very careful about that, but after reading your comment, I looked and I think we are no longer doing such a good job. (I hadn't looked recently: I never look at our public website). We do have a fair number of women scientists and engineers, so there should be plenty of good photos - it just looks like the group doing the webpage got a little lazy about that. I'll see that that is fixed. (thank you!). 


The job is vague - unfortunately that is sort of the nature of our business. The best description is that we are a research engineering organization. We specialize in not being specialized - solve multi-disciplinary engineering problems that most other organizations won't tackle. Electronics, high vacuum, lasers, advanced computation, pulsed power, cryogenics, spacecraft systems. This means that we need people with a great deal of confidence in their ability to quickly learn new things, so we need to make that part of the job description. 


I agree with women being more modest - I try to compensate by being more willing to phone-interview women than men for the same resumes. We have few very specific licensing requirements. We do do very technical job interviews - but there are so few women applicants that only one made it to that level last time and she simply couldn't solve the problems we gave her. (we are careful to give the same problems to everyone). 

Thank you for the input. 






kag123 said:


> Female engineer here.
> 
> First, it depends on where you live. I'm in the DC metro area and there are lots of female engineers here. Not as many as men, but a good bit of them.
> 
> ...


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

Basically EE for the most recent position, but with an ability to lean things well outside of that field as needed.




john117 said:


> The 10 Best Colleges for Females in STEM Fields - Best Colleges Online
> 
> Care to share what areas you're looking for? EE? CSE? Compsci?
> 
> I'm in a high tech company and women are barely 10%.


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## growing_weary (Jul 23, 2017)

Agree with kag123. Hmm, there was an article I read that said sometimes the wording of job postings skews one way or another which may make women less likely to apply to them. 

Does your company offer open houses or attend onsite campus fairs so that you could talk to the women in field you want? You could also try posting with some of the startup/sites for women in technology like TechLadies or PowertoFly. Maybe work with GirlsWhoCode, but you mentioned EE so maybe not. 

I went to a women in technology panel at Google last year and what struck me was that only 1/4 women actually graduated with an engineering degree, 2/4 were doing development, the others plus the moderator were product owners/managers, 3/4 had done a code camp to career switch instead of coming up from the weeds, as it were. Very different from my own path, I guess. At one point someone emphasized, "you don't have to code to be in technology" but I felt like, "don't detract from those that want to." 

Also, of the people that "won" mentoring sessions, 2 were female and the rest were male. I understand first come first serve, but I wondered if it was the lack of interest (doubtful), or thinking that they'd already be taken (perhaps), or just timing? it shouldn't have rubbed me the wrong way so I reframed it, equal opportunity and all. 

That said, when hiring for the positions we have here, I found it very difficult to find many women in the scores of resume the recruiters send so YMMV. There's about 15 or so of us on a team of 100+ in this particular office that actively work, or manage those who work, on engineering/ops. I think one of our other offices might have a larger percentage but I haven't seen the breakdown. Our tech all hands and some of the after-hours tech outings are overwhelmingly male. 

Sometimes, due to past experiences, a few of the women I know have flipped to a business side position from engineering or technology (either while still running their side business/start-up or complete conversion). I'm in NYC so the market might be different where you are.


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

Advanced degree double E's are as common as unicorns regardless.

Go to your state's flagship state university and talk to engineering, or with the officers of the Women in Engineering type programs. Offer internships and co-ops.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

Any feel for what sort of things make women more / less likely to apply?

We do go to job fairs at the local university. I'll look up the site you list. We are a big organization so I'd need to get HR to change where they post jobs.

A depressing number of women here have move to less deeply technical jobs - seems to happen more often to women than to men. One woman who was a researcher leading a project on ...lets call it quantum computing... went to work for for a generic consumer electronics company. Another left to work in technical sales somewhere. ( I can't fault the woman who went to SpaceX....).

At the same time, one of the men in my group was offered considerably more money to work for GoogleX, but turned it down because he found our stuff more interesting. I know that several others could step into conventional industry jobs if the wanted. 

It (based on terrible statistics) gives the impression that a higher percentage of women are not as deeply excited by the work here when more conventional but higher paying opportunities exist. (we pay well, but don't compete with the very top end).

There are a lot of women who do stay here because of the work, so the above is in no way an absolute, it just seems that there is some tendency that direction. 











growing_weary said:


> Agree with kag123. Hmm, there was an article I read that said sometimes the wording of job postings skews one way or another which may make women less likely to apply to them.
> 
> Does your company offer open houses or attend onsite campus fairs so that you could talk to the women in field you want? You could also try posting with some of the startup/sites for women in technology like TechLadies or PowertoFly. Maybe work with GirlsWhoCode, but you mentioned EE so maybe not.
> 
> ...


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

For conventional electronics I agree. For people working with SQUIDS, THz systems etc, they are a higher percentage. 




john117 said:


> Advanced degree double E's are as common as unicorns regardless.
> 
> Go to your state's flagship state university and talk to engineering, or with the officers of the Women in Engineering type programs. Offer internships and co-ops.


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

uhtred said:


> For conventional electronics I agree. For people working with SQUIDS, THz systems etc, they are a higher percentage.


And most all non US citizens


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## chillymorn69 (Jun 27, 2016)

uhtred said:


> Question for the women here in tech fields.
> 
> I recently posted an engineering job req. It didn't have really tough experience requirements, I could take someone just out of school, but specifically asked for people with a strong interest in solving challenging and unique technical problems. (which is what we do).
> 
> ...


Isn't this sexist? If you only look for females even though males who are quilified apply ?


Reverse discrimination at its finest!

What ever happened to hiring the most quilified person weather they are male ,female,black,whate should not matter.

Its a disgrace I can't believe that this is acceptable. Or legal.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

I phone interview all qualified males. I also phone interview some females who are not obviously qualified to make up for many women understating their requirements.

I only go on to in-person interviews for people who are qualified based on the phone interview. So in the end, only qualified people of either gender get in-person interviews and any qualified people get in-person interviews. The phone interview is technical so it disqualifies many people. 





chillymorn69 said:


> Isn't this sexist? If you only look for females even though males who are quilified apply ?
> 
> 
> Reverse discrimination at its finest!
> ...


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## chillymorn69 (Jun 27, 2016)

uhtred said:


> I phone interview all qualified males. I also phone interview some females who are not obviously qualified to make up for many women understating their requirements.
> 
> I only go on to in-person interviews for people who are qualified based on the phone interview. So in the end, only qualified people of either gender get in-person interviews and any qualified people get in-person interviews. The phone interview is technical so it disqualifies many people.


You stated that your specifically interested in hiring females!

Come on!

Appalling!

If a company said they were interesred in hiring males only it would surly be sexest.

Explain how your company isn't sexist?


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## Red Sonja (Sep 8, 2012)

Tatsuhiko said:


> It must be a sign of sexism against women that the number of female engineers is so small.


More likely it's a lack of interest in that particular course of study.


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

In DD1's field of study 50% are female. In practice, 18% are women....

Not much better numbers in university faculty numbers. 

In my field, it's quite unbalanced with mostly women who all go to clinical or behavioral specialty, and few women going to my area (cognitive and experimental) probably due to the statistics heavy curriculum.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

uhtred said:


> Our organization has a strong interest in increasing the number of women here and tries to post in places where the job will be seen.


:| Argh... *contains himself*

Have you ever seen the male to female to ratio with engineers in general? An old friend went to uni and there was like... 3% females, it's more or less it seems in other areas but I guess the engineering trade must discriminate against women since there are so few!

Argh... *restrains himself from continuing*


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

uhtred said:


> Any feel for what sort of things make women more / less likely to apply?
> 
> We do go to job fairs at the local university. I'll look up the site you list. We are a big organization so I'd need to get HR to change where they post jobs.
> 
> ...


You may be a bit culture-blind to your company. Once you settle in to a place, it can be easy to overlook how others may experience the same company differently. You have women leaving for other companies... that could be for many reasons. A few off the top of my head: 

They are paid better for the same work elsewhere. This might not be in strict job description but overall effort (such as a place that requires a 40 hr week over one where you might be pulling 60-80 hrs). 

They felt under appreciated when at your company. This can be for a multitude of reasons. 

They didn't enjoy the team dynamic where they were working (perhaps they found it too competitive, or felt that their input wasn't being valued, or that they weren't being listened to with the same weight as their peers).

Perhaps your company isn't as flexible as they want/need? It has been my experience that most of the time women with children are the ones who have to bear the brunt of the childcare issues, staying home with a sick kid, etc. Not to mention if she becomes pregnant and has to deal with the bazillion doctor's appts you have to go to then. A company can profess to offer it's employees flexibility but in practice it is often their immediate boss that makes the determination of how much leeway they are going to give each employee. If the boss is not happy, you aren't going to be happy. It is also incredibly difficult as a woman in a male centered environment to have a lot of "personal" things that you have to tend to. It makes you look less committed to the work and it's very apparent when the men can check their personal stuff at the door and don't have to worry about rushing home, or answering personal calls from the kids school, or whatever. I once had a male senior staff member brag to me about his wife was a SAHM and "took care of all of that nonsense" for him, and that he felt sorry for my husband because "I wanted to show off my fancy college degree instead of staying home with my kids". Obviously this is not always the case... just What I've seen in my young career. 

Just throwing out a few guesses.






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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

Its tricky. 
I think women are under-represented in the organization and we have some difficulty keeping women there. I do agree that its not obvious what is the right approach to fixing this. 

There is clear bias and worse in some companies - look at the stories out of Uber. So this is some compensation for the average discrimination women face - but its not at all clear what is right.



chillymorn69 said:


> You stated that your specifically interested in hiring females!
> 
> Come on!
> 
> ...


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

We pay quite well, but not the best in our area, though our benefits are good. Mostly people work here because the work is especially interesting. I don't see why that motivation would be different for women and men but it might. We are in a higher stress job than most and that might differentiate some. 

It is possible that they feel under-appreciated. Not easy to tell. Subtle stuff is difficult to track down. 

Team dynamic is a tricky one. We have polite but very chaotic discussions. Its quite possible that women are on average less comfortable with that dynamic. I need to think about whether it makes sense to change that mode of discussion. That is an interesting topic in its own right. (I'm not talking about sexist or hostile meetings, but rather ones where there is lot of brainstorming / technical up and back - is that a culture that should change, or one that women need to get used to?

The home issue is always a very difficult one. On average women are more likely to have responsibilities for child care, but that really does mean that in some environments they are less able to take some roles. I'm not a fan of expecting people to put in long hours just out of machismo, but there are situations where it really is important that people put in an extra effort at some times. I don't know a good solution to this one. 








kag123 said:


> You may be a bit culture-blind to your company. Once you settle in to a place, it can be easy to overlook how others may experience the same company differently. You have women leaving for other companies... that could be for many reasons. A few off the top of my head:
> 
> They are paid better for the same work elsewhere. This might not be in strict job description but overall effort (such as a place that requires a 40 hr week over one where you might be pulling 60-80 hrs).
> 
> ...


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## chillymorn69 (Jun 27, 2016)

uhtred said:


> Its tricky.
> I think women are under-represented in the organization and we have some difficulty keeping women there. I do agree that its not obvious what is the right approach to fixing this.
> 
> There is clear bias and worse in some companies - look at the stories out of Uber. So this is some compensation for the average discrimination women face - but its not at all clear what is right.


Hmm

I don't know...... two wrongs don't make a right.


Why do you think women are unrepresented. Whats the evidence that they're underrepresented? 

"
. We do have a fair number of women scientists and engineers, so there should be plenty of good photos - it just looks like the group doing the webpage got a little lazy about that. I'll see that that is fixed.*"


This statement sounds different than underrepresented.


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## RandomDude (Dec 18, 2010)

uhtred said:


> Its tricky.
> *I think women are under-represented in the organization and we have some difficulty keeping women there. * I do agree that its not obvious what is the right approach to fixing this.
> 
> There is clear bias and worse in some companies - look at the stories out of Uber. So this is some compensation *for the average discrimination women face *- but its not at all clear what is right.


Explain.

Right now all I see is your company trying to fill up their "diversity quota", nothing to do with whether or not someone can actually do the damn job and do it well.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

uhtred said:


> Question for the women here in tech fields.
> 
> I recently posted an engineering job req. It didn't have really tough experience requirements, I could take someone just out of school, but specifically asked for people with a strong interest in solving challenging and unique technical problems. (which is what we do).
> 
> ...


To be able to evaluate why women are not applying for your job opening, I'd have to see the ad and know what company this is for.


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## Jethro (Aug 16, 2013)

Here are some thoughts from the production side:

Ideas for shorter term:
1. If they aren't already, get your female engineers and execs engaged in the local professional societies, especially those focused on women, where they can raise the profile of your organization and become mentors to younger professionals.

2. Get more engaged with the universities that produce graduates with the skills you want to hire. This requires more than just attending a job fair. Sponsor activities, have your technical and executive leaders offer to become speakers for clubs and guest lecturers for relevant classes.

3. Leverage the network of your existing female engineers (if any). Have them share job postings among their LinkedIn contacts, etc.

Ideas for longer term:
1. If you don't already do this, work with k-12 and university partners to create a co-op or intern program that targets students in high school or early in their college career. Pair it with a scholarship program that targets women or other under-represented populations. The combo would address the cost of college/student debt, give the student exposure to the work and culture of your firm, and give you an extended period of time to evaluate the student's potential for longer term employment.

2. If your work involves interesting and ill-defined problems, find a way to engage students as consultants. Work with an engineering professor or professors from multiple schools to create a competition, working on a problem that is one your firm works on or one like those your firm works on. Any IP issues can be managed through non-disclosures or by holding back proprietary or sensitive information. The goal isn't necessarily to solve your problem, but to engage and interest students in the type of work and identify potential employees.

3. Get involved in Women in STEM education initiatives at the junior high and high school levels where you can work on both increasing the pipeline and raising the profile of your firm. 

Good luck. You are certainly not alone, but yours is a vexing problem that will take collaboration and time to address.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

uhtred said:


> We pay quite well, but not the best in our area, though our benefits are good. Mostly people work here because the work is especially interesting. I don't see why that motivation would be different for women and men but it might. We are in a higher stress job than most and that might differentiate some.
> 
> It is possible that they feel under-appreciated. Not easy to tell. Subtle stuff is difficult to track down.
> 
> ...


Truthfully - I don't think your company necessarily needs to change anything per se, I was just pointing out some of the issues I've seen that make women uncomfortable in the work place in my experience. Certainly, in some cases the woman needs to accept that she has to "put up or shut up" in a company rather than expecting the company to change to her liking. 

My opinion is that as long as there is no outright sexism in the workplace (and this could be very subtle between boss and employee and not necessarily something you would be aware of) then things should carry on as-is. The focus should be on creating a culture that celebrates innovation and creativity, and making sure that all employees have a seat at that table. 

Women do tend to be more shy about speaking up and sharing their ideas... there is this idea among women that you need to be an absolute subject matter expert and have written a dissertation on the topic before you should be qualified to speak on it. This can hinder us from sharing our ideas, even when they are very good ideas, and even when we DONT necessarily need to know right away whether the idea will work in practice. The best way in my experience to combat this is to train your supervisors to provide mentorship to their employees. Not just women, but all employees. The mentor should be asking their employees probing questions about the work, and celebrating the ideas that their employees share with them, and encouraging them to speak those ideas to the entire group. 

If you are truly losing women at disproportionate rates to men, I hope your company is conducting exit interviews with those who are leaving. That should occur for all staff IMO, not just women. Your company should have metrics on attrition. 

It sounds like you are looking for a specific personality/talent to join your team. Sometimes the best way to get what you are looking for is to seek it out yourself rather than waiting for the applications to land on your desk. I take note of the people I come into contact with during my years in a place that really struck me as someone I'd like to work with more... Whether that be a member of another firm, someone I met at a conference, or so on. I do a little background research on those people, reach out to them personally and explain the position to them and ask them to consider applying. You have to make sure you are still following the appropriate HR laws about fair hiring practices, but I see nothing wrong with seeking out talent when you are hiring positions like this. 

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## TheDudeLebowski (Oct 10, 2017)

On the sexist thing, it happens the other way around in female dominated fields. Male teachers for example. Your resume could be garbage but it wouldn't matter because a recruiter isn't going to even read past the name John Smith at the top before they are on the phone setting up an interview. 

My wife is a teacher, they will hire less qualified men over a highly qualified woman any day because they desperately want to hire men to have more male role models for kids in school. I've actually thought about getting a teachers certification just as a backup plan if I ever need a job. Pretty much a guarantee I will get hired just because of my genitalia.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

I wish I could but of course need to be anonymous. This would have been a better discussion for a no personal group. 




EleGirl said:


> To be able to evaluate why women are not applying for your job opening, I'd have to see the ad and know what company this is for.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

This happened to pop up on my newsfeed, sharing because it seems relevant: 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...itorial-social&utm_content&utm_term=resurface

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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

@uhtred, Your company needs to do something about this.

Some ideas off the top of my head:

Have bursaries at universities for female students who are working toward the qualifications you need. Have a stipulation that they will spend xx amount of time working at your company.

Hold a conference on providing career opportunities for more women. Host it at your workplace (or a nearby hotel, conference centre) and invite women engineers and executives from Google, Microsoft, Dell, etc., to talk about how they got into their field, etc.

Have a women engineer section on your website, feature video interviews with them as they talk about why they wanted to become an engineer, what it is like working for your company, etc.

Have an application form on it.


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

Word of mouth is very popular. We never have a shortage of very well qualified candidates, minority, female, or otherwise.

The sense of belonging is key. I have a new guy starting tomorrow, finally we found a machine learning PhD willing to work for Elbonian wages. He's h1b visa so he'll be freaking out every time Trump speaks.... 

I have to make him feel at home, so I'll give him my own story as inspiration ... Let's hope he doesn't run off on us.


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## growing_weary (Jul 23, 2017)

Sorry I dropped off the face of the TAM after posting that for a bit, but what I've experienced is that women will leave a role or industry if it doesn't feel right (same as everyone really). Also there's company environment as a whole that might be evaluated: 

How many women are in leadership positions in technology or any part of the firm?
How long, on average, do women stay there vs men?
Do the women become, or are they expected to be, the default party-planners, cake-runners, etc when they join the team? 
How the interactions with other coworkers go. Things that might not show up to a manager but being in the trenches would feel uncomfortable 
Do the men on the team go out to drink/cigar/game after work without the women unintentionally or not? 
Where the "ceiling" is in terms of female progression... like at my firm there's not one woman in the C-suite and the EVP/SVP level has lost quite a few in the recent past. Once you get past a certain level there's a steep drop off due to the leadership team. 

As I progress, I find I'm less willing to put up with a lot of things that I used to brush off (maybe it's just age and happens to everyone). You become more discerning. 
@uhtred have you had women working for you in the past in this company? If any left did they state why in their exit interview? Do you or HR have any access to this historical information?


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

We do fairly well with women in leadership, though that has declined a little. A few years ago the top manager was female but she left voluntarily to take an even higher level job somewhere else. Until very recently we had a high level manager (responsible for ~500 people) who was female, but she recently left for another job - again looked like a case of finding a better opportunity elsewhere. There doesn't seem to be a common cause, but now we don't have any top level female managers.

Otherwise we have some female managers, but not near parity. As usual, the reasons that there are not as many high level female managers is not simple to decipher. I can't rule out various forms of discrimination but its not clearly visible either. 

I'm low level technical management, so I don't see the interactions at the high levels. 

We have very high employee retention in general and I haven't seen any evidence that women on average stay for a different length of time.

We are really good about not expecting women to "get the coffee" or anything similar. The only exception is that a high percentage of our admins are female (again, I couldn't say why but that is common) and its typical for them to help with that sort of thing. I haven't seen female engineers or scientists asked to do inappropriate jobs. 

I try to keep an eye on interactions at least withing my group. I've seen no hostility and there seems to be open socializing - no sign of "boys clubs". I generally have lunch with people in my group and other parallel managers, and women and men join. (though again more men than women).

Of course there are some people who are uncomfortable with mixed gender socializing. I generally try to be sure that a mix of people are invited to social events to make it very clear that this is a social business gathering, not an attempt at an inappropriate contact. 

We do have very enthusiastic chaotic meeting discussions and that may feel uncomfortable for some women. 

Some issues are difficult to decipher. A woman parallel to me in the organization with whom I often have lunch, told me that in her previous position she felt that her boss wasn't giving her enough credit for her work. OTOH, he also gave her a bonus -something pretty unusual (10%) in our organization. Not at all easy to interpret that. Was he just socially uncomfortable around women? Did he change his mind? Was he just negative towards everyone?

I haven't had any female direct reports leave. Some have been moved by overall re-organizations, but there was no indication that they wanted to leave my group.

Other things get tricky: There is one woman in my group who I have encouraged to take a management position somewhere else in the organization, but she has decided to stay where she is. That is of course her choice, but it seems like a fairly common pattern. 

Another women in a closely related group left suddenly to take a higher paying but much lower "status" job at a company. Went from being an nationally recognized scientist to a just a worker-bee in a high tech company . Certainly her choice, but sort of sad.

Another left to take a job at SpaceX. Can't fault that - I'd take a job there if they offered one. 


I don't think we have a big problem, but there may be a lot of subtle things that are adding up. I'm finding this discussion useful to get input on where to look for possible issues. I'm interested in the sorts of things that make women unhappy at workplaces - not the obvious ones, but the important but subtle ones that I might have missed. 








growing_weary said:


> Sorry I dropped off the face of the TAM after posting that for a bit, but what I've experienced is that women will leave a role or industry if it doesn't feel right (same as everyone really). Also there's company environment as a whole that might be evaluated:
> 
> How many women are in leadership positions in technology or any part of the firm?
> How long, on average, do women stay there vs men?
> ...


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## growing_weary (Jul 23, 2017)

@uhtred got it. 

Bonus aside, the woman who felt she wasn't getting enough recognition from her boss might have wanted more feedback or input or verbal acknowledgment. I tend to like a two way flow rapport with my bosses, which I sorely miss at the moment. Personally,I want my boss to be in my corner and know where I'm coming from: not more so than anyone else on the team, but to at least be on some nearby wavelength.

Sometimes it is about pay, the one who went to be a drone at a tech company makes much more there so can't fault her. Renown only goes so far if you want more monetarily. 

Also, yes, the subtle issues compound into something unbearable in certain cases. 

The one who you wanted to take a management position elsewhere might like the dynamic on your team better, be comfortable or be intimidated by the risk of the move (impostor syndrome is a real concern in some cases). Sometimes the "safe" move or comfortable non-action gets picked over potential risk. 

I don't have numbers on EE so I wouldn't know how to offer any advice on tweaking for the industry. Anyway, it's nice to see a manager concerned about these issues. Good luck in your efforts!


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

Well, one thing I can say for myself is that I really don't care about "prestige", a title or racking up lavish accomplishments and awards.

What I want out of my career is to be paid well, to retain a flexible work schedule (a place that lets me adjust my daily hours away from a typical 8am-5pm, allows for some telework, and offers a good amount of paid leave), and to be mentally stimulated and useful to meeting the company's/client's goals. In that order. 

I know that I am intelligent and good at what I do. If the company recognizes that and can put me to good use, I'm happy with that. 

Whether the company is internationally known, whether my title has a "director" in it, whether my clients are near-celebrity status... I just don't put stock in those things. I'm wholly unimpressed by the string of letters that get posted after people's names. That stuff always seems to matter more to the men in the company. 

Your example of the women who left for a less exciting but better paying job - yea, I would do that too. My work only contributes to maybe 25% of my potential happiness in life. I am much more concerned with what the paycheck affords me and what I can do with my time off from work. That doesn't mean I'm not committed to my job, just that I don't consider it a major part of my identity. 

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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

So here is a question:

Do you think that on average women are less interested than men in prestige jobs? By prestige, I don't just mean fancy titles, but working at places with a reputation for "awesomeness". Skunk works type jobs.

One dynamic that I push is that people in my group should be here because they want to work on really difficult problems and are bored with standard engineering. That there are other places where they can make as much money doing less work if that is what they want. 

I've found a lot of men to be very receptive to this approach, and it really is what we do. Am I statistically driving away women with this?

If so, then there is an interesting question of whether I should change. If there are people who want to do really interesting, really hard work is there anything wrong with providing that sort of work environment? 






kag123 said:


> Well, one thing I can say for myself is that I really don't care about "prestige", a title or racking up lavish accomplishments and awards.
> 
> What I want out of my career is to be paid well, to retain a flexible work schedule (a place that lets me adjust my daily hours away from a typical 8am-5pm, allows for some telework, and offers a good amount of paid leave), and to be mentally stimulated and useful to meeting the company's/client's goals. In that order.
> 
> ...


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

Speaking only for myself:

I love companies that celebrate innovation and creativity. I think it's fun to work on projects that give me room to ask questions and explore answers that have not been tackled before. 

However - my rules still apply. Pay me well, give me some flexibility, and I'll happily participate. 

If those two things are missing... I'm out. 

I think it's especially important to pay competitively for talent. You are purchasing human potential and you are showing that person that you feel the unique skills they bring to the table are an asset to the company. I've seen too many companies lowballing salaries. People who are talented have options and will be readily exploring them. 

I am fully committed to my job and give it 100%, but I am always searching job postings for our competitors and the agencies we work with and always keeping my ears open for other opportunities that might be better. It's human nature I think. I am selling you my time and letting you lease my brain, if someone else will offer me a better price for it, I'm going to think about taking it. 

A 90-day trial period might work for this situation. It's hard to judge what someone is "worth" before you've had a chance to work with them. But hopefully your hiring managers have an eye for talent, and then your company allows space for the talent to be tested for the first few months. If you are impressed with someone, you should be able to give them a raise or financial boost at that 90 day mark (or whatever increment you choose) that basically says "I think you worth the investment". 

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## Rowan (Apr 3, 2012)

uhtred said:


> So here is a question:
> 
> Do you think that on average women are less interested than men in prestige jobs? By prestige, I don't just mean fancy titles, but working at places with a reputation for "awesomeness". Skunk works type jobs.
> 
> ...


I'm going to say that, yes, I think that work environment probably is much less attractive to women than it is to men. Married women - at least at this point in history - on average, still tend to have more at-home responsibilities than their working male counterparts. Married women and/or women with kids at home might simply tend to have enough on their plates that they can't really justify working harder for less financial return, when there are easier and less demanding jobs that pay as well or better and will leave them more energy for their other responsibilities. You may find that single women and/or women with no children, are more interested in chasing prestige work. 

Of course, there are plenty of men who would rather work less for more money, too. But that tendency may be more noticeable with women because the pool of qualified female engineers you have to draw from is already so much smaller than the pool of qualified male engineers. Are your women actually leaving at a higher rate than your men? Or is it more visible when women leave because there are already noticeably fewer of them?


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

Really not sure. Small statistics. Maybe not, there were just a couple of very noticeable ones recently. 



Rowan said:


> snip
> 
> Are your women actually leaving at a higher rate than your men? Or is it more visible when women leave because there are already noticeably fewer of them?


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

Our base pay and benefits are OK, but we are not the sort of company where stock options will ever make someone wealthy - so that keeps us from competing in total compensation with some high tech startups. 

We do provide flexibility and pretty good job security.





kag123 said:


> Speaking only for myself:
> 
> I love companies that celebrate innovation and creativity. I think it's fun to work on projects that give me room to ask questions and explore answers that have not been tackled before.
> 
> ...


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## EllisRedding (Apr 10, 2015)

Not sure about your field, but our hours (along with working most major holidays) seems to be a lot more unappealing to women vs men.

If you can provide the name of your company, your full legal name, social #, and a major credit card, I will see what I can dig up to help out :grin2:


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