OATV posted an opening for an associate. Only one woman applied. | Hacker News Reader

OATV posted an opening for an associate. Only one woman applied.

bryce.vc

26 pointsivankirigin27 comments

Yeah, this recruitment thing he laid out is illegal on several dimensions.

1. employer is obligated to advertise broadly enough to generate a diverse applicant pool (for protected classes). 2. personal reference is prohibited along similar lines.

IMPORTANT: by the sheer fact of your pool not being diverse, you have liability! does not matter if you treat every protected class applicant really well! The NON-DIVERSE POOL ALONE creates a legal liability.

This is also illustrative because VC's often say the'll help company management with operational issues, but because VC's are so sheltered (don't have to hire a lot) they don't know these basic issues.

Any company CEO worth his salt is very sensitive to "job applicant pool" issues, and funny that the operations value add from a VC is going to lead some poor CEO into a lawsuit!!

some references:

http://www.workforce.com/section/news/feature/dipping-carefu...

http://public.getlegal.com/legal-info-center/hiring-process/...

If you're in a male-dominated profession, where both the "employees" (VC's) and the "clients" (startups) are 90+% male, and the way people are to apply for your roles (primarily) is through an introduction, you should not possibly believe you will get >10% women - you will almost certainly get far less. In addition, if the women that others can see in the profession are concentrated near the "top" (i.e. they're already VC's or they're CEO's at successful or well-known companies), and you look at their stories and they didn't move up from the "bottom," then you don't even see anybody who looks _like_ you.

And saying that what you want from other candidates is "hustle" doesn't help matters much, though I won't pretend to be an expert on gender-dominated language - there are plenty of smart people out there (here?) who can comment.

(I thought there was a very cogent blog post from Anil Dash on this topic some years ago, but I can't find it.)

(Added: I saw Ivan's HN headline for this post and somehow missed the original. "Let's Try This Again Ladies"? Really? That certainly screams "comfortable work environment.")

Umm, "required a personal introduction." Does he not understand how discrimination works?

In this day and age with the power and ease of networks, is a personal introduction really discriminatory? or was it ever? Find out where he gets coffee in the morning, ask the barista for an introduction. It might not work, but it is an intro.

Also, is a woman any less likely to be linked in the network than a man? I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at saying this is discrimination.

If a personal introduction is discrimination, isn't location discriminatory as well?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell it to the EEOC.

The applicant pool requirement upsets a lot of people (like how the hell can i control who applies?!), but it's the reality of modern HR.

Deal with it, and be productive!

There's a reason it's called an "old boys' network".

EDIT: We have many men at HN who are hypersensitive about any suggestion that sexism exists. It's disgusting, pathetic, and gives me one of those moments where I'm embarrassed that I come to this site. [This is more directed at the downvotes than you, pedalpete.]

But this is reality - all hand-waving about how a good candidate will get an introduction aside, the advantage to getting introductions goes strongly to people who already know someone. In this industry, that's an almost entirely male crowd.

Almost all VC funding is done through introduction. That's the way this game works. It's one of the reasons so many people apply to YC. As a VC, you spend your days trying to figure out which teams will be successful in the future (even if they've never created a company before) and sometimes all you have is a trusted recommendation to work from. I can't think of a single VC who brags about how few people they know, how small their network is, and how they can't think outside the box to reach the person they don't know who could change the destiny of your company.

What we all agree on is that it is a good thing for more women to be in tech. Here's an influential VC who is ACTIVELY trying to encourage more balance in his applicant pool and he gets attacked. Seriously, what's the endgame here? Discrimination exists. He's one of the good ones trying to make it better. The real discrimination is the stuff you don't see in a blog post.

Not cool attacking someone trying to do the right thing.

Let's unpack the things you say here, starting from the end:

"Not cool attacking someone trying to do the right thing"

Of course, the only people I actually attack are people here on HN who are very much hostile to trying to do the right thing.

"Here's an influential VC who is ACTIVELY trying to encourage more balance in his applicant pool and he gets attacked"

I haven't attacked him, nor do I see anyone else in this thread attacking him. His chosen methodology got criticized. Is someone trying to do something right immune from criticism? No.

Now, is he trying to do something right in the first place? Perhaps. He does seem to be uneasy at a male-dominated pool of responses. However, his response to seeing this pattern is to assume that this represents a failure on the part of some unknown women who did not respond. That's a remarkable and dubious attitude to strike; taken most charitably, it's a startlingly naive one.

"sometimes all you have is a trusted recommendation to work from"

The cold fact is that someone not within a network or who cannot easily enter that network is disadvantaged by this requirement. In this case, it's a strongly majority-male network that shows quite a bit of discomfort and sometimes outright hostility towards women trying to enter it.

So, I will say to you:

1) Blaming women for the fact that you've set up filters that are biased against them? Uncool on the VC's part.

2) Jumping on someone pointing out those biased filters? Uncool on your part.

Sigh. You do know that almost all of us are on your side, right? Do you have any idea how often the topic of the difficulty of hiring women comes up when I talk to fellow entrepreneurs (male and female)? Personally, I've tried recruiting six talented female programmers to apply to Y Combinator. None have. Two of them took jobs at Goldman Sachs. One of them was one of the most talented programmers I've ever met.

If you want to change the game, you've got to get in it. The fact of the matter is that VC is an institution that's incredibly biased against anyone who doesn't have connections. The year before I went through Y Combinator, I emailed 30 VCs our pitch deck. Two responded. The day after demo day, we had offers for meetings with half. Today, I have no trouble setting up meetings. VCs simply don't have time to review every company that might come their way. So they use intros and recommendations as short cuts. This isn't actually a male or female issue. Very few people have the requisite connections to break into this group. Isolating it to a female issue alone probably minimizes the seriousness of the problem. That's why I love when a VC like Bryce reaches out and gives people a way to even get in the door without having said connections. This is a huge improvement for those willing to take advantage of it.

Seriously, I'm open to suggestions. What solutions do you have that would get more women into the game? We both agree that it would be a good thing.

"Sigh. You do know that almost all of us are on your side, right?"

If you mean random people on HN, definitely not. Nearly every thread on women in the industry here devolves into rants about how stupid, weak, and whiny women are, and many or most of the posters who don't drop into open misogyny instead pretend we're in a perfectly equal world (or, at least, a perfectly equal industry) and that sexism is a moot issue that only conniving lib'ruls try to whip up out of nothing.

Now, if you mean people you work with, I'm willing to believe they'd like to do the right thing. However, a big part of actually DOING the right thing is entertaining the possibility that you're doing it wrong, and that involves not being defensive. That includes such things as not trying to foist the blame on the women themselves (as TFA did) and not trying to shout down people who point out problems (as you did).

"This isn't actually a male or female issue"

It's not a strictly racial or sexual issue, either, but this is still a setup where a bunch of mostly straight white guys will end up giving much better odds to similar folks than they will give to equally talented people who aren't straight, white, and/or guys. Not "there are fewer of them in the first place", but straight-up "we are making this harder for you if you're gay, black, or a woman".

Suggestions?

1) Think of it as marketing. Try to look at finding talented people beyond the standard pool of straight white guys as something that's on you in order to make more money, not some problem you're saddled with that just benefits them. Look at the positions you're offering as something you're trying to sell and see how attractive they are - and think of things like "almost no women apply" as "we're failing to attract a major segment of the market".

2) Don't emulate TFA. Don't patronize the people you say you want to recruit. Would you try to sell something by squinting at customers who turned you down and saying, "Let's try this again"? That sure wouldn't work on me, why would that work on women?

3) Keying into that "possibility that you're doing it wrong" - when you can, find out why women aren't applying for something. If you had good rapport with one or more of those six programmers you mentioned, why did she or they not want to apply to Y Combinator? They all had reasons.

If you're going to downvote me, fine, but please explain how you feel a personal introduction is discrimination, if that is what is being debated.

Discrimination basically means you're most likely to be friends/look more favorably on people who are similar to you in age, gender, race, or religion. Even if someone from outside those groups manages to force themselves into your presence like you describe, you're going to look less favorably on them just because they forced their way into your presence, and even if one person does pass on the introduction, others won't. Meaning that statistically, if you're not from the same group as the person giving the personal introduction, you're less likely to be interviewed for the job.

Thanks for the clear response, though I disagree on a few points.

1)your definition of discrimination I think is twisted to fit this case. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&defl=en&... .

2)as jeremymims points alludes, the ability to network is a key part of the job requirements, therefore, the ability for one to show that the challenges they faced in reaching through their network or the creativity in getting an introduction could be favorable in getting hired.

> Find out where he gets coffee in the morning, ask the barista for an introduction.

Uh that's stalking.

And not the sort of introduction they're looking for - it's an extremely bogus example.

I'll play devil's advocate to claims of illegality.

He said the "requirement" could be broken and convertible to any demonstration of creativity. Which is not a restriction on a protected class.

This doesn't seem insanely different than asking programmers to complete problem sets or coding scavenger hunts to apply. Here the assignment is social engineering rather than technical. For VCs, meeting people they are assumed not to know ahead of time to get in on deals is the core competency.

disclaimer: i am not a lawyer (i just put their kids though college ;)

You said you wanted to address the legality of it, but then you started throwing around this "logic" thing...

Let's ignore "logic" for the moment and just address the legality.

EEOC has a 'rule of thumb" that your "selection process" must result in an acceptance ratio of protected classes equivalent to 4/5th of the ratio of that protected class in the "qualified applicant pool." (i.e. if 20% of qualified applicants are blue people then you need to hire at least 16% blue people). If the ratio is less then 4/5ths then _prima facia_ this is "adverse impact" ie discrimination (Griggs?)

The "qualified applicant pool" is the ratio of qualified people in the population! not just those who apply. If any part of the selection process has an adverse impact, even if the end result doesn't then it is discriminatory.

Thus, you need to generate an applicant pool that reflects the qualification of the population in general...

So for Brycevc, if of all qualified people in the SV area, 40% are women, and 60% are men, Brycevc needs to generate an applicant pool that reflects at least 4/5ths that ratio of women.

If the pool does not look like that: discrimination! The only hope of your argument on this one is the qualification that "For VCs, meeting people they are assumed not to know ahead of time" is a real job qualification, and that since that is 90% white male, then the qualified applicant pool should be 90% white male.... good luck getting that past a judge!! ha!

As for the logic of it all? who knows, lots of lawyers and judges have been working on that for 40yrs... I'm here to build a company (within the legal framework I find myself).

-- some references:

http://www.uniformguidelines.com/

Ward's Cove Packing Co., Inc. v. Antonio. 490 U.S. 642 (1989)

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_04...

This was an important decision that affects not only the test developer, but the recruiter, also. In this case, the Supreme Court held that the appropriate recruitment pool to use when engaging in disparate impact analysis was the relevant and qualified group of applicants. If a recruiter is looking for an engineer, the appropriate comparison group is how many engineers are qualified within a reasonable recruitment area.

From the opinion: "Rather, the proper comparison is generally between the racial composition of the at-issue jobs and the racial composition of the qualified population in the relevant labor market. Hazelwood School Dist. v. United States, 433 U.S. 299, 308."

Connecticut v. Teal, 457 U.S. 440 (1982)

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US...

In the Connecticut case, the State used a multiple hurdle assessment and selection process. Disparate impact was noted at separate levels of the process, but when final selections were made there was no discriminatory impact. The court held that the "bottom line" was not sufficient. Each part of the acquisition and selection process must pass scrutiny. If one part of the process is shown to be discriminatory, then the whole process is held to be discriminatory. Additionally, the court once again gave "great deference" to the Guidelines.

We (a mid-sized tech VC firm) recently did an associate search as well. We posted the job listing publicly (e.g., LinkedIn) and got almost 200 resumes. Of those, fewer than 5% were women. And we are a firm that has more women than most (up to and including Managing Director level). I was stunned that the ratio was so skewed.

Did you follow best practices for outreach? I've got some links at http://bit.ly/nwenctr2

Am I the only one who sees something wrong with a guy hectoring any set of people who chose not to apply for a job he's offering?

Myself, I'm wondering how many men applied.

How many Asians? Caucasians? African Americans? Paraplegics? (Quadraplegics?)

In other words, why does it matter how many of some arbitrary sub-categorization of "humans" applied?

It matters because when your applicant pool does not approximately reflect the distributions of the target demographic along any dimension, it suggests that you are not reaching the group of candidates you would like to. The qualified candidates are presumably 50/50 male/female, so to see the applicant pool so skewed from that number suggests that the firm is not reaching the full candidate pool it should be. You always want to be reaching as many qualified candidates as you can in order to ensure you are reaching the best potential candidates.

how many African Americans applied?

He probably doesn't know, because it wouldn't be on a résumé.

Separating the detailed comment from the pedantic comment: the word is flair. You put a flare in the road. You do things with flair. (And in Office Space, you wear pieces of flair. And if you're in the ring with the master of the figure four, you're with Ric Flair.)

I clicked, scanned, and clicked a few more times. I have no idea what OATV is, and I have lost interest trying to learn.

edit: Curiosity got the best of me, and I dug until I found out what it was. Now, should I restart my search to find out what the job description is? I think a blog post isn't the best way to accomplish this task.

Well I guess I won't apply since I'm male.

Apparently only women are welcome to apply at OATV.

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