Ask HN: Looking for female developers. Is this ok? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Looking for female developers. Is this ok?

5 pointsuptownhr25 comments

I work in a pretty small team of devs and devops and would love to see some diversity in the team. However, is it valid or proper to look specifically for female developers? Is it ok to be mention in the job ad? Any examples of job descriptions that do specify female developers?

View on HN

> I work in a pretty small team of devs and devops and would love to see some diversity in the team.

This is great and a very acceptable goal.

> However, is it valid or proper to look specifically for female developers?

Yes, it is, but...

> Is it ok to be mention in the job ad?

No. Absolutely not.

Try to reframe your thoughts here. You're not looking for a female developer because she is a woman. You're looking for a female developer because it will give your team a set of viewpoints and skills that aren't necessarily provided by a man.

Focus on her skills and the benefits she brings to the team, rather than on her gender. You need to find a female dev that contributes as much as, if not more than, any other member of your team (regardless of gender). Hiring a good dev that's female over a great dev that's male is not only discrimination, but also a poor business choice.

IANAL, but I am almost positive you can not specify in a job ad a preference for any sex, race, disability, etc... With that said you could adjust your ad placement so they are seen by females more than males. However, if a male (or anyone else for that matter) applies you can't discriminate against them and say you are only looking for females.

Mentioning this in the job description is probably not a good idea, but only hiring female developers is your prerogative.

Specifically requesting female developers in your ad will undoubtedly get the opposite of your intention. People who are good developers who happen to be women, will not come to a company looking for female developers because they would want to be hired on merit. Those who do come with a "looking for female developers" caveat, will be subpar very likely, and/or more trouble than they are worth.

Think of it from the other side. The ad says "looking for male developers" -- what kind of men would reply to that?

Completely understand. However, from our past 5 job ads, we've had 0 female applicants.

Then change where you publish your ads! :)

Make an alliance with a coder school catering to women specifically, and work with the founders of that organization.

Know of any examples?

Well, what kind of code are you looking to have written?

i.e. what languages, frameworks, libraries, etc.

Looking for backend devs with languages in ruby/php/javacsript.

Recurse Center (formerly Hacker School) isn't a coder school, but more of a programming retreat. They strive for a diverse and unique group of fantastic programmers. If you would like to work with them shoot me a PM and I can get you in touch with someone there.

https://www.recurse.com/

"Only hiring female developers" is as much a company's prerogative as only hiring male developers (as a conscious choice) - that is to say, it's not.

Diversity? Presumably you're also interested in hiring other nationalities, people who were trained in different fields, people who are coming from different functional areas, people who fit within various other of Belbin's team roles, more variety in terms of the Big Five personality traits, different MBTIs, people who have different intrinsic motivations for employment, people who exhibit different levels of creativity, and so on?

Or no? By 'diversity' you just mean girls? Why do you want girls?

'Diversity' only works for gender, skin color and sexual orientation.

That's a limited view of what diversity means, and doesn't jive with full interpretations of it by researchers in the area of organisational behaviour, which would include ethnicity, culture, modes of learning, level of education, ability, and on and on and on. It certainly doesn't just mean 'gender'.

You also can't hire or not hire somebody because of those things you mentioned by the way.

My comment was sarcastic. I do agree with you. To me 'diversity' is much more meaningful when you talk about where a person was born, where they grew up, what they studied, what they are interested in, etc.

Ah apologies. Not only do I agree with you, but what you're saying IS what 'diversity' is meant to represent.

As others have mentioned, it is not optimal for you to specify female devs only within your job ad. A more productive approach is to write a straightforward ad[1], include your openness to a diverse workforce and widen your ad circulation by contacting organizations that contain high #s of underrepresented populations in tech[2][3].

[1]Interesting discussion on words that alienate people from underrepresented communities: https://storify.com/kissane/job-listings-that-don-t-alienate

[2] You didn't mention your location, many online groups are global and may have members in your area. Most have mailing lists, so their admins can post your job ad. The "An incomplete list of women's tech communities" section of this site lists over 30 female tech groups: http://www.hiremorewomenintech.com/

[3] There are many related tech groups on Facebook too. You can search and message their admins about posting your ad. I also recommend searching and posting related questions on Twitter.

* Advertise on the alumnae networks of Women's colleges.

* Reach out to women specifically and ask them to apply

* Hire diversity experts to help you (e.g. Ashe Dryden)

* Describe your company and its benefits in ways that women value (or add benefits that women value) -- talk to women to find out what that might be.

* Look critically at yourself and see if there are things about your company that make women not want to work there and change those things.

* Give yourself enough time to find women applicants.

Because that is illegal, people usually discriminate (in favor of women, men, whites, blacks, whatever) with euphemisms like "Diversity." (Discrimination against the old usually less euphemistic, with terms like "we have a young, energetic workforce.)

Just identify traits/characteristics/experiences that your team is lacking and look for these. Don't think there's any developer characteristics that would be strongly skewed based on sex, so probably you're just doing it wrong.

> is it valid or proper to look specifically for female developers? Yes, and it's a desirable competitive advantage.

> Any examples of job descriptions? Pro-tip: You won't find tech girls by mentioning it in job ads. *You must go out and find/meet/attract them in person. This is a hyper-competitive sport.

Here's an article on Google's quest to get more women in tech > http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/24/tech/innovation/women-at-i-o/

Ping me if you need help.

I wonder how many black men are on your team.

The way to do it is to do things that result in female developers applying for the job, to ultimately create the situation where the BEST candidate HAPPENS TO BE a female developer. Don't hire (or not hire) BECAUSE someone is male or female.

Read this: http://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/44172/how-to-he...

Hire a recruiter and instruct him/her that "the candidate slate must be diverse."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com