At my current job, we used to advertise that we wanted someone with deep knowledge of Python, who had written their own Python metaclasses. How many of you know off the top of your head exactly what a metaclass is and why you would want to write one? While we did have <i>one</i> hand-rolled metaclass in our own codebase, it was just there, written long ago, worked fine, and didn't need any modification. None of us actually working at the job have to think about metaclasses on our day-to-day tasks.<p>By putting that very specific bit of Python arcana in our job ad, we were just scaring away lots of potential candidates who could have done the job just fine. They stopped mentioning metaclasses in the ad and we've gotten some really good new hires since who are very competent, and best of all, are very nice people.
I'll add one - I immediately ignore any job ad that contains anything along the lines of "Work in an exciting/agile fast-paced, dynamic environment", which pretty much signals that only youngsters need apply.<p>Of course, if the job really is chaotic and high-stress, then that signal should probably stay in the job ad.
> No ninjas, rockstars or brogrammers, please; just nice, caring humans.<p>I like how in a post about inclusive job ads, they still wanted to show off that they <i>Exclude The Right People</i>.<p>Their cultural based discrimination is obviously correct and should be applied universally; previous cultural based discrimination is a crime we should all strive to avoid!<p>I actually enjoyed the post (and agree with most of the points about writing job postings) and don't mean to be overly critical, I just think it's an interesting chance to reflect on how easily these habits come to us as people. (And so some of the language above is dramatic for effect.)
<i>>original: Your code will be exercised by 125,000 events every second,</i><p><i>>revised: your contributions will be exercised by more than fifty billion events per day</i><p>Why does 125 <i></i>* 10^3 vs 50 <i></i>* 10^9 influence diversity hiring?<p>The scientific study the blog references does not mention anything about altering numerical figures (such as altering a numerator from 3 zeroes to 9 zeroes) to be more inclusive.<p>Also, why is <i>"code"</i> a taboo word for inclusiveness? Here's female Ginni Rometty using the phrase <i>"lines of code"</i>.[1] Another female (also a non-programmer) Mary Barra using the phrase <i>"lines of code"</i>.[2]<p>[1] <i>"New cars today have 100 million lines of code"</i>: <a href="https://www.ibm.com/ibm/ginni/01_06_2016.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.ibm.com/ibm/ginni/01_06_2016.html</a><p>[2] <i>“A car today has hundreds of millions of lines of code,”</i> : <a href="http://www.triplepundit.com/2017/07/gm-boosts-stem-education-girls-women/" rel="nofollow">http://www.triplepundit.com/2017/07/gm-boosts-stem-education...</a>
I guess I could be classified under "POC," even though I'm half white. I was fully expecting this to be full of overly sensitive trite, but now I wish everyone writing job ads reads this first!<p>The other issue is HR usually does the postings, where they just get handed some skills and they make up random numbers and go from there. But seriously, you don't need a Java guru that has achieved nirvana with the JVM to write CRUD apps, so why not just advertise what you're actually looking for?
On the other hand, if you were going to write your job posting the pre-edit way and the said applicant was turned off by it... will they even be a good fit in your org? Do you want to continue editing all of your communications?<p>I’m kind of being devils advocate here but I do find it a drag to work with people who can’t read between the lines sometimes and get the gist of what someone means rather than feeling excluded by they’re word choices.
I would replace " No ninjas, rockstars or brogrammers, please; just nice, caring humans." with "Just nice, caring humans". "no..." sentences sound defensive to me.
I honestly don't understand what any of this has to do with inclusion. Maybe the aim is to de-emphasize competitiveness, directness, and individual responsibility, which is fine if that's the kind of employees you want to hire. But is there strong scientific evidence that women lack these qualities compared to men? What if you'd like to hire people with the qualities of, say, the Williams sisters of tennis fame?
Can someone define what a "rockstar programmer" is and why a company would want to not hire rockstar programmers?<p>Here's one definition I found: <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=ChrisTTT" rel="nofollow">http://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=ChrisTTT</a><p><i>A computer programmer with such strong skills and so much specific experience that they are the equivalent of a rock star in the domain of software. Many people play guitar pretty well, but only a few become rock stars. These programmers can develop more software than 5 - 10 newly hired regular programmers because they know what needs to be done and how to do it. They also might set the architecture of the product that dozens will build upon.</i><p>What's wrong with that?
What the heck is a "brogrammer" anyway?<p>It's one of those words I thought I understood just from its contsruction, but the more I see it used by others, the more confused I get.
Job postings that emphasize mandatory after-hours events especially based around alcohol are incredibly off-putting to multiple groups of candidates (senior engineers with families, introverts, non-drinkers, etc.). Things like "we have a beer keg in the office", "happy hours", or "work hard play hard".
many of the job listing phrases suggested by this post make the company seem more inviting, open, comfortable <i>in general.</i><p>i don't see these phrasings as tied strongly to inclusion of specific underrepresented gender, sexual preference, racial or ethnic groups. many white males who dislike brogrammer culture will find these phrases more appealing too.<p>also, these phrases actually advertise for <i>a different type of job in a different type of company,</i> a company that <i>isn't</i> looking for a ninja/messiah to save its ass and make all the critical decisions singlehandedly, a company with a management team that <i>isn't</i> a gang of lazy, entitled, technical illiterates who are ignorant about how to organize and run a software dev operation.<p>in other words, this company is not just looking for a bro (sucker) to dump all the shit on (exploit). this company knows what it's doing.
"Evidence That Gendered Wording in Job Advertisements Exists and Sustains Gender Inequality"[1] looks at wording of job applications effect on applicant pool. I know there are some start-ups[2] in this area trying to automate the process the author describes.<p>[1] <a href="http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/static/documents/Gaucher-Friesen-Kay-JPSP-Gendered-Wording-in-Job-ads.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/static/documents/Gauch...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://textio.com/" rel="nofollow">https://textio.com/</a>
It's been found that women generally look at job ads and find the things they <i>can't</i> do. They will feel underqualified and not apply. I think that's the reasoning behind taking out "several years", etc.<p>As a female junior software dev, I honestly would be more likely to apply to the revised job ad than the original. So, good job to them I guess.
Why not just skip all the weasel words and have a big "WHITE MEN NEED NOT APPLY"? If you are looking to specifically discriminate against white males then say so, I'm sure the potential minority candidate would be much more encouraged to apply knowing that their major competition has been disqualified already.
For those interested, another take on using language to bring down social barriers:<p><a href="http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/07/less-exclusive.html" rel="nofollow">http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/07/less-exclusi...</a>