| > During the recruiting process, Mr. McClure, a founder of 500 Startups and an investor, sent her a Facebook message that read in part, “I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you.” Its interesting to think about what this would be like if the roles were reversed. The VC was female, and the applicant was male. As a male in this situation I see this as completely neutral, even positive. If the founder likes me, then I have more chance of getting a highly sought after role which I might not have otherwise - as no company really hires solely on merit anyway. As a male, if there is a female HR contact, I would always welcome them flirting with me, as it only increases my chances of getting the job by giving me points when there are subjective evaluations required. If I was single and interested in this female VC its a clear opening for a date. If I am attracted to her, I could have a date. If not, I could just laugh it off and say I'm already seeing someone. Life moves on. Now if I push back an advance, they might get petty and decide to not hire me as some kind of revenge, or otherwise, they may be more likely to hire me because they want me around. --- Now, obviously this is not a 1-1 analogous situation because of the world as it is today. Some notable differences... - There are more male VCs than females.
- There are probably less female applicants for such positions.
- Males are the physically stronger sex.
- Males are more likely to make advances than females (is this true?). So I am interested in which of these above variables must be inverted to change my reaction. I need to think more on it. But an interesting aspect is that, perhaps males think like this, and therefore think its okay. I am guessing that its the other gender imbalance variables that make this not applicable vise-versa, which is harder for males to play out in their mind. |
> Now if I push back an advance, they might get petty and decide to not hire me as some kind of revenge
I think this is precisely the reason that it's inappropriate, regardless of gender. Even if you (as a hypothetical VC) aren't going to be petty (and let's be honest, emotions are complicated and keeping feelings out of a decision is hard), you've put out the idea that your advances are somehow related to the recruitment process. This will totally make someone uncomfortable, especially when they're probably already sweating about the recruiting process.