[ericabiz]

"Completely aside: is there any good advice for men who want to further the role of women in tech..."

As a successful woman in tech, I would say the following:

--Note that women tend to underplay their accomplishments and judge themselves more harshly (I've also seen men who fit into this pattern, but it's more common with women.) So when a woman who fits this pattern says "I'm decent at x", it may be the same as a man saying "I'm great at x."

--Become a champion for the women in your life who deserve more recognition. Encourage them to take more leadership roles, jump at more speaking gigs when presented with the opportunity, etc. Women will often tend to think "I'm not ready for that yet" while a man with similar experience will say "Yeah, let's go for it!"

--Help the youngest girls in your life develop more self-confidence. My cousin, a brilliantly smart teenager, kept telling me, "I'm terrible at math." I encouraged her to focus on the positive (she was getting great grades in her math classes, and understood the problem set) and to think more positively about her abilities.

This lack of self-confidence is ingrained from an early age in many women and affects us throughout life in many cases. Encouraging girls to think more empowering thoughts and to have more confidence may be the best thing you can do to give them a better chance for success.

[wccrawford]

I'm a guy who fits your description of judging themselves too harshly and downplaying their skills and readiness. I have a tough time telling when other people are doing this, even though I do it myself.

Do you have any advice for telling when someone is doing this?

I ask because I can't blindly apply it to women any more than men, because I've seen so many women be over-confident in their skills, too.

[ericabiz]

"Do you have any advice for telling when someone is doing this?"

Yes.

Put simply, learn to read facial cues. (It's easier than you think--much like a programming language, facial cues are a system. So if you are a systems thinker--and I bet you are, based on the fact that you're here on Hacker News--learning facial and body cues will probably be one of the best time investments you'll ever make.)

I had no ingrained social skills when I grew up, so I had to learn facial cues to understand how to fit in socially. I can read nervousness on a face, and I can read the body posture and awkwardness that comes with not being sure of your ideas.

The first thing I did was to videotape myself speaking and focus on getting rid of those same cues in my own speech and posture. Then I started watching others. After a while, I could start to pick up all kinds of stuff. It's like a hidden language. I could tell when someone was lying or untrustworthy, when they were interested in what I was saying and when they had zoned out, etc. Incredibly useful!

So, to tell when someone is judging themselves too harshly, I look for two patterns:

1) Negative self-talk. "I never could do this...I can't do this...I don't know how to do this...this is impossible...I guess I'm just not cut out for this..." are some of the verbal patterns. Another common verbal pattern is looking for the negative in a given situation..."Yeah, I know C++, but not Javascript, and so I'm not the right fit" vs. "I'm a great programmer; I don't know Javascript yet, but I'm sure I can pick it up given some time and guidance." (I made a concerted effort to get rid of my own negative self-talk and documented the result here: http://www.erica.biz/2008/my-7-day-no-complaining-wrapup-or-... )

2) Demeanor cues. Socially awkward, casting down glances toward the floor, not meeting eyes, mumbling. (Don't get too upset if you have some of these but you feel like you don't fit the description above...these can also describe other behaviors.)

Here is the book I used to learn more about this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0757003141/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... It was fantastic to read and finally feel relief that people's facial and body cues are a system that I can learn and understand.

[MartinCron]

My advice would be the flip side of the advice that I give to people who downplay their skills, which is "focus on telling concrete meaningful stories".

So, you could, when interviewing, focus on bringing out discrete meaningful stories. Ask for those kinds of examples. Ask what they're proud of. Create a space in which they feel comfortable saying positive things about themselves. Maybe lead by example by talking about part of the organization that you think is awesome.

Instead of asking "what are you good at?" you could ask for things like "what do you most love doing?" Also, asking for numeric ranking "1-5" of technical skills might be a little too aggro/macho.

Don't downplay the plural "we built this" as less important as the singular "I built this" Some people are just better at sharing the credit than others. If in doubt, ask for clarity.

[sophacles]

Thanks for the advice!