[antonID]

The problem is that this is discriminatory. If you are not hiring based solely on qualifications, and instead on gender, it is discriminating. If you were to switch the genders and say that you are only hiring men, it would be clearly sexist. However, if you do not accept well qualified men who would fit the job, it is seen as "breaking gender barriers". You should be hiring based on the applicant's experience, education, and how they fit in with company culture.

If you are worried about a gender gap, you should be looking at why fewer females apply. Once you remedy this, you will be able to consider an equal amount of applicants, and you should then choose them based on their experience instead of their gender. The title of this article makes it out as if people are trying to stop you from hiring women, when in fact, you are instead trying to justify discrimination.

[randomdata]

> You should be hiring based on the applicant's experience, education

I find it concerning that we so easily discount this discrimination. Someone who is equally capable of doing the job with less experience and education should have an equal chance at the job, no?

Now, perhaps someone with more experience is statistically better for the job, so you might want to look for that, but what if men are statically better for the job? I don't think it is right to say one is discrimination and the other is not. In both cases you are making prejudicial judgements about people through categorization.

At some point practicality takes over and you have to make judgements about people without knowing who they really are, but its not clear to me why the varying levels of treatment are happening.

[zaroth]

> I don't think it is right to say one is discrimination and the other is not. > In both cases you are making prejudicial judgements about people through categorization.

They are both discrimination, and they are both prejudicial judgement, but only one is illegal. Any property or characteristic of a candidate you use to make a hiring decision is the process of discriminating between the available candidates, and making prejudicial judgements.

Discrimination based on certain properties, like gender, is illegal. Discrimination based on any other properties, like college education, prior experience, communication skills, or how quickly (or more often slowly) they can do FizzBuzz is called 'the decision making process'.

An effective hiring process usually starts with trying to find good places to advertise, and then followed very shortly by figuring out how you will discriminate/prejudge the qualified candidates from the other [95% of] applicants.

As a general guide, typically it's the immutable properties which are the ones where discrimination is illegal.

[f18]

That's a fair point. It's hard to pin down why fewer women apply. Is it cultural, social, our industry? Are these things that a single company can sort out or change? How would you encourage or solve the problem of too few women applying, without crossing the ethical, gray, broad boundary of discrimination?

[Ugh_seriously]

Fewer women apply because there are fewer women in the field. It's that simple. If you consider that a problem, the author of the article is trying to solve it at the end of the road, when the solution lies at the beginning. The beginning is in school, and the problem is most certain sociological.

[antonID]

I'm not familiar with and female design groups, but if you are hiring a developer for example, you could advertise to one of the many female tech/programming groups that exist, while at the same time searching for an equal amount of male candidates. Or he could recruit by going along with his plan at the university, but instead setting a personal goal to reach out to an equal number of males and females, and not just saying "women only, sorry". Work on getting an equal number of applicants, then ignore their gender and only choose them based on their experience/education.