Is this actually occurring at Google due to the existence of their diversity programs? If so, that is quite a strong claim and needs to be backed by evidence. But she doesn't appear to be actually making that claim.
> Fundamentally there are two issues that need addressing, firstly trying to get more qualified female applicants which is why she recommends focusing on early education and college STEM programs.
Isn't this literally what Google's diversity programs do? The ones that James Damore advocates eliminating? I thought they were internship programs designed to encourage more minority groups to get into computer science?
For example:
BOLD - https://www.google.com/about/careers/students/bold.html
CSSI - https://edu.google.com/resources/programs/computer-science-s...
Engineering Practicum - https://careers.google.com/jobs#!t=jo&jid=/google/engineerin...
The word "shove" aside, I wish more companies would hire senior people for junior roles if they want them. One of the big problems with the American (and I presume Western) job market is the unwillingness to train people unless they're straight out of college. It seems that moms (and less often, dads) who take time off to raise the young ones would benefit from a new approach.
Of course, the employer and employee need to be on the same page about day-to-day duties, expected career growth, and so on. But that seems like a solvable problem.
No worries. I understood your meaning. I also meant that. I meant that hiring managers, in my experience, are more likely to give an outright "no" to an underqualified senior person than to offer them a junior role.
If the person took some time off, decided to switch industries, decided to switch specialties, or just figured out they were in a rut, giving them a junior role and letting them work their way back into an expert role should be a consideration.
"You'll hire me for a job I can't immediately do, and I'll treat growing into my job as the number one priority".
With the job market as it is, it's unrealistic to expect people to hire candidates who can't help lighten the load within a week or two of their start date.
I wish there was a less-risky way to 'try out' candidates. Someone I know works in boutique finance and whenever they bring on someone at a junior level, they're on a 60 day probation and the partners decide whether or not to retain them.
I think it's easier for them to do it because their applicant pool / candidates are predominantly young, white/asian, male, and high-achieving. They've never been sued by a candidate they've let go and they've found some real 'diamonds in the rough'.
I can't imagine that they could say the same if they let go of 40 mothers with children. But it does highlight a solution path - make it less risky for companies to evaluate candidates although I don't know how to do that without eroding worker protections.
You mention wage gaps but if the pool of qualified engineers is mostly men and Google (and other tech companies) want to hire women, it seems that salaries for women should be far, far higher than it is for men. The fact that they are close to equal might be part of the problem.
Would a US court disallow this? It doesn't seem to violate the spirit of affirmative action, or the letter of equality laws.
I suppose individual women are free to negotiate a higher salary.
One thing that could potentially help I can think of is encouraging hiring of women in more junior roles (and I mean hiring junior level candidates, not trying to shove a more senior female developer into a lower level position). If we're not seeing qualified female senior level candidates it could be because they're not getting opportunities to learn those skills in lower level positions. I know from experience it can be hard to make room in a team for a junior employee, but it's something that the industry needs to get better at doing if we want people to eventually have the skills to fill those senior levels roles.