Post: #1

Hypothetical:

You're starting a small startup in a foreign country. You don't have full command of the language and negotiating bureaucracy etc. can be tricky. You want to hire a small staff. You need a highly capable manager to run the day-to-day things, help with hiring, act as go-between with lawyers and accountants, etc. It's a crucial position and you need reliability and trust.

Would you hire a woman, a man, or go either way depending on individual merit? What other attributes apart from gender are important? (Incidentally, the women in this country have a good reputation in the workplace and often outperform the local men. Feminism and political correctness have barely a toehold here.)

Post: #2

Is it a job that requires a feminine skillset?

Post: #3

Nope.

Post: #4

Definitely. Women can be incredibly intelligent an capable. In our world women are being raised to be better educated and more committed to educating themselves than men, so I'd say go for it.
Just realise that women are different from men, and you will have to be able to deal with that and also assess whether the job is fit for the feminine way of doing things.

Post: #5

You'd be foolish to not even look into half the pool of available talent. There are things men are better at, and there are things women are better at. Some women are movers and shakers in their own right, and can pull far more than their own weight by getting others to do their bidding with their feminine wiles. And some are losers. Same with guys. Hire the best person for the job, don't be prejudiced either way.

However, when you hire a woman (or multiple) you better know how to deal with the inevitable drama.

Post: #6

In business it normally comes down to what you can get for your money. If women were much cheaper may it have to be considered if quality is not an issue but in general I would have to be quite desperate to do so. I mean, we are talking about real responsibility, not admin assistance or typewriting.

When in doubt - what would RooshV do.

Just out of interest which country is this where women are much respected and often out-perform men?

Post: #7

(02-28-2017 05:17 PM)kavi Wrote:  Just out of interest which country is this where women are much respected and often out-perform men?

Haha, yeah I'm waiting for this one too (-:

Post: #8

(02-28-2017 05:28 PM)Kid Twist Wrote:  

(02-28-2017 05:17 PM)kavi Wrote:  Just out of interest which country is this where women are much respected and often out-perform men?

Haha, yeah I'm waiting for this one too (-:

I don't know about the "respected" part but I know two gringo entrepreneurs in Central America who say the women outperform the men.

One of them has a woman general manager for his dozen restaurants.
He is definitely NOT a PC/equality/SJW guy at all.

Post: #9

Best person for the job.

Carry out an intelligent and thorough recruitment process, free from prejudice of any kind.

Always have in place security measures for corruption and employee wrongdoing.

Don't dip your hand in the cookie jar at work, save it for outside the company.

Post: #10

Two things:

First, you never "cold hire" a second in charge. That is crazy hiring a stranger who you do not have a considerable amount of experience working with together already. You promote to a second-in-charge from the people you have worked with, which leads to the next point:

Among the "best" employees you will have, gender does not matter in the least. The qualities you look for are consistency, reliability, dedication, loyalty, intelligence, and ability to manage. These qualities show up in the best people, both men and women. The thing is though, it's very hard to find these qualities in anyone at all so be prepared to hire and fire until you find the right team. And this is why you promote from within from the talent pool you already have to more and more supervisorial positions: who already know whos the right person for the job.

Post: #11

Most women I have talked to blank out and get confused when I talk about money or career.

There are exceptions OFC (and met a few), but I would expect more men would be able to fill the role because they are more in tune to the kind of thing.

Post: #12

"Just hire based on merit" is all very good and well and white-knighty, but you're not just hiring a standalone individual, you're hiring a component of a team.

Therefore, you have to consider the following invisible potential costs:
- The sexual distraction of your male staff. Men are programmed to notice women, and it takes 20minutes to return to flow-state work
- The cohort development costs because they have to check their language around her
- Men aren't as comfortable going hard on female staff when they do a shit job versus a guy who does
- Many men feel naturally uncomfortable taking orders from a woman (doesn't matter if you personally do or not), and often women managers over compensate for that by being unreasonably harsh and authoritarian overall.
- Women don't have the same drives as men, so while she may appear to be equally competent, she's not going to have those moments where she just snaps and does a midnight job to beat some problem, or gets into vigorous competitive rivalry.
- Your own ability to honestly appraise a woman from a financial perspective and completely without WB getting involved
- Your staff's ability to relate to her exactly like a man, e.g. telling him to bugger off if he keeps asking for help instead of helping himself

Profit is all that matters, and there are too many ways for a woman in your team to jar it.

On the otherhand, if her position in the company won't hit any of those boxes, and has positive effects like:
- She's a representative; men have some natural tendency to chose woman over man so she could give you am edge
- Her being a woman is more easily associated with your product, e.g. cosmetics
Then it could be OK.

Post: #13

Men for management

Women for marketing

Anything else is just inviting trouble as in my experience women make for terrible bosses

Post: #14

I wouldn't rule it out completely. It depends on the quality of candidates on offer - if for some reason the men are all awful, and a woman appears better than them, then I'd hire her.

But thats quite rare in the real world. My experience of business has been 80/20 or 90/10 is about the ratio you can expect in management if you truly hire on merit, and have no ridiculous enforced gender quotas.

Post: #15

Of course, I would, why not. Woman are more loyal if you treat them with respect and value their opinion from my experience.

Post: #16

Is this a trick question? Of course I wouldn't. Why would I want to deal with all the upcoming HR issues hiring women comes with? No thanks.

Post: #17

In the OP's specific case, I don't see a problem - as long as the woman is the most qualified for the gig and the workplace vibe.

In my area (TV), there's a fascinating divide of sexes and sexual orientation according to job title, and it works well.

In my experience, females and gay men are almost unanimous as line and casting producers.

Crew members (gaffers, cameramen, audio guys) are unanimously (rough) men.

Creative directors are overwhelmingly gay.

CEOs, directors, executives are unanimously men and butch lesbians.

Post: #18

Is maternity leave a consideration? I wouldn't hire anyone to a critical position who might leave for a year and expect to walk back into her role. Particularly not as a startup. You have to be a business of a certain size to absorb that kind of hit.

Are you going to give her equity, pay the going rate, etc? If you're going to ask someone competent to take a risk and help you start a venture then they are probably going to want to be incentivised with a stake in the business. Are you going to give that away to a relative stranger?

Women can be great assets - I've got a couple involved with my business on a part time/consultancy basis, and they are very competent. Assuming you can do financial projections/modelling yourself, I actually like having a female accountant. I have an attractive mother of two who is a former high flying city accountant with one of the big name firms who comes and does my accounts and adjusts my financial models. She's extremely competent, meticulous, and in addition is a charming and attractive person to spend a few hours a week with. I also have a business development consultant provided to me as part of a high growth tech scheme I'm on, and she is a lifetime career business woman who has undoubtedly succeeded on merit in a very male dominated world. My customer base is pretty much entirely male, and she is positively Machiavellian in her strategies.

Either of these women would be a huge asset to a small to medium sized business, and could certainly do a management role. However, I know that now but could not have known that sufficiently from one or two meetings to give them equity or make them managers of my business.

Post: #19

the most important quality in a second in command is loyalty. analyze the individual as you would a stock. performance and personality.

i know just as many alpha women in the business world as I do alpha males. many of my fellow millennial men are such pussies due to years of being slapped around by their teachers and professors. also women make fantastic allies if you build the relationship accordingly. and you can use their feminine charm as an asset. great weapon.

Post: #20

If I remember correctly Trump mentioned in one of his books that he loves hiring woman because they work way harder than men in a male dominated field because they are constantly trying to prove themselves.

Post: #21

(03-02-2017 03:07 AM)Sooth Wrote:  If I remember correctly Trump mentioned in one of his books that he loves hiring woman because they work way harder than men in a male dominated field because they are constantly trying to prove themselves.

Yahoo has done really well with a woman CEO.

Post: #22

(02-28-2017 08:05 PM)buja Wrote:  I don't know about the "respected" part but I know two gringo entrepreneurs in Central America who say the women outperform the men.

The bar for success in Central America isn't very high.

Post: #23

(03-02-2017 02:51 AM)mhnd Wrote:  the most important quality in a second in command is loyalty. analyze the individual as you would a stock. performance and personality.

i know just as many alpha women in the business world as I do alpha males. many of my fellow millennial men are such pussies due to years of being slapped around by their teachers and professors. also women make fantastic allies if you build the relationship accordingly. and you can use their feminine charm as an asset. great weapon.

Leadership is about being alpha, regardless of gender. And business today incorporates both genders equally.

By statistical law there are just as many alpha women as alpha men. The alphas are the ones you want on your side.

Post: #24

(03-01-2017 06:48 AM)Steve McQueen Wrote:  Men for management

Women for marketing

Anything else is just inviting trouble as in my experience women make for terrible bosses

Spot on. I've been running a micro home brewery business and that works perfectly. I have a staff who can sell ice to Eskimos

Post: #25

Hell no! In my experience the vast majority of female managers, not to mention female technical/professional employees have been vastly inferior to men. Of course there are some exceptions but in general any skilled job is better done by a man in my opinion, unless the woman is really exceptional.

Female managers are the worst. So much unnecessary politics and backstabbing and very little work getting done. To be honest these days I feel like most women in skilled or management jobs are just getting hired to meet diversity quotas or because they are hot, or because they knew the right people or politically maneuvered their way up the ladder. Based on my personal experience very few women actually get hired because they are good at the job.

Sure for some jobs like teaching, nursing, receptionist, cashier etc women are good. But for most jobs they suck. My opinion only.