The Mental Scorecard I Use To Determine How Bro is Your Startup
Your website
The Job Description uses the words
- rockstar: -1 point
- ninja: -1 point
- Sports reference: -1 point
- Cursing: -1
The job application
- Asks me to write something interesting about myself: -3
- Asks me to rank objects such as Batman, glitter, and Budweiser*: -20
- Asks my pronoun: +10
Your careers or about us page contains the words
- Diversity: +5 points
- Inclusion: +5 points
- Ping pong: -1 point
- Company trips: -5 points
- Happy hour: -2 points
Your culture page / list of values
- Doesn't exist: -3 points
- Uses the word ping pong: -2 points
Your leadership team is
- All male: -10 points
- All white: -10 points
- Has a woman: +1 per woman
- Has a woman who isn't in marketing or HR: +2 per woman
- Has a c-level woman: +2 per woman
- Has a woman CEO: +1000
During an interview
- I talk to a woman: +1
- Who isn't the recruiter: +1
- I'm asked about my kids: -5
- I'm asked about my husband: -3
- I'm asked what my husband does for a living: -3
When I ask a woman in the interview about the company's commitment to promoting women:
- She hesitates: -5
- She sighs: -10
- She laughs: -25
- She mumbles something about hiring qualified people: 0
- She's incredibly excited about company opportunities: +15
- I never talk to a woman and don't ask the question: -10
My potential boss
- Is a woman: +5
- Has kids: +3
- Has a spouse who works**: +2
During a tour of the office
- There's a ping pong table: -2
- A foosball table: -2
- A beer pong table: -5
- Video games: -2 per console
- A keg / kegerator: -3 per keg
- Liquor: -5
- An actual bar: -7
- A girlie calendar: -5
- A mother's room***: 0
- No mother's room: -10
- A mother's room with a refrigerator: +3
- A mother's room with a sink: +10
- Other women are visible, doing their jobs: +2
- The sales team appears to be composed of at least 20% women: +5
- The engineering team appears to be composed of at least 20% women: +10
- The women are wearing company swag****: +2
- People with wrinkles / grey hair are present: +3
I use the ladies' room:
- There's a tampon machine: +1
- There are free tampons: +2
- There are free pads: +2
*For real. Everything on this list is something I have personally experienced or witnessed.
** "We found that employed husbands in traditional marriages, compared to those in modern marriages, tend to view the presence of women at work unfavorably -- and, more frequently, to deny qualified female employees opportunities for promotion." - Fortune
***You don't get points for following the law
**** Startups are infamous for providing swag. It's almost always man sized t-shirts though, which means the shirts are either insanely large, too small in the chest, or simultaneously insanely large in the body / length and too small in the chest and so you rarely see women wearing them. If they are wearing company shirts, the company probably bought women's sizes.
