How can we get more women to apply for jobs at our tech company?

If you're only looking for women in Computer ...

A clever strategy I've been noticing lately: There aren't that many female engineers, so make some more. Etsy sponsored a summer program for professionals who wanted to learn to code, specifically targeting women to enroll. It worked brilliantly; they managed to essentially train and cherry-pick the best of the class. A friend of mine had always wanted to be a programmer, went through the class, and is now happily employed at Etsy. Basically, if your company offers support to women who want to learn to make stuff, in the form of classes or meetups or hackathons, you increase your company's reputation in the community and you find and build relationships with interesting people who may well have the capacity to be great engineers. Networking to find new hires is really key. Find yourself an in with colleges, especially ones like Harvey Mudd or Olin (disclosure: I went to Olin and it was awesome) which have high percentages of female STEM majors. Hire tons of interns. Make them love you. Hire them. Get them to tell their friends. Some things not to do: Use bro-y language in your job postings. Come on, I don't want to be your ninja pirate rockstar brogrammer. Many small tech businesses advertise 'fun' perks like their videogame lounges over perks like flexible hours for working parents. This tends to find you young, male-skewed applicants. If you're a maturing small company you don't have the luxury of casting a very narrow net. Most of the female engineers I know are already employed and are somewhat risk-averse when it comes to switching companies. Advertise yourself as a mature, stable business with real, codified benefits. That said, I did in fact join a fun, risky, 5-person early stage startup just because I wanted to. Women aren't a monolithic group; you just have to try different things and see what sticks. (Oh and by the way, that little startup has grown into Bright: http://Bright.com -- we're hiring!) Don't lower your hiring standards for female interviewees, please.

I have to agree with Connor. Although I applied at tech companies for non-engineering jobs, I seemed to always get this douche-y marketing/HR guy who loved to ooze Alpha Male juice all over the table (you know, telling me about his marathon race, his runner's high and how he plans to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro!). As soon as I met that guy, my thought was, "I want to get out of here NOW."

I think Connor made a really good point by using the Etsy example. As a female, who's really interested in learning how to code/program, I think it's great if companies are willing to set up a program for people to learn a specific skill. It's a win/win situation: you gain a positive image within your target market while at the same time having the luxury to find some outstanding talent for your company. And being in the position of having a well-known and rather entrepreneurial business, I reckon it won't be too hard to find a good group of people/females out there who are willing to take part. Let me know if you're setting up a program. I'd love to join!

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I am not a female engineer but I do work in tech and now on the research side focusing on women entering technology roles.  One observation that I can make is review your job descriptions for micro-biases.  For example, does it mention things like office beer pong or similar activities to attract talent?  I just went to your jobs landing page and it is an image of males in mosh pit (https://www.spotify.com/us/jobs/)  not exactly appealing to me or probably to many women.  Messaging means a lot if you want to diversify and attract seriously talented woman.  I contrast this with the Etsy initiative to hire more women engineers (http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-recruit-more-female-engineers-2013-2#here-we-go-1)

It is great that you asked this and sorry you didn't get more answers. I am just the mom, so can't give you first hand intel. But I wanted to comment because it is heartening to see a company take an interest and you need to find ways to advertise your interest and make it known that yours is a female friendly workplace. I think of what I went through in a male dominated industry and it really pains me to read about the boys club that tech firms seem to be with all the same old crap still going on 30 years later. My daughter recently took a job out of school. Advanced degree, software engineering, machine learning, math and cs (good name institutions.). Target locations were NYC, Bay Area and other select locations were fine. She called 2 companies she had done internships with (very large and very small), one recommended her on to another company, and one contact from school which resulted in 2 immediate offers. I don't know if this is common with women (and men), but there just wasn't any real search involved or looking at company job openings. I think there should have been a more systematic search or at least more companies contacted when in NYC and SF, but that's not what happened. As soon as you start getting offers the clock starts. So you have to figure out how to be on the radar before that. (Not that I am likely telling you anything you don't know, but just an example for you in case.) I think if you are just waiting for applications, then you need to do more outreach. Probably at universities. Do you send people (recruiters, your female engineers) to the Grace Hopper to network? I don't know how you go about finding experienced engineers. I know my dd's intentions were to work with the best to become the best. But I see your machine learning job is for 5 years experience so that requirement wouldn't be met. Maybe you need to be hiring more entry level who have background to move up the curve very quickly?