Via @[29102660:2048:Katy Levinson]. Respect for Samantha Bee's selection process.
"Bee took the same approach to hiring writers, creating a blind application process that didn't favor people who'd already had success. (It spelled out, for example, how scripts should look when submitted, leveling the playing field for the uninitiated.) Lo and behold, she ended up with a writers' room that looked kind of like America: 50 percent female; 30 percent nonwhite. One of her hires had been working at the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles. 'We don't feel like we solved the diversity problem. We didn't fix racism, quite,' Bee jokes. 'I mean, we almost did. We'll see how things pan out. I'm feeling really good about it.' Anyway, the strategy worked. 'I have literally filled my office with people who have been underestimated their entire careers. To a person, we almost all fit into that category. It is so joyful to collect a group of people who nobody has ever thought could grasp the reins of something and fucking go for it.'"
This approach is becoming more and more popular, particularly in the sciences. A JS conference in 2012 published this which goes over the ingredients for this step by step, and talks about how it worked out for them. The "case study" or whatever gets circulated a lot and as far as I know the people who have tried it have experienced superb results, though that could just be the echo chamber.
http://2012.jsconf.eu/2012/09/17/beating-the-odds-how-we-got-25-percent-women-speakers.html
"Bee took the same approach to hiring writers, creating a blind application process that didn't favor people who'd already had success. (It spelled out, for example, how scripts should look when submitted, leveling the playing field for the uninitiated.) Lo and behold, she ended up with a writers' room that looked kind of like America: 50 percent female; 30 percent nonwhite. One of her hires had been working at the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles. 'We don't feel like we solved the diversity problem. We didn't fix racism, quite,' Bee jokes. 'I mean, we almost did. We'll see how things pan out. I'm feeling really good about it.' Anyway, the strategy worked. 'I have literally filled my office with people who have been underestimated their entire careers. To a person, we almost all fit into that category. It is so joyful to collect a group of people who nobody has ever thought could grasp the reins of something and fucking go for it.'"
This approach is becoming more and more popular, particularly in the sciences. A JS conference in 2012 published this which goes over the ingredients for this step by step, and talks about how it worked out for them. The "case study" or whatever gets circulated a lot and as far as I know the people who have tried it have experienced superb results, though that could just be the echo chamber.
http://2012.jsconf.eu/2012/09/17/beating-the-odds-how-we-got-25-percent-women-speakers.html