Firm's 'biased to hiring women' job postings aim to fill a void

The head of a Swedish firm said job advertisements saying the company prefers female candidates stemmed from the company's lack of women. Hampus Jakobsson, chief executive officer and co-founder of Malmo startup Brisk.io, said the job listings for a blogger/marketing position and an outbound junior sales position were targeted specifically at women because the company currently only has one woman among its 10 workers, TheLocal.se reported Wednesday. "The position is in Malmo [Sweden] and you are fluent in English and are proficient with the technical tools. Preferably you are a woman. Yes, we are biased to hiring women for all positions," the job postings state. "The idea behind the advert[isement] was a collective one. I wouldn't say that it is a policy but a philosophy as we want to create a non-homogeneous work environment," Jakobsson said. "Men tend to be more T-shaped and less willing to give things a try, whereas women are the opposite," he said. "In general I'd say that women are more tenacious and function better in teams." A spokesman for the Swedish Equality Ombudsman said a gender bias in a job posting does not violate any laws. "When an employer wants to hire a specific person for a job, they need to state that preference in the advert[isement]. In this instance it could be that the company is mainly made up of men and they want it to be more gender balanced," the spokesman said.