An Interview with CEO Rebecca Tierney: A Top Job Board for Women in STEM
Earlier this month, AdaMarie was featured in Yahoo News as a Top Job Board for Women in STEM alongside Tech Ladies, The Smithsonian, Fairygodboss, and Google!
AdaMarie CEO Rebecca Tierney joined Built By Girls freelance writer Hailey Dickinson for an in-depth discussion about the origins of AdaMarie and to offer valuable advice to our community members who are embarking on their careers.
What led you to start AdaMarie?
I didn’t even realize until after I started the company, that I used to be a STEM major and was dissuaded almost immediately. I was fascinated by social science, anthropology, and gender studies. Early on, I was told that sociology (my major) wasn’t “real” and would never support me or be respected. I switched to English, which to an 18 year-old, felt more adult I guess. I went to graduate school in ceramics and then to law school. I was a litigator for ten years, but my passion always revolved around building healthy, supportive teams, and watching how women in particular moved through corporate spaces. I also spent those years developing my communication skills and my advocacy.
In Mid-2019, Leo Sheridan – a serious leader in the recruitment space and a longstanding advocate for women – came to me with the idea to create a job board for women in STEM. The idea of a new challenge interested me, but more than that, I saw that a job board for women in STEM in isolation simply wouldn’t move the needle. It’s a complex problem. One I call an “ecosystem” problem – with the players being the women, the employers looking to hire them, and the employers who don’t know how much they need women in STEM roles. Leo and I decided to start AdaMarie – named after Ada Lovelace and Marie Curie. I put the names together to show the power of connection and community, and also the birthright of women from hunter gatherer times to create bonds and community with each other. We used first names to signal the authenticity and familiarity with which we lead. Leo brings the recruitment and corporate knowledge. I bring the advocacy for women and evidence-based education for STEM companies. Of course, I don’t do this alone. We have a small, but hyper-focused team with Grace Abbott building our community of women (among other things) and DEI expert Sara Sanford steering our AdaMarie insights and optimization offering for employers. Nancy Fallon, our operations manager, and I keep the ship afloat.
What is the importance of a job board like this. that is meant for women in STEM, given the gender diversity issues in STEM?
What AdaMarie brings to the space is evidence-based, science-backed credibility. Before we started this company, we knew the only way women would allow us to lead them and advocate for them is if we were fundamentally trustworthy - to have both their best interest at heart, but to also have a deep and thorough understanding of the gender equity landscape in STEM so that the counsel we give is sound. It was with this mindset that we created our job board, our community, and our employer consulting offering. No one has ever tackled the issue in exactly this way.
While we believe in and often discuss holistic wellness and focusing on personal development, at a certain point the practical element of changing stagnant gender parity numbers in STEM has to be addressed. In this case – a job board. We need to expose women to more opportunities that are tailored to them and give companies access to the talented, skilled women they would choose to hire if they knew how to.
How do you ensure that companies that post jobs on AdaMarie are equitable and safe workplaces for women?
We don’t. We hope and believe that any company who signs up for AdaMarie does have some awareness around the problem. But we take trust very seriously and we will not back a company simply because they want to partner with us or subscribe to our job board. We do, however, teach our candidates how to vet a company and what to look for. We also created our metrics-based 8-week assessment that provides a maturity score on how that company performs from a gender parity lens. If a company gets a certain score, we categorize them as AdaMarie Approved (their profile and job posts receive a badge indicating this). We also monitor their progress to make sure that approval is a current reflection of their practices.
What is your advice for young women in STEM for landing jobs or internships? How can they stand out in interviews and applications?
There is so much here to address. For now, I’ll go with something simple. Ask a friend to proofread your application and make sure your resume is “industry standard”. It isn’t that a spelling error or creative formatting is egregious, but what you’re trying to show an interviewer is that you are a serious, industrious, and reliable person who knows how to follow rules (spoken and unspoken). Job hunting is competitive and this advice, of course, doesn’t address systemic barriers and algorithms and issues with access to opportunities. But it is a simple and very doable thing that will keep at least one door from closing.
What is your advice to young women in STEM for advocating for themselves? How can they go about finding workplaces that are equitable and a good fit for them?
Something that Sara Sanford, our head of DEI, addresses in her book Inclusion, Inc. (which everyone should read!) is that women are at a real disadvantage when they advocate for themselves in the same way that men do and expect similar results. So one piece of advice is know that you may be labeled as emotional or defensive when you are being objective and clear. But continue being objective and clear. Stick to the facts. Keep what you want at the top of your mind and make sure that your reasoning makes sense to you. If it makes sense to you and you’ve really kicked the tires on it, done the research on what you're proposing, and taken your position to friends and mentors for support – and it continues feeling right to you as you check in with yourself - then move forward with integrity, be proud of yourself, and remember that you can’t control everything. You can only do your best and take responsibility for yourself.