I check conduct, not just code.

AI teams skew male. Most of them, most places.

That is not a complaint about anyone. It is a base rate. And base rates get managed.

Australia’s last national survey asked workers about the five years to 2022. One in three said they had been sexually harassed at work. Among women, it was 41%. Of all those incidents, only 18% were ever reported.

So a quiet team is not the same as a safe team. It may just be a team where nobody said anything.

Since December 2022, prevention has been the employer’s legal job, not the target’s. Most of what gets written about that is about culture. Almost none of it is about hiring.

Behaviour travels with the person. The cheapest place to prevent harassment is before the contract is signed. So this is how I hire.

I check the referee is a referee. Who they were to the candidate, for how long, and whether they actually managed them. A friend with a job title is not a reference.

I ask about conduct, not just output. “Is there anything about how this person treated colleagues that I should know?” “Would you hire them again?” Referees rarely volunteer this. Most will answer if asked. A yes is quick. A pause is an answer.

None of this catches everyone. But a hiring process that only checks performance has already decided what it does not want to know.

I ask the referee.