Now that I think of it, there was actually a YC company's recruiting post on HN that used it (not entirely clear how seriously), which created a bit of a backlash: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3168038
I think it's probably not a good recruiting strategy, because it telegraphs both that this might be a problematic opening for women, and that anyone worried they'll be deemed too egghead/nerdy might want to pass. Even if you don't care about sexism (which you should), a job ad that implies that nerdy programmers may not be welcome really restricts the size of the candidate pool. On the other hand, if that's the company culture, maybe it's better to know ahead of time...
I think a lot of people are repulsed by the idea of spending a career surrounded by the "programmer" stereotype (i.e. monomaniacal, male, introverts). Part of me wonders whether advertising a more traditionally social work environment might not attract a lot of talent that doesn't fit the "programmer" mold (including women!).
I'm not sure a frat-ish vibe is the best way to accomplish that, though. In particular, I don't think cultural geekness is the problem; women are fairly well represented in cultural geekdom outside of programming, especially in recent years. For example, most sci-fi/fantasy fanfic authors are female, and gender balances at general-geekness conventions (e.g. Comic Con) is closer to even than it is at specifically tech events.
a job ad that implies that nerdy programmers may not be welcome really restricts the size of the candidate pool.
that's what I find funny about the whole thing. "we're hiring programmers! no nerds." that's an unlikely strategy for success even when programmers are easy to hire -- which they are currently not.
And would that be a problem? Not that we need a method to spot bad recruiters, but for those who still think that it makes sense to evaluate quality, what you describe could be a good method to identify the most degenerate ones.
How long until we see "Brogrammer needed" ads