HOW TO HIRE MORE WOMEN INTO ENGINEERING?
Last week, I started a conversation on how to hire more women engineers. Hundreds of people - tech recruiters, women engineers, CTO’s and founders shared thoughts and experiences.
This thread is a collection of THEIR insights 🧵
Last week, I started a conversation on how to hire more women engineers. Hundreds of people - tech recruiters, women engineers, CTO’s and founders shared thoughts and experiences.
This thread is a collection of THEIR insights 🧵
1/ De-bias company culture
If your founding team are male, good chance your culture inadvertently becomes optimised to hire for MORE male team mates. Think about your rituals, language, values - audit all of this to ensure every job candidates feels that they can belong
If your founding team are male, good chance your culture inadvertently becomes optimised to hire for MORE male team mates. Think about your rituals, language, values - audit all of this to ensure every job candidates feels that they can belong
2/ Improve Demand Planning
Inclusive hiring needs MORE time. Old KPI’s like ‘TTH’ (time to hire) are killers for diversity goals. Better workforce planning gives you longer runway to build and hire from a more diverse candidate pool. Use a tool like Foresight 👇
Inclusive hiring needs MORE time. Old KPI’s like ‘TTH’ (time to hire) are killers for diversity goals. Better workforce planning gives you longer runway to build and hire from a more diverse candidate pool. Use a tool like Foresight 👇
3/ De-bias language in job ads
Words matter. Using gendered language in your job ads can be a deterrent to viable job applicants. Identify and amend language which excludes the demographic you are hiring for. Extend to outreach messaging, company marketing copy and the rest
Words matter. Using gendered language in your job ads can be a deterrent to viable job applicants. Identify and amend language which excludes the demographic you are hiring for. Extend to outreach messaging, company marketing copy and the rest
4/ Stop laundry listing tech items in job ads
Women apply at a lower rate vs men where they do not meet every listed requirement. If your job ad lists superfluous skills, you skew the applicant pool to male. Talk about what needs to be done, not what tech exists in the stack
Women apply at a lower rate vs men where they do not meet every listed requirement. If your job ad lists superfluous skills, you skew the applicant pool to male. Talk about what needs to be done, not what tech exists in the stack
5/ Rethink tenure
‘Must have 10 yrs experience in X’. Think about this: there are less women in tech 10 years ago than there are today. Stipulating long tenure as a requirement again skews applicant pool to male. Think skills rather than time served as the proxy for capability
‘Must have 10 yrs experience in X’. Think about this: there are less women in tech 10 years ago than there are today. Stipulating long tenure as a requirement again skews applicant pool to male. Think skills rather than time served as the proxy for capability
6/ Actively Support Women in Tech communities
Ada Lists, Girls Who Code, Million STEM, - there are plenty of online groups which are aimed to promote women into engineering. Sponsor events, offer coaching / training - whatever is in your capacity as a business to do, do it.
Ada Lists, Girls Who Code, Million STEM, - there are plenty of online groups which are aimed to promote women into engineering. Sponsor events, offer coaching / training - whatever is in your capacity as a business to do, do it.
7/ Elevate women team mates
Representation matters. Candidates make judgements on the info they have access to. Resist tokenisation but ensure women team mates have the opportunity, support and encouragement to take up high profile. positions in representing the company.
Representation matters. Candidates make judgements on the info they have access to. Resist tokenisation but ensure women team mates have the opportunity, support and encouragement to take up high profile. positions in representing the company.
8/ Negotiate supply-to-hire ratio with Hiring Managers
Getting hiring managers on board is critical to meeting diversity hiring goals. They are the ones who say yes / no to the hire. Yet the biggest mistake is leaving this objective vague. Agree supply-to-hire ratio with HM's
Getting hiring managers on board is critical to meeting diversity hiring goals. They are the ones who say yes / no to the hire. Yet the biggest mistake is leaving this objective vague. Agree supply-to-hire ratio with HM's
9/ Institute female focused employment benefits
Women continue to shoulder the primary responsibility for care giving. Optimise benefits according for this type of worker. You can start, by removing career penalties for anyone not doing default male working patterns
Women continue to shoulder the primary responsibility for care giving. Optimise benefits according for this type of worker. You can start, by removing career penalties for anyone not doing default male working patterns
10/ Shift to Remote First
Some countries have significantly higher ratio of women in STEM than others i/e India, Eastern and Central Europe vs Western Europe / USA. Access this talent pool by shifting to remote work
Some countries have significantly higher ratio of women in STEM than others i/e India, Eastern and Central Europe vs Western Europe / USA. Access this talent pool by shifting to remote work
11/ Actively source those women engineers
Use tools like CSE or Irina Shamaeva’s mega list of boolean search to ID women engineers on search. Use women only networking groups, job matching platforms, coder camps as source sites for candidates
Use tools like CSE or Irina Shamaeva’s mega list of boolean search to ID women engineers on search. Use women only networking groups, job matching platforms, coder camps as source sites for candidates
12/ Diversify Assessment Methods
Universal assessment may well produce a gender bias outcomes i.e in education, boys vs girls on exam vs case study. Offer choice of assessment type for candidate to select from - take home test, live code review, tech interview and so on.
Universal assessment may well produce a gender bias outcomes i.e in education, boys vs girls on exam vs case study. Offer choice of assessment type for candidate to select from - take home test, live code review, tech interview and so on.
13/ Consider Blind Hiring
Mitigate human bias by pushing the human assessment phase to a later stage in the process. We are much less prone to this bias if we have counteracting evidence beforehand, so let’s produce that evidence before prejudgment
Mitigate human bias by pushing the human assessment phase to a later stage in the process. We are much less prone to this bias if we have counteracting evidence beforehand, so let’s produce that evidence before prejudgment
14/ Transparency Salary Calculation
Women are LESS likely to negotiate salary, and are MORE likely to be penalised for doing so. Non-transparency with salary implies negotiation, a red flag which may deter otherwise viable candidates. Publicly state how you calculate comp 👇
Women are LESS likely to negotiate salary, and are MORE likely to be penalised for doing so. Non-transparency with salary implies negotiation, a red flag which may deter otherwise viable candidates. Publicly state how you calculate comp 👇
15/ De-bias the Interview
Mitigate human bias by going with paired interviewers at every stage, each with independently recorded scorecard. It increases overhead but guess what? If you really care about DEIB, its an investment not a cost
Mitigate human bias by going with paired interviewers at every stage, each with independently recorded scorecard. It increases overhead but guess what? If you really care about DEIB, its an investment not a cost
16/ Build Strong Retention Strategy
Over indexing at the top-of-funnel can mask organisational failure to retain employees. Improve communication and provide ‘career flexibility’ (no single career pathway to success) Move from ‘process orientation’ to ‘people orientation’
Over indexing at the top-of-funnel can mask organisational failure to retain employees. Improve communication and provide ‘career flexibility’ (no single career pathway to success) Move from ‘process orientation’ to ‘people orientation’
17/ Compete to be market leading in Maternity Leave
The price to career that mothers pay has always been way too high. Don’t wait for the government to mandate and then do the minimum - employers must step up post haste and independently of legislation.
The price to career that mothers pay has always been way too high. Don’t wait for the government to mandate and then do the minimum - employers must step up post haste and independently of legislation.
18/ Flexible by Default
‘Career ladder’ is optimised for always on worker - by default not only a male but implicitly a male with partner at home taking care of household and family. Diversify potential pathways and create multi-track, multi-mode ways to attain career success.
‘Career ladder’ is optimised for always on worker - by default not only a male but implicitly a male with partner at home taking care of household and family. Diversify potential pathways and create multi-track, multi-mode ways to attain career success.
19/ Differentiated Employee Referral Programmes
ERP can lead to more bias, as we tend to refer people who are most like us. However, for under represented groups, we can make this work in our favour. Tap network value of women team mates by rolling out ERP to them before genpop
ERP can lead to more bias, as we tend to refer people who are most like us. However, for under represented groups, we can make this work in our favour. Tap network value of women team mates by rolling out ERP to them before genpop
20/ Mindset shift from Acquisition to Development
Most of the challenges in hiring come from needing to ‘ready-to-go’ talent. For entrenched challenges - like more women in engineering - we need a mindset shift from acquiring to developing talent. Try recruit+train approach!
Most of the challenges in hiring come from needing to ‘ready-to-go’ talent. For entrenched challenges - like more women in engineering - we need a mindset shift from acquiring to developing talent. Try recruit+train approach!
20 ideas to help hire more women into engineering. Do u have any others??
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1️⃣ RT this thread if you feel that it might be helpful
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THANK YOU!
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