Tips for Hiring Women In Technology

As a leader in technology, I am committed to empowering my organization and teams through the adoption of far reaching goals in diversity and inclusion.

Included within that objective is a commitment to ensure that our internal workforce includes a fair and statistically reasonable number of women. A story by HBR covers that in more detail: https://observer.com/2017/06/women-in-tech-statistics/

To teams that are thinking more about gender diversity in technology, I am happy to share some of the things that I’ve recently learned. For any women that may read this and would like to contribute to the conversation, please do feel free to comment below.

Women don’t apply for jobs unless they feel like they’re 100% qualified whereas men on average freely apply if they are at least 60% qualified.

1. Simplify the criteria but not the ask

Statistically, women tend not to apply for jobs unless they feel like they’re 100% qualified whereas men on average freely apply if they are at least 60% qualified. More information here on those stats: https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified

Top-Tip: Try to condense the must have requirements on the job description without lessening the quality of the role.

2. Update your website and careers page to reflect gender neutral language and images

IT's very simple, if you only use pictures of white men on your site then statistically you'll only attract candidates that fit that demographic.

Top-Tip: Make sure that your organization and careers websites reflect the level of diversity you’re trying to hire.

3. Use tools to change the language

We all have language bias and certain sentence structures we use regularly may not read well with other people. Terms like "Rock star", "Crush it", "Killer engineer" just don't read well for women.

Top-Tip: There are quite a few great free tools available now that provide more gender neutral alternatives. I like https://textio.com amongst others.

4. Seek feedback often from trusted peers and specifically women in tech

Getting feedback is so important in calibrating the overall effect and right message. Work with as many different people as possible to ensure the job description resonates positively with a range of demographics.

Top-Tip: Seeking out women in industry from entry level to senior leadership roles is also highly effective. I am continuing to make new friends and contacts in industry this way.

5. Play the long game, embrace the local community.

Set expectations accordingly with how long it might take to find the right candidate(s) - even if that means a 6-12 month outlook. Men tend to respond faster to job descriptions regardless of whether they know about your company. With women it’s important to play a longer game and perhaps build up a rapport first with the right prospective candidate.

Top-Tip: One of the best ways we know how to do this is to work with a number of tech-industry focused associations for women. Check out Girls Who Code (https://girlswhocode.com/) and FairyGodBoss (https://fairygodboss.com) are great starting points.

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Thanks for reading this article, all comments and feedback welcome.