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Please provide a list of articles / blog posts providing actionable advice for inclusive hiring in tech.
Three articles that have provided general actionable advice for inclusive hiring in tech and seven articles that have provided examples of inclusive approaches by tech companies have been provided below. Common practical approaches for hiring diverse talent in tech included using gender-neutral words in job advertisements, ensuring a diverse interview panel, and eliminating or using ‘blind’ resumes. Below, I will provide an overview of the key takeaways from each article.
LIST OF ARTICLES
An article posted on TEKsystems blog has provided four tips for hiring diverse IT talent. They included forgetting the existing network, being realistic about the actual pipeline, providing the hiring manager with additional time, and managing the expectations with regards to improving diversity ratio.
An article posted on Digital Talent Co blog talked about the language used in job advertisements. The author suggested that instead of using traditionally masculine words such as ‘competitive,’ ‘dominate,’ and ‘leader,’ job advertisements should contain “gender neutral or warm language that encourages collaboration.”
Around 100 UK tech companies have signed the Tech Talent Charter and are committed to improving diversity within the industry. Tech London Advocates founder Russ Shaw stated that hiring managers should consider “blind hiring, where education and names are omitted from candidates' CVs, and look beyond their immediate network to source candidates.”
Yelp has piloted several strategies with regards to hiring diverse talent. The strategies utilized included varying the hiring committees’ gender composition, masking the voices of candidates during phone interviews, and increasing on-campus recruiting efforts at historically black universities, women’s colleges, and schools with large proportions of Hispanic students.
Cockroach Labs’ approaches included eliminating resumes and implementing exercise-based interviews. The company has recently open-sourced the interview process to make the hiring process fairer.
ThoughtWorks’ approach included ensuring that they have a diverse interview panel. If the company is unable to fly people in, it will use live video streaming to ensure that the interview panel is diverse.
Slack has created “recruiting captains” for each group. They included Abilities, LGBTQ, Earthtones, Women, and Veterans.
DialogTech’s approach included eliminating bias in their job postings. The company used a service called Textio to help it “identify words and phrases that appeal to different genders and replace them with gender-neutral words.”
Pixability’s approach included ensuring that its interview teams contain “a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds.”
Duolingo has hosted unconscious bias training for their interviewers. The company has also ensured that a woman is part of every hiring panel, no matter what the candidate’s gender is.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, tech companies such as Yelp, Cockroach Labs, ThoughtWorks, Slack, DialogTech, Pixability, and Duolingo have implemented several strategies with regards to hiring diverse talent. The common practical approaches included using gender-neutral words in job advertisements, ensuring a diverse interview panel, and eliminating or using ‘blind’ resumes.