How to actively and positively promote diverse candidates in the IT industry
By Fay Capstick
Our industry, IT & digital recruitment and consulting, has a problem. There is simply not enough diversity in the candidates applying for roles and the candidates that win roles. This week we will look at how we can actively and positively promote diverse candidates in the IT industry.
What is diversity?
Diversity can refer to many different characteristics of a candidate. These can include religion, age, disability, gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, and culture.
Why is diversity important?
Diversity is very important as it leads to a more productive, happy and motivated workforce; one that feels that their needs and being met and understood and that the wider society that we live in is being represented.
What can be done?
So what can we do to fix the problem?
Promote your diversity: Make sure that your organisation is diverse itself and make sure that your potential employees know this, as it means that you are more likely to attract further diverse candidates.
At Parker Shaw we have a mix of genders, ages ranging from 20s to 60s, a diversity of orientations, and a mix of able and disabled staff. We are constantly looking for ways of making sure that our internal recruitment process is as open as it can possibly be.
Target diverse candidates: Think outside the box with your targeting. Can you put your adverts in places or in groups where you are more likely to get the attention of diverse candidates? Think beyond LinkedIn. Can you find some groups (online or off) for people in IT that might lead to more diverse candidates, such as women, disabled, or older workers? For example, these could be on Facebook or website forums.
Adverts: When you post a job advert think carefully about what language you are using to describe the role. Make sure you don’t use any language that could make any group feel that they could be excluded from applying.
Referrals: Ask your existing staff for recommendations for your future staffing needs. If your current staff is diverse they might have people that they can recommend that are also diverse.
Flexibility: Offering flexible working and being understanding of people’s individual life circumstances can result in a more diverse workplace, with workers who are happier in their work.
Apprenticeships and training: Consider offering apprenticeships and training so that you can offer opportunities to candidates that may have been excluded from opportunity before, perhaps due to age or economic status or background.
This way you are targeting diversity directly and then training them to meet your needs and play a role in the industry going forward. Plus for an added bonus, workers who have received training and support to grow their careers and personal development are more likely to be loyal to their employers.
Mentoring can also really help to give a worker who might be disadvantaged in some way the extra confidence to grow their skills.
Set targets: It is possible to set diversity targets to ensure that you have something to aim for with your hiring.
Bias: Try to ensure that you don’t have unconscious or conscious bias in your hiring. Consider making sure that names, dates of birth, education, and anything else that could be used to discriminate against a candidate are hidden.
Have cultural knowledge: Make sure that you understand the backgrounds of your staff and the cultural and religious needs that you might need to be sensitive to. This will make your workplace happier and everyone will feel more welcome. This will make diverse staff more likely to recommend other diverse staff to work in your company going forward.
Conclusions
Diversity in the workplace benefits us all, and as we have seen much can be done to help achieve this goal.
Next week we will be looking at the tangible benefits of having a diverse workforce in the IT industry.
Final thoughts
At Parker Shaw we have been at the forefront of the sector we serve, IT & Digital Recruitment and Consulting, for over 30 years. We can advise you on all your hiring needs. If you are looking for your next job in the IT sector please check our Jobs Board for our current live vacancies at https://parkershaw.co.uk/jobs-....