By 2022, only 26.7% of all the jobs in tech were held by women. Most of these are entry-level; the further up the chain of command you go, the more the number of women represented declines. While there are all kinds of programs working to better these numbers, we can do our part every day to support women in IT.
Here are some ways to support women in the tech space.
Establish Fair and Equitable Hiring Policies
Organizations that support diversity can start their work at the candidate level. Making a deliberate effort to recruit more women onto their tech teams is the right thing to do. Some great techniques to further these initiatives include:
- Improve your diversity branding by revamping your career page. Add a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) mission and look closely at your existing imagery to determine if you might unconsciously turn candidates away by failing to represent women in tech.
- Offer DEI training regularly, starting at orientation for new employees.
- Set up gender-neutral hiring processes and double-check your job ads for language biases that might turn women away.
Set Up Mentorship Programs
Mentorship programs help with employee retention. Use mentoring to nurture women employees and people of color or other underrepresented populations in your organization. Mentoring particularly helps women in fields where they are underrepresented, such as tech. It gives them a chance to work with a role model to help guide their career growth. Mentoring also helps the mentee as your current employee learns empowering leadership skills. All of this benefits your organization supporting women in tech.
Promote From Within
If you’re evaluating how to support women in tech, ask yourself what your organization has done to attract a more diverse group of candidates and how you’ve supported existing female employees already on the team. Are you providing all of your employees with advancement opportunities? Are you offering programs tailored toward building the confidence and career skills of women (and men) on your team? Invest in the women on your team and create opportunities for them to present, lead, and advance.
Engage Women in Hiring
Women candidates want to see other women as part of the hiring process. Making your hiring panels diverse will show job candidates that the DEI mission they read on your website is in practice and not just a slogan.
Prosum Believes in DEI
Organizations must be alert to even the most subtle forms of discrimination in the workplace. Our efforts to become a more inclusive organization is a journey of constant assessment and improvement—but one we’re proud to take on. If your organization is searching for diverse tech candidates, talk to your Prosum recruiter about leveraging our qualified pool of top talent. Contact us. We can help.
