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Build a culture of belonging to promote retention and advancement for Black, Latina, and Native American women in tech.
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Build a culture of belonging to promote retention and advancement for Black, Latina, and Native American women in tech.
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Uncover actionable steps to foster a culture of inclusion and belonging, with the ultimate goal of retaining and promoting women of color in technology roles.

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[5] Daley, S. (2021, March 31). Staggering Women In Tech Stats Show the Industry Has a Long Way to Go. Built In. 

48%

of women in STEM jobs report discrimination in the recruitment and hiring process[5]

[6] Daley, S. (2021, March 31). Staggering Women In Tech Stats Show the Industry Has a Long Way to Go. Built In. 

“The broken rung”

Women of color have a much larger barrier to being hired for technical entry level positions. Women of color make up 18% of entry-level positions, as opposed to 30% of white women and 35% of white men[6]

Why It Matters

[8] Opportunity@Work. (2020). Navigating with the STARs. Opportunity@Work.

[9] Employment and Social Development Canada. (2019). Women and the Workplace: How employers can advance equality and diversity. Employment and Social Development Canada.

When you think of a teacher or a nurse, what is the image that forms in your mind? When you think of an engineer or a surgeon, who do you picture? Without realizing it, most of us develop employment-related biases at a young age when we learn to associate categories of people with specific occupations. Because we see women in caregiving roles, we assume that they are better suited for occupations like teaching or nursing. Likewise, because men are overrepresented in science and engineering professions, many assume they are predisposed to be doctors or engineers.

48%

of women in STEM jobs report discrimination in the recruitment and hiring process [5]

[1] Opportunity@Work. (2020). Navigating with the STARs. Opportunity@Work.

[2] Employment and Social Development Canada. (2019). Women and the Workplace: How employers can advance equality and diversity. Employment and Social Development Canada.

A large body of research shows that such systemic and unconscious biases affect how women are perceived during the hiring process. Research consistently demonstrates similar biases related to race and ethnicity in the hiring process.[1,2]

[3] Employment and Social Development Canada. (2019). Women and the Workplace: How employers can advance equality and diversity. Employment and Social Development Canada. 

For example, one study found that applicants whose names or photographs suggested they belong to ethnic or racial minority groups were far less likely to receive callbacks than applicants with “white-sounding” names.[3]

[4] Ashcraft, C., McLain, B., & Eger, E. (n.d.). Women in Tech: The Facts. NCWIT. 

In another study, resumes with “white-sounding” names prompted 50 percent more callbacks than the exact same resumes with “Black-sounding” names.[4]

[6] Daley, S. (2021, March 31). Staggering Women In Tech Stats Show the Industry Has a Long Way to Go. Built In. 

“The broken rung”

Women of color have a much larger barrier at being hired for technical entry level positions. Women of color make up 18% of entry-level positions, as opposed to 30% of white women and 35% of white men[6]

[8] Opportunity@Work. (2020). Navigating with the STARs. Opportunity@Work.

[9] Employment and Social Development Canada. (2019). Women and the Workplace: How employers can advance equality and diversity. Employment and Social Development Canada.

As the need to fill technology roles grows, and as the U.S. population grows more diverse by the day, it is time to rethink how employers approach hiring and recruiting. Otherwise, employers risk leaving talent—and money—on the table.

Action Steps

The following action steps can help employers adopt more inclusive and equitable hiring processes. Some are more involved and will take time to integrate. Others, such as avoiding gendered language in job descriptions, are relatively easy to adopt and can signal to the talent pool that diverse experiences and perspectives will be valued and welcomed.

[7] White, E., & Shakibnia, A. (2018). State of STEM. STEMconnector. 

Remove unnecessary degree requirements. In the quickly evolving technology landscape, the ability to learn and adapt is often more relevant than a set of academic credentials. Take a careful look at open positions and determine if an advanced degree is needed for the role.[7]

[5] Opportunity@Work. (2020). Navigating with the STARs. Opportunity@Work. 

One analysis of job postings found that 97% of data analyst postings required a bachelor’s degree, but when researchers examined the career pathways of 2,000 individuals skilled through alternative routes (STARs), they found that there more than 1,000 different paths to get to this role, none of which involved a college degree[8]

In the quickly evolving technology landscape, the ability to learn and adapt is often more relevant than a set of academic credentials.

[9] Williams, J. C., Phillips, K. W., & Hall, E. V. (2014). Double Jeopardy? Gender BIas Against Women in Science. The Center for WorkLife Law. 

Hire based on blind evaluations and skills and knowledge testing. In the world of music, blind auditions resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of women selected for the world’s top orchestras. Likewise, in the technology sector, blind evaluations – such as ones that anonymize applications by removing names and photos – can have equally dramatic results. Entelo, a recruiting platform, lets users hide and anonymize information that tends to be associated with gender, age, or racial bias. In addition, tests to assess knowledge and skills can also be anonymized to mitigate bias.[9]

[10] Chander, S. (2017). Women of Colour in the Workplace. European Network Against Racism. 

Modify hiring criteria to increase the likelihood that candidates from diverse backgrounds will rank highly. Think about your team at large and what skills are missing. For example, do you work globally, but lack language diversity on your team? Do you have untapped markets in communities of color? In addition to technology skills, hire for skills that women of color and other under-represented groups can bring to your team. For example, the IKEA Group modified its candidate profiles in certain roles to include fluency in a non-European language.[10]

Google now analyzes the text and word count of job descriptions to remove words or phrases that could bias a candidate against applying. Doing so resulted in an 11% increase in applications from women. Google has also moved away from focusing on a prospective employee would fit into their culture; instead considering what they would add to the culture.

Google recognizes that it needs to do more to recruit and hire diverse talent, but there have been clear improvements over recent years. In 2020, the proportion of women in tech roles rose from 17.4% in 2014 to 24.7% in 2020.

[11] Daley, S. (2021, March 31). Staggering Women In Tech Stats Show the Industry Has a Long Way to Go. Built In. 

[12] Ashcraft, C., McLain, B., & Eger, E. (n.d.). Women in Tech: The Facts. NCWIT. 

Again, the ever-changing nature of the technology landscape means that the static set of skills and competencies that prospective employees offer may quickly become outdated. Beyond technical competencies, assess for traits like curiosity, engagement, drive, passion, emotional maturity, and insight that might not come across on a resume.[11,12]

[13] Employment and Social Development Canada. (2019). Women and the Workplace: How employers can advance equality and diversity. Employment and Social Development Canada. 

Avoid gendered language.[13] Job ads can contain language – sometimes subtle and sometimes explicit – that discourage women of color from even applying. Research shows that certain “masculine” words can prevent women from applying for jobs, though the reverse is not true for “feminine” words.

[14] Ayman Chowdhury, from the UN Global Compact Network Canada-Gender Equality Leadership in the Canadian Private Sector initiative.

For instance, one company attracted more female applicants when it changed a position title from “research technician,” which has a more masculine connotation, to “research analyst.”[14] Likewise, superlatives such as “rockstar” or “ninja” can discourage women of color and or anyone else uncomfortable with tooting their own horn to apply. Software tools, such as Applied and Ongig Text Analyzer, can help debias job descriptions by flagging gendered language.

Sample Language to Encourage Applications from a Wide Range of Candidates:

“We are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.”

“Don’t let the fact that you don’t check all the boxes below keep you from applying. If you think you have what it takes, shoot your shot.”

[15] Ashcraft, C., McLain, B., & Eger, E. (n.d.). Women in Tech: The Facts. NCWIT. 

Describe your company’s values related to inclusion and belonging. Don’t leave applicants guessing. State your mission and your values up front in the job description, especially your company’s commitment to inclusion and belonging. This can signal that your company is thoughtful about fostering inclusion in the workplace and help women of color feel more comfortable applying.[15]

[16] Ashcraft, C., McLain, B., & Eger, E. (n.d.). Women in Tech: The Facts. NCWIT. 

Reduce the number of prerequisites. Think carefully about the skills the position requires, including those that are essential and those that are nice-to-haves. Research consistently shows that men apply to roles even if they do not meet all the criteria, while women typically apply if they meet most or all of the criteria. To create more diverse candidate pools, shorten the list of prerequisites and be clear about required versus desired skills.[16]

Re-Writing the Job Description

  • Does the language subtly reflect stereotypically masculine or feminine characteristics?
  • Are all of the criteria listed relevant for the job, or do some criteria reflect biases about the kind of skills needed to do this job well?
  • Could additional criteria be included that would open up possibilities for a wider range of candidates who might still do an excellent job?
  • Do you include criteria such as “ability to work on diverse team or with a diverse range of people”?
  • Do you include salary information to reflect pay transparency?

[17] Opportunity@Work. (2020). Navigating with the STARs. Opportunity@Work. 

[18] Ashcraft, C., McLain, B., & Eger, E. (n.d.). Women in Tech: The Facts. NCWIT.

Source talent from alternative training programs.[17,18] Employers can round out their recruitment strategies to include community colleges, military spouse programs, and return-to-work programs. In addition, alternative training programs such as NPower, Year Up, Per Scholas, and others have a strong track record of building up participants’ technology skills through classroom instruction and apprenticeships, preparing them for entry-level roles in technology. For example, NPower has worked with companies like Accenture, Citi, and Worldwide Technology for years, providing a pipeline for tech talent. Likewise, Amazon Web Services’ re/start program provides training for computing positions to people that are currently unemployed or underemployed, allowing them to develop a new set of technology skills.

[19] Williams, J. C., Korn, R. M., & Ghani, A. (2022). Pinning Down the Jellyfish: The Workplace Experiences of Women of Color in Tech. The Center for WorkLife Law. 

[20] Promoting race inclusivity in the workplace: A toolkit for organisations. (2022, February 10). The Law Society. 

Develop partnerships with institutions that serve Black, Latinx, and Native students and professionals.[19,20] Expand recruitment efforts to reach candidates from historically excluded groups where they are. This includes Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities.

[21] https://www.tmcf.org/students-alumni/corp-scholar-programs/grow-with-google-hbcu-career-readiness-program-overview/

For example, Google’s ‘Grow with Google’ initiative includes support for career centers at HBCUs to support the development of students’ digital skills to be competitive for technology roles.[21] Likewise, recruiters can identify job fairs, affinity networks, and professional societies that serve Black, Latina, and Native women to enhance outreach efforts.

[22] Employment and Social Development Canada. (2019). Women and the Workplace: How employers can advance equality and diversity. Employment and Social Development Canada. 

Look outside of the usual industry pipelines.[22] In a recent report, Equation for Equality, the authors assert that hiring from skill-similar positions dramatically increases the talent pool for technology roles, and that many women of color are “hiding in plain sight.” For example, data entry clerks, 28% of whom are women of color, can receive bridge training to become computer support specialists, only 9% of whom are currently women of color. To this end, employers can conduct an audit of jobs within the company and recruit from skills-adjacent roles to tap into overlooked reservoirs of talent. Using this approach, employers can hire for the skills they need, rather than a set of work experiences or educational credentials that may or may not be aligned with the actual responsibilities of the position.

[23] Opportunity@Work. (2020). Navigating with the STARs. Opportunity@Work. 

Evaluate recruitment agencies. Ask recruiters about their processes for ensuring a diverse candidate pool. Where do they source talent from? Do they have specific benchmarks for ensuring Black, Latina, and Native women are represented in the candidate pool? Does the agency itself employ recruiters from diverse backgrounds?[23]

[24] Ashcraft, C., McLain, B., & Eger, E. (n.d.). Women in Tech: The Facts. NCWIT. 

Assess referral patterns. Referrals from valued employees remain a trusted and reliable tool for recruitment. One study found that women referred for entry-level tech jobs are significantly more likely to be hired than women without referrals; the same study found that for executive high-tech jobs, referred candidates are much more likely to be men than women.[24]

[25] Williams, J. C., Korn, R. M., & Ghani, A. (2022). Pinning Down the Jellyfish: The Workplace Experiences of Women of Color in Tech. The Center for WorkLife Law. 

The latter finding shows that the natural tendency for people to recommend others who are similar to them can narrow the talent pool and skew referrals towards majority-group candidates.[25]

[3] Employment and Social Development Canada. (2019). Women and the Workplace: How employers can advance equality and diversity. Employment and Social Development Canada. 

If referral patterns show bias, balance out such hires with other methods that target women of color more directly. In addition, a growing number of employers, such as Pinterest and Intel, have developed diversity referral programs. These programs raise employee awareness about diversity and incentivize employees to refer candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. When Pinterest challenged its employees to provide referrals from diverse backgrounds, it saw a 24% increase in female referrals, and a 55x increase in the percentage of candidates referred from underrepresented backgrounds.

[26] Williams, J. C., Korn, R. M., & Ghani, A. (2022). Pinning Down the Jellyfish: The Workplace Experiences of Women of Color in Tech. The Center for WorkLife Law. 

[27] Employment and Social Development Canada. (2019). Women and the Workplace: How employers can advance equality and diversity. Employment and Social Development Canada. 

Use structured interviews. Research shows that interviews using a standardized set of questions, one that ask all candidates the same questions in the same order, tend to be less biased than free-form interviews. In addition, a clear scoring system used across members of a hiring committee can further mitigate bias and ensure that candidates are being evaluated using a similar set of criteria.[26,27]

[28] Navigating with the STARs. (2020). Opportunity@Work. 

“A diverse and inclusive culture, which includes diversity of thought and experiences, is important when building a team. Information security professionals come from all walks of life and backgrounds. The traits required to succeed in these roles include customer service skills, collaboration skills, incident response management knowledge, curiosity, and the ability to learn and master the essential technical tools of the job.” —Sydney Klein, Chief Information Security Officer of Bristol Myers Squibb [28]

[29] Ashcraft, C., McLain, B., & Eger, E. (n.d.). Women in Tech: The Facts. NCWIT. 

Check for unconscious bias in your current interview questions and be open to writing new questions.[29]  Just as job descriptions may reflect unconscious bias, so too, may interview questions. Seek out sample questions from peer organizations that have successfully hired diverse technical teams and make sure your final questions capture the relevant job criteria for the role. LinkedIn’s online course on unconscious bias offers helpful tips on interviewing and hiring as well.

Ask questions that allow candidates to demonstrate how they solve problems. Given the always-evolving nature of technology, questions that help employers assess problem-solving skills can be revealing. Ask candidates to give an example of something they’ve learned independently and how they have applied it. Or show them a product your company has developed and ask how it might be used.  

[27] Daley, S. (2021, March 31). Staggering Women In Tech Stats Show the Industry Has a Long Way to Go. Built In. 

[28] Thomas, R., Cooper, M., Cardazone, G., Urban, K., Bohrer, A., Long, M., Yee, L., Krivkovich, A., Huang, J., Prince, S., Kumar, A., & Coury, S. (2020). Women in the Workplace 2020. McKinsey & Lean In.

Train staff, especially hiring managers, on unconscious bias. The nature of unconscious bias means that often times we are not aware of our own implicit bias. Research shows that employers who are aware of their biases recruit more diverse candidates, yet only one in three managers receive unconscious bias training and only one in five receive training on fostering diversity and inclusion.[30,31] Such training can help mangers be more self-reflective in their recruitment and hiring practices, while learning new strategies for mitigating bias.

[32] Autor, D., Mindell, D. A., & Reynolds, E. B. (2022). The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines. The MIT Press.

Consider well-designed AI tools to mitigate bias in the hiring process. Although AI-based software and processes can replicate human bias, well-designed tools can help employers make well-informed and consistent hiring decisions. These tools can help highlight candidate strengths and qualifications that may be outside of traditional hiring criteria.[32]

[33] National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2022). Transforming Trajectories for Women of Color in Tech (E. Hammonds, V. Taylor, & R. Hutton, Eds.). The National Acadamies Press. 

Collect data on the diversity of your applicants. Gathering demographic data on applicants can help track progress on recruitment and hiring and provide valuable information for making strategic shifts as needed. Importantly, disaggregating data by tech and non-tech positions, job titles, gender, and race/ethnicity— with particular attention to the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender— can provide nuanced information about recruitment and hiring patterns, while also providing data for internal accountability.[33]
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