The gender gap in the IT jobs market remains ridiculously high. Currently only 18% of undergraduate computer science degree graduates across the globe are women. This means the gender divide is improving today. It’s a little better than it was 5 years ago. When considering IT jobs and Software Engineer jobs in general, women who code are in more demand then ever. Diversity and inclusion remains a hot topic in many HR meetings. Needless to say we need to do more to continue to bridge the gap in Software Engineer jobs. This blog will focus on why that is and the best ways to attract a more gender neutral team.

IT jobs have typically been a white, young and male’s game. For the last few decades anyway, that is changing in today and the industry has worked hard to convince women to start coding and initiatives all over the world are in place with a focus on a careers in software engineering. Again, women who code. Not HR, Sales, Accounting etc, which all have a place in an IT company. The largest gender gap is with those who code.

So, what’s are the solutions?

  1. Improve candidate experience.

Hiring more women has become a huge goal, so where to begin would be on the lip of many in leadership.

As an experienced recruiter I think the best place to start is with the recruitment process itself. Its where we can exercise most control, so in theory should be the easiest to change. There are websites that can help with attracting more female developers, changing words etc, but that doesn’t seem to be the problem anymore. The problem seems to be more focused on recruiters and HR teams within IT companies that need to do more to engage women and improve their candidate experience.

So, how can you improve the candidate experience for women in tech?

top female software engineer IT talent working

Here are 5 easy steps recruiters and HR managers can take to improve candidate experience for IT jobs, well any job really to make sure more women who apply for tech roles stick out for a Software Engineering role.

  1. Include at least one woman on interview panels

Most women don’t want to be the “first Senior Technical Engineer”. They’re more likely to apply for a software job if there are women in the company’s senior leadership team. If that is not the case with your business. It’s important for them to meet those who are making their way up the company ladder. They’re also more likely to accept an offer if they meet female employees during the recruitment process.

 

  1. Promote family-friendly policies

The majority of women we speak to would be more likely to apply or accept a role if the company included policies such as maternity leave and flexible working in job descriptions and on careers websites. It tends not to be brought up at interview, so promoting these policies would be important.

Openly discussing family-friendly policies without assuming or asking anything personal such as “have you a family?”. But you want to demonstrate that they can grow with the company and won’t have to choose between a family and a career.

Here are a few benefits that might help attract more women.

  • Maternity and paternity leave and pay.
  • Flexible start/finish times
  • The opportunity to work from home.
  • Carer’s leave
  • Childcare vouchers
  • Health insurance
  1. Analyse job advertisements

The way a job is described has a huge impact on the type of candidates who apply. If you’re trying to hire more female engineers, do these three simple things:

Using words such as adaptable, hard-working, motivated and creative are proven to attract more female candidates, as mentioned above, the research on this is wafer thin, but it doesn’t hurt.

However it is more proven that females are more likely to apply for roles they can do. Separate skills that are required from those that are desired (I’d remove the desired ones), and keep the “required” skills to a minimum (Men tend to apply for a job if they meet 50% of the qualifications, while women only apply if they meet near 90%)

Again run the job description through the gender decoder mentioned above to check they are gender-neutral.

  1. Tackle gender bias

Gender bias is perhaps the hardest part of the recruitment process to address. The bottom line is that we’re all somewhat bias because of our experiences. AI tools are coming that will address this in some way, so see our future of AI in recruitment blog here.

There are a few steps you can take to address gender bias that will help improve the candidate experience:

  1. Avoid those who have similar hobbies, same university, etc
  2. Openly discuss your family-friendly HR policies – Again do not ask a candidate anything personal or family orientated. More make a statement.
  3. Create a questionnaire and ask all candidates the same questions based on skills and aptitude
  1. Actively look for female Software Engineers

Most Recruiters I know, go out of there way to seek out female Software Engineers or any technical IT job. Balancing your tech team depending on the male to female ratio is more than likely a priority, if your reading this blog. So think about running a campaign specifically aimed at finding and hiring women or incorporating some of the following sourcing policies.

  1. Going to women-focused conferences and meet ups. Or better still create the meet up using platforms such as LinkedIn, GitHub, Stack, Entelo to promote
  2. Working with associations and initiatives that promote gender diversity.
  3. Working on specific campaigns or roles with recruitment agencies such as Elwood Roberts, who has a decade of experience in the space.

female Software Engineer being mentored in her IT job

Here are 4 ideas to Implement that will help you hire female IT talent into your open jobs:

  1. Make female employees visible ideally working in the Software Engineering department. 
  • Like mentioned above, Women are more likely to accept a new job if the company has female leaders or engineers already there. If you don’t have females in leadership roles there are still actions, you can take to make your female employees more visible.
  • You can always invite women in leadership positions to publish blog posts and articles, set up and publish events, and be physically present in interviews. A little help from Marketing here would go along way.
  • Actively publish your initiatives on the company website and social media channels
  • Ensure marketing materials are gender-balanced that means photos need to include women, both working and enjoying time with colleagues.
  • Actively publicise all the great work you’re about to start doing to nurture the pipeline. Its important to showcase your technology, show how cutting-edge you are.
  1. Lose the boys club atmosphere.

The Software Engineering world remains very male dominated which also translates to Work Hard, Play Hard. Not saying don’t continue that mentality but tone it down. Its pretty common for Software Engineering teams to have Foosball tables, Pool tables, games consoles and in-house bars in the office that is way more appealing to young, male employees, who are in no rush home.  Everyone of course might enjoy that, but you don’t want to encourage a toxic masculine culture.

Here are 4 tips to assist with a more inclusive atmosphere.

  • Take complaints by all employees seriously. Comments like “that’s how we do things need to stop” – lets not live in the past.
  • Have a fair, indiscriminate and transparent company culture, and hold employees accountable if they over step.
  • Be creative when it comes to social activities or gatherings, don’t always revolve around sports, adventure or drinking, and remove the perception that employees need to join in or they will anger someone.
  • Always get an exit interview if a female (or any minority folks) leaves the business. Understand what the culture is like. As for “worts and all”. You can’t learn if you don’t know.

 

  1. Prioritise benefits that appeal to women.

While the subject line needs to be considered, you also don’t want to isolate the other team members. They need to feel valued too. There are certain aspects of jobs that will appeal to everyone, such as flexible working, flexible hours etc. Judge people on what they do rather than the time they put in. Those with Children will of course appreciate that level of flexibility more than those who don’t.

Set out the company’s family-friendly policies clearly and including them on the careers website, in job descriptions and discussing them openly in interviews are actions you can take immediately.

Of course, it might not be possible to have flexible hours, but if there is an opportunity to job share, part-time or work remotely along with good maternity cover should do the trick.

 

  1. Equal pay – Show you care!

Ireland has a new bill called the Gender pay Gap information Act 2021. This is simply an act forcing businesses to publish the difference between men and women’s pay. Its only required from larger companies at the moment, but by 2025 all businesses will have to provide this information. So there is nowhere to hide for businesses who are not showing equality, not only to women, but people across the board.

In last few years has seen the tech world’s giant gender pay gap narrow and it will continue to narrow over the next few years. Software Engineering is no different. There are of course industries that are female dominated where the gap is reversed, but this legislation will really highlight where we are as a society. I hope to see other countries take this approach.

If your business is already making an effort to ensure equal pay, then mention it in your diversity statement. Discuss it openly, using ratios and percentages. It wouldn’t be advised to publish salaries.

  1. Support the Next Generation

Businesses today need to work on their company culture as mentioned above, they need to consider the experience they give female candidates (as well as other candidates – talent attraction remains difficult – read more about that here). Its important to show what you are doing to nurture your talent and showcase how you are attracting more females to the business. Simply addressing the tech gender imbalance when a female applies for a IT job is not enough.

Everyone looking for an IT job especially Women in tech believe a business needs to nurture the next generation of female developers. Simply put, women lack female role models. They lacked a sense of “belonging” to a tech community. Do female Developers know how much money they could make? (Yes, I have more details on that, right here) Currently Software Engineers make excellent salaries not only in Ireland or the US, but across the globe. In fact, when leaving aside, Senior Leadership, Medical Consultants, Investment Bankers and Corporate Lawyers, Software Engineers rank 5th highest paying career in the world. However, in some cases female Software Engineers would choose the opportunity to meet women who work in the tech industry over money, and would be an invaluable asset when they were making their career choices. So highlight those female Engineers at your disposal.

You have to think long term when considering talent and supporting the next generation. Here are 3 ways to take action to support the next generation of female tech talent now:

1. A mentorship program.

Encouragement and one to one time ideally with a senior female Software Engineer would be invaluable to a female Engineer. It would be standard for any minority to feel the odd one out. So having a mentor will ease those concerns.

2. Sponsor and organise events.

Arranging a tech meetup, panel of speakers or evening networking drinks is considered pretty easy. It can show you are actively looking to focus on a particular subject, in this case nurturing female talent. Of course, you might not have the resources for a large event, but even start small, get marketing involved, arrange to meet in a local pub mid-week. You could also consider sponsoring an existing tech conference or university event and encouraging female employees to speak. Those paid speaker sets can be worth their weight in gold. Even today, female speakers in Engineering are rare.

3. Support students and underrepresented groups

There are lots of incredible programmes that encourage underrepresented groups to code, why not be a part of those groups. Reach out to them and see if you can speak at them. You can also support them with anything from a one-off donation to becoming an ambassador. You could arrange an awards night to celebrate females in tech, or female engineering graduates. Making it fun would mean more people will attend. The more noise you make the bigger the event will be.

Elwood Roberts is a unique Recruitment business with a focus on the Software Engineering market in Irish and USA. With well over a decade of Recruitment expertise, we have done it all with businesses of all shapes and sizes. If you are looking to create a more female centric team, or indeed struggling with your hiring. Please do get in touch with us, or see our offerings here.