9 Ways To Recruit The Women Your Company Need to Win

It’s not a pipeline problem

Research and experience has shown that having a gender-diverse team is a competitive advantage for your company.  But if your organization is having trouble finding and retaining women – despite what you feel are your best efforts – there is likely more you can do.
 
Here are nine proactive steps you can take to attract and retain high-caliber women:
 
●  Audit your job descriptions. Use gender-neutral or gender-inclusive wording in job descriptions or ads. A study of more than 4,000 job descriptions showed that words influence how men and women perceive job opportunities. Men were more drawn to words like dominant and boasts, while women preferred words like community, relationships, and satisfied. The term hacker was perceived as less inclusive than developer.
 
●  Don’t fill your posted job ads with a laundry list of qualifications or experiences that very few people have. Women are less likely than men to apply for jobs that they feel they are not fully qualified for, so you’ll inadvertently limit highly qualified women from applying.
 
●  Make sure the way you target your recruiting campaigns on social media does not exclude women. The New York Times on September 18, 2018 reported that the way some companies use Facebook’s targeting technology excludes women from receiving their advertisements.
 
●  Experiment with having all applications or resumes presented without a person’s name or any gender identification indicators. See if that leads to different candidate selection decisions. Consider using a technology-based products that hide data that’s not relevant.
 
●  Don’t just wait for women to apply. Approach qualified women you know and tell them you consider them a strong candidate for a role. Talk about your company and job opportunities to women at industry conferences. Ask them to keep your firm in mind and to pass along openings to qualified women in their networks. Actively search for women who may have been overlooked at your company, perhaps because they have a different background than is generally considered for the type of role you are filling, have not raised their hands or applied, and who may have been discounted at some earlier point due to perceived life constraints. Some may be women who previously downshifted their careers and worked reduced schedules and are now ready to ramp up again. You will need to reach out to your business and network and human resources representatives intentionally to identify women who historically have not been considered qualified candidates.
 
●  Look at ways to bring back women who previously worked for your company or elsewhere and left the workforce for a time. Work with your human resources department to identify and reach out to these women. Some companies call these returnships and have even hired or assigned a dedicated coach or peer mentor to help women transition back into the workforce.
 
●  Insist that recruiters provide you with a diverse pool of candidates for every job opening. A regional vice president at Salesforce, a global cloud computing company, told me that he believes that his implementation of this practice has been one of the main reasons his team composition is 40% female (uncommon for a tech sales team).
 
●  Have at least two women candidates for consideration for senior level positions or
positions traditionally held by men. One is not enough. According to research, if there is only one woman or minority candidate in a pool, there is little to no chance that person will be hired. The odds increase if there are more than one woman or minority candidate in a slate being considered.
 
●  Use structured interviews that are based on a fixed, predetermined set of questions rather than unstructured interviews during which interviewers can ask whatever occurs to them. Structured interviews reduce incidences of all types of bias, not just gender bias.
 
In a tight labor market, we can’t afford to discourage talented applicants from applying. It’s never been easy to find talent, but it’s always been worth the effort. Companies who take these actions build high-performing, diverse teams.

Rania Anderson is author of WE: Men, Women, and the Decisive Formula for Winning at Work. As a keynote speaker, executive business coach and the founder of The Way WoMen Work, Rania transforms the way men and women work, lead, and succeed together.   Visit www.TheWayWoMenWork.com Connect Rania Anderson