Tech Talent: 6 Ways to Diversify Your Talent Pool

Tech is changing the world for the better, but hiring diverse tech talent is something it’s still struggling with!

For thousands of years, diversity used to be something that wasn’t even considered when hiring the workforce. A lot has changed recently, but gender and racial gaps exist in nearly every field, especially tech. It’s a male-dominated field with little diversity within its ranks. From facial recognition discriminating against people of color and VR headsets designed mainly for men, there’s no shortage of bias in technology.

According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), tech has employed a larger share of whites (almost 63.5 to 68.5 percent) as compared to the rest of the private sector. Due to this homogeneity, women, and people of color find it difficult to adjust.

In this article, we will discuss how you can bring about change by hiring diverse tech talent in your organization.

6 Ways to Diversify Your Tech Talent Pool

Recruiters must ensure that the hiring process is fair and inclusive. By keeping your talent pool small, not only are they unfair to the masses but also miss out on opportunities and perspectives that a diverse workforce brings.

Over time, it becomes difficult for a homogenous workforce to look at old problems in a new way. Creativity is innovation, without which you can’t survive in the tech world.

Here are six ways to diversify your tech talent pool.

1. Make Diversity Part of Your Company’s Culture

Your company’s culture is formed in its earliest days. Recruiting white people from the beginning can form a culture that encourages whites only. Afterward, it can be quite challenging to bring a more diverse workforce.

Recruiting a diverse workforce from the early days of the company makes it easy to maintain that. A diverse workforce attracts diverse candidates.

It’s natural to feel more comfortable in a room with a variety of people rather than a room full of a particular group of people.  Even if your workforce is not as diverse and you like, there’s still much you can do to change that!

2. Diversify Your Recruiting Team

The first step towards hiring diverse tech talent is to diversify your recruiting team.

A diverse recruitment team shows the company’s commitment to diversification. If the interviewers reflect the ethnicity, color, and gender of the candidates, they’ll feel more at home. It’s easier to connect with people who look and sound like you!

If you’re using an agency for hiring candidates, then it’s essential to let them know that you’re looking for diverse tech talent.

In a lot of cases, unintentional bias keeps excludes a candidate. The blind screening process can also prove beneficial in such cases as it eliminates unintentional bias and attracts diverse talent. Removing name, and school from the resume and keeping the degree and necessary skills is the way to go!

3. Utilize a Range of Sources in Your Recruitment Campaign

Using the same old resources for hiring tech talent will likely yield the same results too.

For diversity recruiting, there are a variety of sources that you can utilize, such as job boards, referrals, recruitment agencies, and headhunting. Mix up these techniques to engage with people from a wide range of backgrounds.

4. Make The Job Descriptions Inclusive

One can never underestimate the power of words!

Job descriptions say a lot about a company’s brand identity and culture. It’s important to be conscious of the wordings in your job description.

Using a more inclusive job description can attract diverse tech talent to apply. On the other hand, masculine choice of words can intimidate and discourage certain candidates, specifically women.

You can miss out on highly skilled tech talent from minorities if your job description is not inclusive.

5. Offer Referral Incentives

Employee referral programs are another great way to meet the talent that you’d otherwise never know.

According to a report by Payscale on the effects of referrals, a third of workers received some kind of referrals for their current jobs. However, referrals can also lead to a less diverse workforce as women and people of color are less likely to be referred to as compared to their male counterparts.

To address that issue, you can offer incentives for introducing people who are underrepresented in your workforce. It encourages the current employees to refer qualified candidates and helps them feel valued in the corporation.

6. Partner with Alternative Training Programs

White males dominate the tech industry and college computer science departments. If you find your candidates from computer science colleges then it’s no wonder you have limited diversity among your workforce.

Universities opened their doors for women and people of color only in the 18th century. In the early days of computers, there were more women engaged in the field, which changed when typing was no longer considered important to pursue computer science. Ironically, now there are more women obtaining college degrees, but very few studying computer science.

Many talented people are self-learners or learn through alternative training programs. LaunchCode’s Coder Girl program is an excellent example of such a program. It equips women with the technical skills they need to get started. You can hire diverse tech talent by partnering with alternative training programs and expanding your horizons beyond college graduates.

Ready to Hire Diverse Tech Talent?

Recruiters have long since struggled to diversify their workforce, but in the post-Covid times, it’s easier than ever. Now that they know work can be done from anywhere, they’re no longer bound by geographical constraints (or any other!).

Pandemic taught us the importance of diverse and remote teams. If your current strategy for diversity is not working, then get out of your comfort zone. Hunt for diverse tech talent elsewhere or hire someone else to do it for you!

Pierpoint is a leading RPO services provider for niche and hard-to-fill positions. Our clientele ranges from Fortune 500 companies to mid-sized firms. We offer various recruitment solutions and use a scientific, data-driven approach to develop customized solutions for businesses.

In the end, it all comes down to your goodwill and recruitment team. If you diversify your tech team with the aim of inclusion, then it’s likely to happen sooner than later!