Project Include is a non-profit that uses data and advocacy to facilitate workforce diversity and inclusion in the tech industry.
As reported by Project Include on their website, here is what research and data have shown about ways in which aspects of your hiring process may very well be turning away and turning off job candidates you want:
- Did you know that including “salary negotiable” in a job description can REDUCE the gender wage gap by 45%? The gender gap is much larger in jobs where the “rules” around wage negotiations are vague or uncertain.
- Did you know that increasing the amount of paid maternity leave could reduce the rate at which new mothers leave by 50%? Susan Wojcicki, Google’s first marketing manager and currently CEO of YouTube, increased maternity leave at Google from 12 weeks to 18 weeks, resulting in a 50% reduction in the rate of departure of new mothers.
- What’s in a name? Well, it could be a resume reviewer’s bias. Resumes that are identical with the exception of names that signify gender or racial background are subject to unintended bias during the resume review process.
- Unstructured interviews are still widely used to vet job candidates despite a vast literature suggesting that they have little validity. Develop an objective, standardized, codified set of interview procedures, content as well as process, to be used by everyone involved in hiring.
- Making a final decision about a candidate? Who has a vote? Who has a veto? “Vetoes are problematic” since individual biases mixed into group hiring decisions can “torpedo” an otherwise good candidate.
Full citations for original research sources available at https://projectinclude.org/hiring
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