Widen access to meaningful work.
Tech companies –– what if your talent philosophy started there?
Just think about what you could change.
But this isn’t happening.
You continue to source from the same homogenized groups while outsider candidates have no choice but to throw Hail Mary’s and apply to as many companies as they possibly can.
Let’s be honest here. They’re being ignored.
Either widen access to opportunity or keep fishing from the same pond. But it’s unlikely that you can do both.
So the questions remain ––
How many gates to entry is tech going to continue putting up?
And how many people are they going to deny opportunity to before they realize that their recruiting processes and tools are not designed to solve this problem?
The tech industry has created a big opportunity gap. And it just continues to widen it.
It narrows when outsiders get a chance.
Candidates outside of your tech bubble.
Candidates outside of your age bubble.
Candidates outside of your “top 5 schools” bubble.
Candidates outside of every bubble that exists at your company!
In order to widen access to opportunity, candidate advocacy needs to be the foundation for every talent initiative moving forward.
The real challenge is educating hiring managers and leaders. In my experience, very often they dictate which schools to recruit from (usually their alma maters, or only top tier schools), and they require specific tech skills because they don't want to take the time to allow a new hire to learn the technology.
Used to do work with a large civil engineering firm. They had a tough time recruiting civil engineers and project managers. When we suggested recruiting military personnel with those MOS, they declined because there was just enough difference between the military versions of the apps used and the civilian counterparts that it would require a few months of training before the new hire would be fully up to speed. They didn't want to wait that long.
Or the web start-up that required 5+ years of Ruby on Rails experience. The guy who wrote RoR posted sarcastically that, since it had only been out for three and a half years, even *he* wouldn't qualify.
A large high tech firm used to recruit almost exclusively at Stanford, Cal, MIT, CMU, and UT Austin. Any suggestion that there were great students at other schools was rejected. They then did a survey to see where their most productive employees came from. The largest single source was San Jose State University. Second place went to Sacramento State.
Talent Acquisition needs to wage on ongoing communications campaign to educate and remind hiring managers and executives that - even during hard times like these - skilled people don't grow on trees. By going outside your "bubble," you will not only fill your roles more quickly, you'll often have a better hire because s/he brings a different viewpoint.