Cristina Greysman, senior director, partner experience, at Sungard Availability Services, shares tips on hiring women in tech.
Recently I’ve been asked by a couple of small business owners for tips on how to recruit and hire more women into their organizations. I’ve compiled the following:
Make it a company mandate to be more inclusive in your hiring practices. Find ways to ensure that your company is being inclusive whether it is gender, generation or culture. For example, make it a policy that if a candidate is passed on, document why and discuss. Was it because the person did not feel right or was it truly a skills and qualification issue.
In your job listings, know what your non-negotiables are and what is a nice-to-have. Statistics show that women apply when they feel they have 100 percent of a listing’s qualifications where men apply if they feel they have 50 percent. If your job descriptions have a long list of qualifications, then women may not even apply even if they are great candidates. Narrow down the what-you’ll-do section to your must-haves. A job listing is a recruitment tool, not a job description upon which you will base a performance review.
I’m sure you need technical expertise, but can you highlight strengths where women tend to excel, such as communication, collaboration, teamwork and multi-tasking? And can you feature your female employees on your website? Leadership teams and boards tend to be made up of men. Find ways to feature your female employees so that other women can see themselves working for you.
Watch for language on your website that is overly aggressive or technical, like “risk assassin.”
Recruit where the women are. Look for women’s tech conferences to sponsor or other places where business, tech and sales women gather for education and networking.
