38 percent of tech job interviews offered exclusively to men: report
- Reference: 1687516299
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/06/23/men_tech_job_interviws/
- Source link:
Hired, whose [1]gimmick is that companies effectively apply to interview jobseekers – reversing the usual paradigm – rather than the other way around, reviewed nearly 64,000 job postings and more than 860,000 interactions between candidates and employers between 2018 and 2022. That effort was boiled down into its State of Wage Inequality in the Tech Industry [2]report [PDF] for 2023.
Among the findings of the report are that among tech positions advertised via Hired in 2022, about one in ten resulted in interview requests only being made to to White people. In 2018 that number was 26 percent – so while there's been a drop, it seems there's still a problem.
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Graphs from Hired showing an overall drop in positions only offering interviews to men and White people – Click to enlarge
The document also found that women of Asian and European backgrounds saw a reduction in pay inequality last year. But inequality remains.
Women are also often overlooked on Hired - the the recruitment biz said 38 percent of positions advertised in 2022 only generated interview requests for men. That's a one percentage point increase over 2021, but is still generally an improvement over 2018 – the start of the data in the report – when that number was 45 percent.
Your unconscious biases are showing
Those doing the hiring don't seem to think there's as big an issue as Hired's data suggests. Ninety-nine percent hiring managers who responded to Hired's survey insisted they "make efforts to ensure hiring decisions are free from bias."
According to Hired, its data and survey responses from job seekers and employers indicate biased hiring practices aren't hard to find in more than half the industries hiring professionals through its platform. The report indicates disparities are particularly present in the manufacturing, healthcare and media/entertainment sectors.
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Hired said two particular types of bias, both unconscious, regularly rear their heads in its data: affinity bias (hiring people who are similar to oneself) and confirmation bias (focusing on information about candidates that supports pre-existing beliefs).
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Neither of those biases need to be direct, aggressive or even offensive. Hired identified the 68 percent of employers who cite "cultural fit" as a qualification as being particularly susceptible to such biases creeping into hiring.
"Using 'culture fit' is fine if you're talking about core values – like a commitment to innovation, philanthropy, or respecting others," said Hired SVP for people strategy Sam Friedman. Such stances can affect how well a new hire fits into the overall company. But Hired said these habits can just as easily lead to homogeneous workplaces dominated by groupthink.
[7]Betting on AI leads to more educated juniors, fewer mid-level bosses – study
[8]Sysadmin and IT ops jobs to slump, says IDC
[9]Three quarters of UK tech pros are ready to leave their jobs
[10]Microsoft pushes for more women in cybersecurity
Hired suggested more emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives as one way to address the issues outlined above. That doesn't necessarily mean more unconscious bias training and workshops, though. While 51 percent of hiring managers said their DEI teams are a "must have," 14 percent of those in the same role said such initiatives "create an unfair advantage for some groups."
Never mind the fact that Hired also found 82 percent of job-seeking women and 69 percent of men said they'd be more interested in working for an employer that had received recognition for DEI initiatives.
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Previous research cited by Hired found that DEI training didn't change behavior.
With Hired observing that 80 percent of hiring leaders report feeling pressured by employees to reduce hiring and wage bias, now's the perfect time for companies to ensure their names aren't associated with discriminatory hiring practices.
Hired recommends anonymizing resumes – by hiding personal information like name, gender and age – and also recommends structured interviews in which all candidates are asked the same questions.
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If technical assessments are part of the interview process, Hired recommends moving to an asynchronous system, which will not only prevent hiring managers from unconsciously imposing bias on candidates, but will also free up their time.
The study also looked at the effects of salary transparency legislation, which Hired said is on the rise around the US. According to the recruitment outfit's findings, states and cities that implemented pay transparency laws all showed wage equality improvement in their regions.
"Now is the time to seize this critical juncture, bridging gaps in opportunities and expectations. Embrace salary transparency and dedicate yourself to DEI principles to forge a path toward a more equitable future … It's the right thing to do," said Hired CEO Josh Brenner. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://employerhelpcenter.hired.com/en/support/solutions/articles/12000066681-sending-an-interview-request
[2] https://pages.hired.email/rs/289-SIY-439/images/Hired_2023%20State%20of%20Wage%20Inequality-June2023.pdf
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/06/22/graph_hired_tech_survey.png
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZJXBntJgVU8mKE89EfbNqAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZJXBntJgVU8mKE89EfbNqAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZJXBntJgVU8mKE89EfbNqAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/12/ai_recruitment/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/08/idg_it_jobs_census/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/11/three_quarters_of_uk_tech/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/21/microsoft_women_cybersecurity/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZJXBntJgVU8mKE89EfbNqAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZJXBntJgVU8mKE89EfbNqAAAANY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Yes - I'm interested to know how many resulted in interviews only being offered to women...
It's an issue which will take years to balance the representation. Industry is mostly male, so women don't even start it and the few who do are often driven out for various reasons. Net result? Probably 90%+ of candidates for IT/tech jobs are men. If you take random samples out of those interview candidates, you'll have a lot of men-only interview sets. I'm not convinced it's entirely an employee screening issue.
There's a lot of work trying to get women involved in STEM work which will hopefully start addressing the imbalance in gender representation.
I've interviewed a few people over the years, for technical roles within my team. For the last couple of years, we have had a lot of women apply, but generally it's about 90% men. I try and employ a good balance, and feel it makes good business sense. My team is user facing, and women users seem much more comfortable approaching the women of the team. I base this on the fact that calls from women go up if we have more women on staff, and fewer calls if we have fewer women.
Sadly, it's generally very difficult to get a reasonable amount of women though.
Women users seem much more comfortable approaching the women of the team?
@Stuart Castle: “I base this on the fact that calls from women go up if we have more women on staff, and fewer calls if we have fewer women.”
Sounds like these people need refuge in a mental health facility and not employed in a high tech industry. When I worled on a telephone help desk I got some womens tech problem solved. She said thank you very much. I said no problem, they hire people who like doing this. Then she went and complained about me.
@Paul Crawford - First things first
how do they know the 38% were women just by looking at the job application ? Asking for a friend of course.
I was only a student, not a teacher, but anecdotally, I have seen a pretty big change in the past 10-15 years where I am. When I first started taking security/networking classes in 2008, out of 30 students, there were maybe four women, all of whom were already in the field, and just there to keep their skills current, and maybe one just starting out. I had to quit for health reasons after a few terms, and when I came back, while there still wasn't parity, maybe 1/3 were women, and skewed younger. I think that there has been some success in at least getting more young women at least starting out. Of course, with the culture being what it is, how many *stay* is another matter entirely.
Look at the stats
The simple fact is that not many women are taking tech-related qualifications, which results in a large imbalance in available candidates. Many tech companies are going for 50% representation of women in engineering roles, which by its very definition IS excluding candidates in a discriminatory fashion. The only targets tech companies should be aiming for is the same percentage of women or minority groups as the candidate field presents. Anything more is discriminatory, and I'm seeing this evidenced first-hand where I work.
Re: Look at the stats
But on the other hand; what a time to be a woman in tech, companies are falling over themselves to employ them, no doubt also using starting salary as one of their primary tools for persuasion. Fill your boots ladies!
It depends very much on the proportion of candidates who were men and the average number interviewed.
Take an example where the candidates were 50/50. If only one candidate interviewed* then an unbiased average would be 50% of interviews to be exclusively with men. If 2 candidates were interviewed then 25% would be exclusively men - and 25% exclusively women and 50% one of each.
Depending on the mix of candidates and number of candidates interviewed 37% might be about the expected, substantially more or substantially less.
However I'll stick my neck out and suggest that the people writing PR stuff and claiming an understanding of statistics is less than the number of people writing PR stuff and claiming to have an understanding of statistics but who actually do have an understanding of statistics
* There's nothing to indicate such a practice so the possibility can't be excluded from the interpretation.
Businesses are there to make money for their owners. What does it matter who they chose to employ? Choose the people of whatever age, sex, racial background, etc who are best suited to the job, will provide the best return on their investment.
"Choose the people of whatever age, sex, racial background, etc who are best suited to the job"
Yes BUT candidate selection processes are not very good at finding the people who are best suited for the job, and are usually limited by timing, geography, and what they are willing to pay to who their best-guess would be the best fir out of a limited pool of candidates about whom the only knowledge you have is 2 sheets of paper and half an hour on a video call. That makes the thought process "I'm good at this, so someone like me is probably good at this" quite common, even if unconscious
"what they are willing to pay"
All too often the biggest limiting factor of all.
@Doctor Syntax - In this case
they should clearly favour women because they are paid less than their male counterparts.
What does it matter who they chose to employ?
It matters because discrimination is a nasty business, and sadly history is full of examples of discriminatory employment on many aspects.
However there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. If a business is genuinely employing the best folks they ought to reflect the population distribution of those qualified for the jobs within sane distance limits, but we know that STEM is under represented by women and that problem is far deeper than the employment market, it goes back to school and society and fixing that takes a lot of time and high-level support (actions, not weasel words from politicians).
Even the Victorians quickly realised that businesses don't exist outside of society. Left to their own devices, businesses were employing children to crawl under dangerous machinery, up chimneys and down mines. In some parts of the US, child labour is coming back using precisely the arguments you make.
Businesses that serve only their owners have no place in society - there's no point in making money solely for the purpose of making money. The rest of us are entitled to set the rules under which businesses operate and under which those owners get the benefit of education, transport and the legal protection of their assets that society offers them.
One of those rules is that you can't keep the sweeties for your mates.
What ?!
I was under the impression that there are no longer such genders. Or at least that's what my friends are telling me.
Re: What ?!
@AC
"I was under the impression that there are no longer such genders. Or at least that's what my friends are telling me."
Just wait until the cats graduate school and join the workplace. Who is gonna wanna share an office with a litter tray?
Re: What ?!
I see you are subscribing to the apocryphal right wing fantasy about schoolchildren "identifying as cats" and schools making litterboxes available to them
Jordan Peterson debate on the gender pay gap
[1]Jordan Peterson debate on the gender pay gap
[1] https://youtu.be/aMcjxSThD54?t=686
Re: Jordan Peterson debate on the gender pay gap
One of the best/funniest/upsetting interviews that I have ever seen...
"So what you're saying is "... Cathy Newman beat herself up in that interview....
ESG is causing more problems than it is solving BUT BlackRock etc have an financial investment so they will keep pushing hard....
Women are also often overlooked on Hired - the the recruitment biz said 38 percent of positions advertised in 2022 only generated interview requests for men.
The report says the same, but no breakdown of those who applied for the jobs by gender and qualifications to be selected for interview.
The quote sounds like a major portion of industry is simply ignoring women but from experience in teaching engineering and occasionally dealing with job interviews we found very few women applied for the jobs, and given that last time I taught electronics (a bit over 10 years ago) I was seeing only 3-4 out of around 20 students were women it need not be a bias against women, just the reality of who is qualified and actually applied for that job locally.