The tech industry has been rapidly evolving over the past couple of years, with the pandemic applying pressure on the sector to develop and go remote much quicker. As a result, the available talent is more limited now than ever, not only because of the massive digital skills gap in the industry, but also because of one particularly important area in which it’s lacking—its diversity.
Historically, there has been a lack of representation of certain groups within the IT industry and this issue has only been exacerbated by the global pandemic. We have seen many efforts by global players and small companies alike to change the dial in recent years. This includes MuleSoft who just last year created a MuleSoft Global Humanitarian Partner of the Year Award to their annual MuleSoft Partner Award categories, to encourage and celebrate their partners’ efforts to align with their very own values of equality by developing programs that foster diversity and inclusion.
But despite the increased efforts within the industry, certain groups are still being neglected in the tech workforce:
women, people from ethnic backgrounds, working parents, and people with disabilities and accessibility needs.
Failing to reach these groups with your diverse recruitment strategy means some of the top talent can fall through the cracks and be lost to competitors. Here are some tips on how you can prevent this and attract more diverse MuleSoft talent.
1. Make your workplace and recruitment process appealing to female talent
Gender inequality is still a massive issue across global workforces, and this is especially prominent in tech—what was once, and mainly still is, a male-dominated line of work. And while we have made some major moves collectively, research shows that there’s still a long way to go.
Previous research from Deloitte’s Women at Work survey, for example, has concluded that smaller tech companies—that have fewer resources and less of an established reputation—are finding it harder to attract female talent. This supports a 2019 Silicon Valley Bank study of global tech start-up executives where only 43% report having established companywide hiring and promotion goals to improve gender diversity.
But it’s not just small companies who are still currently experiencing a gender imbalance within their organization—even Google admits to needing to do much for female equality. Their 2021 Diversity Annual report revealed that globally, the number of female hires in 2021 (33.7%) was almost half the number of male hires made in the same year (66.3%).
Why are we still seeing this imbalance between the number of males and females entering tech roles?
Well, for one, as many as 2 out of every 3 women are still the primary caregivers in the United States. As well as this being very physically and mentally demanding, it also requires women to have the flexibility that traditional 9-5 jobs don’t give. Even after the pandemic introduced more widespread flexible work models, the statistics for 2022 show that we’re still nowhere close enough to facilitate women in caregiving positions.
You can start to make a change by offering more flexibility across your business—whether that’s fully-remote or hybrid work options, or implementing flexible working rather than 9-5 so that women who are primary caregivers can carry out these duties without having to juggle it with their work tasks. But that’s not all—there are so many other things you can be doing to make your workplace an appealing place for female talent.
For example, take a look at your current marketing materials and job ads. There has been plenty of research around how gender inclusivity can positively impact how campaigns and marketing efforts are received, with Google’s diversity inclusion feature finding that when advertisers on YouTube included at least as many women as men in their videos, more people watched. So, presenting potential candidates with images and stories of women succeeding in the field will help pique their interest and make them feel more welcome to join the MuleSoft industry.
As well as this, partnering with Women in Tech initiatives and supporting charities and awards that promote this cause can help level out how your business is seen by women. MuleSoft themselves have a Women Who Mule meetup group that they open to women in tech and allies all across the world. If you already have something like this in place, or it’s in the pipeline, make sure you shout about it—whether that’s through whitepapers, online campaigns, blog posts, or social media.
Similarly, take the time to analyze and remove any gender bias in your job descriptions and job ads.
Research has repeatedly found that male-oriented titles like ‘hacker’, ‘ninja’, and ‘guru’ and adjectives like ‘competitive’, ‘fast-paced,’ and ‘superior’ can turn women away from applying. This is because, generally speaking, women tend to be more collaborative than competitive—and these words can appear aggressive.
According to text tool Ongig, when you’re aiming to attract more women to your company, 50-70% of the language you use needs to be feminine. So, consider using proper titles like “MuleSoft Developer” rather than “MuleSoft Integration Hero”, and focus on language that focuses on teamwork—like ‘support’, ‘share’, ‘connect’, and ‘interpersonal’.
In addition to the above, studies have also found that women will only apply to jobs that they feel they fit 100% of the candidate criteria for, whereas men will apply for those that are 60% qualified for. This means to attract female talent, it’s crucial that you’re only listing candidate criteria that is really essential, rather than the desirable stuff.
2. Expand the efforts to increase representation of minority ethnic groups at all levels
There has long been inequality for people from minority ethnic backgrounds being able to secure top opportunities—with statistics from the BSC 2021 Diversity report showing that ethnic minority representation in the UK among IT specialists in 2020 ranged from just 12% of specialist IT managers and web designers/developers, to 26% of business analysts.
From smaller businesses to much larger corporations, there’s still a long way to go in diversity when it comes to minority ethnic hires—despite the progress being made in recent years. Google’s 2021 Diversity Annual report showed that although the percentage of new hires that were Black and LatinX+ jumped from 5.5% to 8.8% and 6.6% to 8.8.% respectively, these were still significantly overshadowed by the number of white hires (43.1% in 2020 to 44.5% in 2021).
However, when a person belongs to a BAME group and another underrepresented group the lack of diversity is even more prominent. For example, AWS’ 2021 Women in the Workplace report revealed that “…women of color lose ground at every step in the pipeline.”
The report, however, did provide some promising insight into how diversity is progressing with 2021 being the first year recorded where women of color achieved manager status at the same rate as women overall. Plus, the previous BCS report revealed that at 18%, ethnic minority representation was higher in IT than the workforce as a whole (12%). These findings show how working collectively to implement diverse hiring best practices can make tech a better space.
But what can we do to further our efforts? We need to increase the number of BAME employees at all levels, including senior positions. For example, by highlighting progression opportunities clearly and having frequent career development meetings with team members to design bespoke pathways to get them to where they want to be.
Similarly, offering opportunities for mentorships and sponsorships can help build up BAME employees’ confidence and give them the key soft skills central to senior positions.
3. Pay specific attention to increase applications from people with disabilities and accessibility needs
When we talk about diverse workforces, people with disabilities and accessibility needs are typically left out of the conversation. But with the World Health Organization confirming that over 1 billion people were living with a disability in 2021—equating to around 15% of the world’s total population—and data from the International Labor Organization showing that people with disabilities are two times less likely to be employed than people without, there’s plenty of untapped talent potential within this group too.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach because there are so many possible different areas of difficulty to address. But, you can start by attracting a larger talent pool by offering remote work options to remove location bias. Similarly, make sure your application packs are accessible for those with additional needs. This could mean:
- Avoiding PDFs
- Using crystal-clear language
- Using clear fonts and larger text sizes
- Giving people the option to apply in their preferred format
- Offering alternative versions on request (e.g. Braille, Captions, etc)
Similarly, be sure that you only detail essential job criteria, rather than padding it out with the ‘nice to have’ stuff. This means candidates who do have disabilities or accessibility needs can make an informed judgement on whether they would genuinely be comfortable in this role. When you’re going through applications, be open-minded and consider that improper grammar could indicate learning difficulties like dyslexia or having another first language, including sign language. In a field like cloud tech where much of the emphasis is placed on numerical data and code, good written language skills needn’t be treated as a priority.
Additionally, don’t assume everybody will have the same career journey. For example, people with disabilities and special accessibility needs may have taken an alternative route to employment rather than university, so consider their experience with MuleSoft or other cloud tech products and non-work skills instead. Once you have your interview shortlist, ask whether there are any special requirements candidates will need, such as a ground floor interview venue or if they’d prefer to use a certain virtual interview program.
And most importantly, always remember to refer to people with disabilities in a politically correct way. Using phrases like “disabled people”, “wheelchair-bound” and “suffering from X” can cause offense as it tends to put their disability as their defining characteristic. Instead, make sure you’re referring to the person first and the disability second—for example, “person who uses a wheelchair”, and “person with a disability”. And, remember to use language that emphasizes the need for accessibility, rather than lexis that points to the presence of a disability—so “accessible parking and restroom” is far less condescending than “handicapped parking” and “disabled restroom”. You can find more information on language to use to describe disabilities and accessibility in this factsheet.
4. Attract and retain working parents
Working parents regularly report having to juggle two huge responsibilities at once: work life and childcare. And according to results from Cleo Labs’ Working Parents survey, parents make up 40% of the total workforce with as many as 50% of families having had to leave their job, reduce their hours or take a leave of absence to provide necessary childcare—proving that we need to be more flexible with working parents.
The survey further found that although nearly half of working parents have been forced to take a step back from work to adequately care for their children, 40% of all working families are still considering this—and the rates are 28% higher for non-white families which could well be reflective of the work we have yet to do to tackle ethnic inequality at work.
Parental attrition hasn’t been left in 2021, and so companies need to be looking at ways of attracting and retaining talent who juggle life with being a parent to make them feel more included. And as cloud-first technologies are dominating the market already, there is so much scope for helping them to grow and progress with these.
Many employers still don’t take the time to ask candidates about their other duties, including childcare, and what they can do to support working parents. For example, consider adding flexibility to employee schedules, such as flexible start and finish times, to help them to fit in school runs, attend extra-curricular matches, and give them more family time.
Company-sanctioned parental leave is becoming extended in the U.S, which should be great news for new parents, but with many having to weigh up the affordability of this, we aren’t seeing as many new moms and dads taking the time off that they need. And although encouraging them to do this can mean you have a bit of work to do in terms of sorting coverage and internal reorganization, it will pay off in the long run when your employees come back feeling valued, motivated, and productive.
Salesforce themselves have been seen championing initiatives that train working parents up and get them into the ecosystem, particularly given we’re facing a huge talent shortage at the minute. With our career programs, you can work flexibly alongside your full-time job and your parenting life to become a MuleSoft Developer and join the world’s leading integration and API platform—with plenty of room for lucrative earnings as the industry evolves!
Salesforce themselves have been seen championing initiatives that train working parents up and get them into the ecosystem, particularly given we’re facing a huge talent shortage at the minute. With our career programs, you can work flexibly alongside your full-time job and your parenting life to become a MuleSoft Developer and join the world’s leading integration and API platform—with plenty of room for lucrative earnings as the industry evolves!
