How Companies Succeed in Attracting Diverse IT Talent

Recruiting is a significant challenge for many companies, especially in the IT sector, with 137,000 open positions according to Bitkom, it is a challenge to attract talented individuals. Companies often struggle to invest time in their application process and focus on one important lever: diversity, resulting in a difficulty living up to the diversity values they promote. This article aims to look at the benefits of diverse recruiting and how companies can successfully attract diverse IT talent.

What is diversity recruiting?

Diversity recruiting involves treating all candidates equally and eliminating potential biases while referring to ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, impairment, and socioeconomic background. A diverse team brings a wide range of perspectives and ideas, which leads to more innovation and better decisions. In addition, studies show that IT professionals are more likely to reject job offers from companies they perceive as less inclusive, or even not apply to them in the first place.

How can companies attract diverse IT experts?

The IT sector could benefit highly by catching up on diversity, with only 16 percent of all employees in the digital industry in Germany being female, according to the German government's latest equality report. It’s time for companies to rethink their recruiting strategy to address this state and make sustained efforts to attract diverse talent. To do this, companies could continuously evaluate their recruiting and retention efforts and make adjustments. There are several strategies that companies can implement to attract diverse IT talent:

• Rely on employee referrals: Encouraging their employees to recommend acquaintances or friends with diverse backgrounds to apply for open positions.
• Partner with organizations: Partnering with organizations focussing on diversity and inclusion to reach a larger pool of applicants. Supporting DEI nonprofits and underrepresented coding community affinity groups can also lead to a diverse talent pool.
• Using inclusive language throughout the application process: being more welcoming to all applicants in their job postings. 
• Making corporate culture and policies inclusive: creating an inclusive culture and environment where diverse applicants and employees feel comfortable and valued. The application process is only one aspect of many.
• Implementing a diversity program: Such as internships and co-working opportunities for applicants with different educational backgrounds, to give them the opportunity to gain a foothold in the industry, develop themselves and gain experience.
• Making diversity and inclusion efforts transparent: Informing potential applicants about their diversity and inclusion efforts on their website and during the interview process by publishing the current status quo and their own goals in figures to show maximum transparency.

In conclusion

In summary, diversity helps to promote innovation and the potential for economic success. Companies can attract diverse talent by using inclusive language, partnering with diversity experts, promoting transparency, and creating an inclusive corporate culture and policy. However, diversity and inclusion require sustained efforts and the commitment of the entire company, not just the HR department.