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.
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.
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:
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.