Diversity Hiring

How To Improve Your Diversity Hiring

In order to increase diversity in the workplace, a senior manager organized coaching sessions for diverse engineering candidates who had passed the interview stage. The sessions focused on teaching the candidates how to communicate effectively in a culturally specific setting. The results were very successful, with 75% of the coached candidates receiving offers from the company. The program was well-received by colleagues, who understood the importance of helping diverse candidates overcome cultural barriers.

The Secret To Product Growth is Your People

When scaling a product team, it is important to consider both the product and the people. Hiring the right people is key, and it is important to find a balance between visionaries and realists. It is also important to structure the team correctly, and to empower people to work on the product end-to-end. Finally, bringing in fresh perspectives in the form of juniors can help to assess the product and processes.

How to Maximize Employee Retention in Engineering Teams

High churn rates can have a significant impact on product-based companies, so it is important to find ways to retain employees. The author, a CTO, has adopted several management techniques to reduce the churn rate, such as a 4-step interview process, an onboarding process that normalizes knowledge gaps and is generous with adaptation time, and a management approach that gives ownership of the work, explains the reasoning behind goals, conducts regular check-ins, and provides flexible working hours. The key tips for high retention are to not micromanage, lead with empathy, and trust employees.

Building a Diverse, but Cohesive Team

This article discusses the challenges of building a diverse mobile engineering team and the actions taken to overcome them. Intentional sourcing, in-house programs, and expectations setting were used to ensure diversity of all sorts. Lessons learned include that people add more than they fit, diversity brings unique perspectives, culture building takes time, and non-traditional backgrounds add value and creativity.

Parent Friendly Work Culture

ITA's Women Influence Chicago initiative brought together tech leaders to discuss best practices for creating inclusive work cultures for parents. Discussions focused on transparency, creating an even playing field, having a robust leave policy, and changing the profession to accommodate working parents. The event was sponsored by Lantern Partners and the top four takeaways were shared.

Effective Hiring Practices: Asking the Right Questions

Finding the right talent for a job requires asking the right questions and conducting interviews in a way that makes candidates feel comfortable. It is important to look for a technical fit, but also a match in values and learning potential. To gain insight during interviews, it is recommended to take several unorthodox approaches, such as identifying and double-downing on risky matters, prompting candidates with open-ended topics, focusing on fewer topics in detail, asking how they would hire for the role, and encouraging them to come up with a question. Additionally, feedback should be asked for in order to improve the interview process.