Diversity Hiring

Making Recruiting Everyone’s Job

In order to quickly build a team of 20 engineers in a year, Lever established a Toronto office from scratch and taught everyone how to source and promote the company. Sourcing training was introduced to the organization, and sourcing parties were held to bring in new people. As a result, six senior engineers were hired in three months, and the team of 16 engineers was built in less than nine months. Lessons learned included getting people to think beyond referrals, having people think about DE&I, understanding that experienced people don't apply, and collaborating with recruiters.

How to Improve Diversity in the Workplace

This article discusses the importance of diversity in the workplace and the challenges of improving diversity. It outlines the steps taken to increase diversity, such as going to schools with a significant minority presence and including members of underrepresented minorities on the interview panel. It also highlights the importance of creating a culture of inclusion and providing adequate support for self-emergent networks. Finally, it emphasizes the need to separate business and fun time to ensure inclusion.

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.

Do You Know How to Tackle Diversity Issues on Your Team?

After a woman declined a job offer, the company realized that 90% of their team were men and decided to do more sourcing at women's engineering events. This resulted in a more gender-balanced team with a 60/40 male to female ratio, without changing their technical requirements. The lesson learned was that it is important to create a non-hostile work environment for everyone, and to prioritize women candidates without changing the bar.

Establishing a New Function

Niche's QA team was struggling to keep up with their increased automation needs, so the QA team leader proposed a new departmental structure with a separate function for automation. This new role, the Software Engineer in Test, would be dedicated to automation, allowing the QA Analysts to focus on manual testing. After a year of refining the role, the team was able to hire additional Software Engineers in Test and begin revitalizing their automation efforts. The lessons learned from this experience included the value of specialization, the importance of face-to-face communication while vetting candidates, and the importance of trusting in the expertise of team members.

Retaining Women In Tech

After leaving her engineering manager position at Apple due to burnout and lack of supportive leadership, the author started her own small business helping other small business owners with their technological needs. Through this experience, she realized the importance of resilience, an inclusive environment, and strong leadership for women in the tech industry. She encourages women to network outside of their own organization, and to stay in and influence the industry in order to shape the future.