To make a point of discussion: are you hiring a diverse team -> unfortunately, no not particularly in my case. This is the problem with long term systemic "racism" and "sexism" that means that there just aren't as many people from certain backgrounds that have the skills and experience. Only time and consistent positive pressure will change this and the changes happen inconsistently across the world.
My recruitment catchment is predominantly white, within the BAME (and female) communities there are less people who have considered technology as an appropriate career in the past. If I run a meritocracy on skills there will be less people proportionally from those groups than even the already low population split. So perhaps I don't want a meritocracy, my users don't live where my business is headquartered and I want to reflect them, not my hiring pool. So we try, but it isn't easy. Having an internal recruiter from the community is the only thing that helped - but sadly he moved to a different area of the country and a new role. It's hard to find another like him... yet another example of the underlying issues.
To make a point of discussion: are you hiring a diverse team -> unfortunately, no not particularly in my case. This is the problem with long term systemic "racism" and "sexism" that means that there just aren't as many people from certain backgrounds that have the skills and experience. Only time and consistent positive pressure will change this and the changes happen inconsistently across the world.
My recruitment catchment is predominantly white, within the BAME (and female) communities there are less people who have considered technology as an appropriate career in the past. If I run a meritocracy on skills there will be less people proportionally from those groups than even the already low population split. So perhaps I don't want a meritocracy, my users don't live where my business is headquartered and I want to reflect them, not my hiring pool. So we try, but it isn't easy. Having an internal recruiter from the community is the only thing that helped - but sadly he moved to a different area of the country and a new role. It's hard to find another like him... yet another example of the underlying issues.
Thanks for sharing this. It's easy to be idealistic about hiring but even if you want to it can be difficult.