So.....how do I go about getting a more diverse team?

[Berkut]

I am recently moved to the head of our small companies technical development team. Which means I am responsible for pretty much all the hiring of new developers and other technical talent. And we are growing, and need to hire more people.


I look at our team, and we have a really, really strong team right now. However....it is ridiculously not diverse. Of those who report up to me, we have 1 female (had 2 but our best developer left, damnit. Shit, now that I think of it she was the only one who wasn't white as well).


Everyone else is a young, white, college graduate. They are all very bright, hard working, and well paid for what they do.


The solutions team, which I am a part time part of, but is run by my colleague, is actually mostly female at the moment. 60% female. But again, all white.


The office is located in Minneapolis, and we get most of our recruits from the UofM, and other universities.


And as I go through my applicants, there just isn't much there outside a pretty narrow demographic.


I think this is a problem, in that ideally I would much rather have a more diverse work team. But that ideal is aspirational, not really practical, in that when I go to hire the next person, I want (and need) to hire the best one I can find, and simply put, the applicant pool I have access to at this time is distressingly narrow demographically.


So, honest question - I would really like to hear some *practical* ideas. In a STEM world, how do I go about getting more diversity into my applicant pool, so that I can hopefully end up finding highly qualified talent that better reflects a company that actually values diversity - at least, that is what we tell ourselves?

[11B4V]

Be fair and higher the best qualified applicants.

[Eddie Teach]

Be fair and higher the best qualified applicants.

For instance, they should know the difference between hire and higher. 

[grumbler]

As a member of my school's diversity committee, I faced the same problem.  Minority candidates made it clear that the most attractive thing for them, diversity-wise, was to join an already-diverse faculty.  No one wanted to be among the few minority members of any given faculty.  It was the chicken-and-the-egg problem.  In order to have diversity, you needed to have diversity.  Retention of the few minority faculty members was hard, because they were the targets of other schools to hire away.

The problem was never completely solved, but a big step forward was when we decided that we were going to hire native speakers of Spanish and French for our languages department.  That broke up the almost monolithicly WAPH-ish appearance of the faculty and helped land some other minorities as well.

Is there some arena in your work where having a non-native-English-speaking person would be an asset?  That doesn't help expand your applicant pool, but may help you land some of the few minority types that are in it.  You definitely don't want to go for token hires.

[grumbler]

Be fair and higher the best qualified applicants.

For instance, they should know the difference between hire and higher. 

The purpose of language is communication. 

[11B4V]

Be fair and higher the best qualified applicants.

For instance, they should know the difference between hire and higher. 

The purpose of language is communication. 

You jackasses know what I meant.

[Berkut]

Be fair and higher the best qualified applicants.

Yeah, that is the thing though - "best qualified" is a rather nebulous term.

In general, I think that is what we try to do though. However, like I said, we get most of our junior level applicants from the local universities. And doing that, has resulted in a team that has, literally, zero diversity.

What I want is to maintain the level of quality, but actually get some different groups in - I think that has value itself, hence the "best qualified" candidate may in fact be one who is best able to take us where we want to go in regards to being able to hire the NEXT best candidate, and retain our best candidates, and create the dynamic, diverse culture that we think will lead us to the greatest success.

It is not as simple as just "be fair, hire the most qualified".

[11B4V]

Be fair and higher the best qualified applicants.

Yeah, that is the thing though - "best qualified" is a rather nebulous term.

In general, I think that is what we try to do though. However, like I said, we get most of our junior level applicants from the local universities. And doing that, has resulted in a team that has, literally, zero diversity.

What I want is to maintain the level of quality, but actually get some different groups in - I think that has value itself, hence the "best qualified" candidate may in fact be one who is best able to take us where we want to go in regards to being able to hire the NEXT best candidate, and retain our best candidates, and create the dynamic, diverse culture that we think will lead us to the greatest success.

It is not as simple as just "be fair, hire the most qualified".

No, your spot on there. It is not simple or easy.

[Oexmelin]

Kudos to you and your team for trying to do the right thing.

Here are a few things that have been made, tried, and even, at times, succeeded, in academic and professional context:

1) Cluster hires. grumbler is spot on: hiring only one person of under-represented group runs a real risk of tokenism, and will usually not change enough of the local culture to make a place of employment welcoming. Hire many underrepresented minorities offers some reassurances to new hires.

2) Dedicated headhunting. If you wait for an existing pipeline to change, when it's clear that existing pipeline tends to replicate the same uniform outcome, you are condemning yourself to wait forever. A lot of hiring happens through word-of-mouth, and when social circles are not diverse, word-of-mouth hires will not be diverse either. To specifically hunt for under-represented minorities in professional events can help quite a bit.

3) Contact the diversity office of UM. https://diversity.umn.edu/ They may have resources geared towards underrepresented minorities, and to establish yourself as proactive may actually yield some results. Don't forget about the regional branches of UM (Duluth, Rochester...)

4) You may want to contact Black Founders, Black Female Founders, Blacks in Technology, Black Girls Coders -- all organizations which have made it their mandate to promote black people in STEM careers. Blacks in Technology have an office in the Twin Cities. https://www.blacksintechnology.net/

5) Procure for yourself "White Fragility", by Robin di Angelo. It is a good way to at least examine preemptively one's impulses about tackling the issue.

6) Pay attention to promotions within the organization, which is a frequent cause for concern, as often, people of under-represented minorities are being ignored for promotion.

7) Be especially mindful of empty middle manager jargon that stands, often unreflexively, for discriminatory practices in hiring. Things like so and so candidate would not be "a good fit", or doesn't have "the spark". 

I'll ask one of my colleagues (a former video game critic, now an academic) if he has some specific techno-related advice.

[Monoriu]

Pretty sure that, all my life, 100% of my teams are Chinese and everybody I hire are Cantonese-speaking Chinese.  I don't think I have ever seen a non-Chinese applicant. 

[Maximus]

To add to Oex's list: the professional organizations that I recall actively promoting diversity when I was in undergrad include ACM-W, Society of Women Engineers, and National Society of Black Engineers. They may have resources, especially the university chapters.

Beyond that, do you have the ability to hire interns? That may be a way to affect the pipeline at an early stage.

[Zoupa]

Contact HBCUs directly? I'm not sure how anything works in the States, sorry if that sounds stupid.

[Grey Fox]

I think step one is too stop waiting for candidates to come to you. If you offer great pay and conditions, you are acostomed to having not to do much work to find employees.

My work offers bad pay & alright conditions.
We're very diversified because we have to go & find employees, they don't come to us.

Except for women, women in programming are usually very good & not attracted to work for us.

[crazy canuck]

To add to Oex's list: the professional organizations that I recall actively promoting diversity when I was in undergrad include ACM-W, Society of Women Engineers, and National Society of Black Engineers. They may have resources, especially the university chapters.

Beyond that, do you have the ability to hire interns? That may be a way to affect the pipeline at an early stage.

Very good suggestion, Berkut reach out the the universities/Tech institutes you want to recruit from.  They will all have people who would be thrilled to assist you.  Even if you do not want to hire directly out of school you will be able to tap into their network and word will spread about your efforts.  Also, as Oex said, good on you!

[Habbaku]

Contact HBCUs directly? I'm not sure how anything works in the States, sorry if that sounds stupid.

Unfortunately, unless they're willing to seek out of state (and they should be, ideally) people to move, there just aren't any in that area:

https://hbculifestyle.com/list-of-hbcu-schools/