These takeaways come from conversations I've had with recruiters and startup teams about hiring more diverse software engineers.
Takeaways
- It's great when the internal team, not just recruiting, feels responsible for helping increase diversity and inclusion.
- Double-check that your job description isn't using exclusionary language, using a tool like Textio.
- Intentionally reach out to communities by providing value upfront, since job boards alone may not return a high ROI.
- If you do use job boards, say so on your careers page to back up how vital diversity and inclusion is to the team.
- Reach out to niche, intersectional communities that cater to the audience who would be interested in what your company is doing (for example, Latinx in Gaming).
- Add a disclaimer on your careers page so potential candidates know the company is self-aware of its racial homogeneity and committed to improving it.
- If there isn't an internal infrastructure or culture to support junior engineers, it probably doesn't make sense to target recent bootcamp grads.
- However, if the bootcamp grads you're looking at have at least two years of experience with almost all the same technologies, they can be a very good fit.
- Show off your supportive culture for parents on your careers page.
- Show off the invisible diversity among your employees through video on your careers page.
Further resources
- Recruiting Strategies for Hiring Diverse Engineers at Early-Stage Startups, my article on LinkedIn
- Communities for Latina engineers, where you can show up and provide value
- Job boards focused on diversity in tech
- The Latina Dev directory of Latina software engineers
- People leaders worth following: Melonie Parker and Melanie Naranjo