OpEd: Want To Overhaul Hiring In Tech? Look To DE&I Before AI
It’s a tight labor market for tech talent. Despite the layoffs that grabbed headlines earlier this year, the tech industry – and employers throughout the economy – are experiencing a shortfall of workers that’s only expected to worsen. Over the next 10 years, tech occupations are expected to grow at about twice the rate of overall employment.
If we’re going to keep up with the pace of change, we need to reinvent human resources and hiring practices. What will be part of that reinvention, however, depends on who you ask.
There’s an obvious pro-tech answer here: artificial intelligence. After all, two-thirds of recruiters are already using AI in the candidate search process and the AI recruitment market exceeded $600 million in 2021.
As leaders of the technology sector, we don’t want to discourage technological innovation. Yet, when we consider what needs to change about hiring in tech, adding more technology isn’t the first answer.
We can start by tearing down the paper ceiling.
For decades employers have put up barriers for workers who don’t have a four-year degree. Companies who make a bachelor’s degree a requirement of the hiring process are closing their company off to the more than 70 million people in the U.S. who are skilled through alternative means (STARs), according to research from Opportunity@Work and the Ad Council. STARs make up the majority of black, Hispanic, veteran and rural workers. As companies struggle to fill open jobs with qualified workers, ignoring 70 million potential workers is no way to build a successful team.
Leaving the problem of four-year degrees aside, we still see a major confidence gap among women, ethnic minorities and rural youth when it comes to working in tech, and it starts earlier than college. These groups are made to believe from an early age that they need advanced skills to work in tech, something that’s simply not true. Then, four-year degree or not, they come up against job descriptions that include a laundry list of requirements mostly unnecessary to the role.
Employers can’t keep limiting their pools of potential job candidates. It not only hinders our ability to grow, but it puts us at a competitive disadvantage.
Diversity ignites innovation, fuels creativity, and fosters inclusivity within a company. A recent report from McKinsey and others found that companies ranking in the top quartile for ethnic diversity have a 36% higher likelihood of financial outperformance, earn 2.5 times higher cash flow per employee, are 35% more productive, and make better decisions 87% more frequently than their peers.
To overcome the current hiring challenges, we can’t simply layer on technology. AI is a powerful tool in analyzing vast data sets and eliminating repetitive tasks. But, if we’re not careful, AI will only perpetuate the biases that already plague our industry.
The solution starts with new and creative approaches to recruiting, hiring and training. We need to actively recruit and partner with community colleges, vocational schools, after-school clubs and other programs with shorter-term pathways to learning and employment. We need to engage with local high schools to help them see themselves as opportunity pipelines for their students rather than just feeders to the university system. We need a stronger commitment to skills-building. Finally, we need to cultivate an environment where anyone, from any background feels valued, empowered and confident.
This approach is not easy. There’s no algorithm that’s going to do it all for us. Yet, if we can upend our mindset around hiring and recruitment, we’re going to see an explosion of talent helping us to reach heights we never thought possible.
Nancy Hammervik leads the workforce solutions team at CompTIA, the leading non-profit trade association for the global technology workforce and industry.
