Inclusivity Evaluation

As the CEO or hiring manager, if your teams are not diverse it’s your fault. No one else’s. I’m a female founder/CEO and an underrepresented minority in tech, and we have a lack of diversity problem at my own company. It’s my fault. I hear a lot of CEOs and managers say that they are trying to diversify their teams, but that not enough women or people from the black, Latinx, or LGBTQ communities are applying for their job openings.

I learned this the hard way. I had decided to diversify the teams at my company, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because our product appeals to a wide demographic, and I wanted to be sure that we were designing our product for everyone, not just a select few.

But, after a year of trying (posting on a wider range of job boards, creating an inclusivity page on our site, and signing a diversity pledge), I looked around at our company, and we were still a bunch of (mostly) guys. I didn’t understand why, so I made it my mission to find out.

I started to get out of my comfort zone. I committed to changing the type of media I consumed to see things from a different perspective. Although I was becoming educated about issues surrounding social justice, I still hadn’t made any actual business partnerships with people from underrepresented groups.

Now that I had newfound empathy and allies, it was time to partner with them to discover the local talent who would actually apply for my vacant jobs. I contacted local nonprofits such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Dress for Success, and the Urban League. I submitted our job openings to various boards and meetups.

Before long, we had one or two interviewees who were women, or black, or Latinx for every position we had open. And as our teams became more diverse, so too did the number of people from underrepresented groups applying for our jobs. Our diversity numbers are not perfect, but we are now heading in the right direction. More than that, we know that the talent is out there; you just need to know where to look for it.

So if you’re trying to diversify your teams, remember it’s not on them to find you, it’s on you to find them.