<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"> Hey Thayer & Ali,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><font color="#1f497d" face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:11pt">Really great you both brought this up. I've been responsible for building up a small tech team within Barclays and we've had a push towards much more diversity. This has been driven by the huge lack of diversity within the existing tech teams. We are tasked with building prototypes which are not business critical so we have a lot of space to move around with then other areas of the company which require levels of experience & current ability which </span><span style="font-size:14.6666669845581px">traditionally</span><span style="font-size:11pt"> bias against minorities facing oppression.</span></font></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><ul><li><font color="#1f497d" face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6666669845581px">We avoided posting adverts on tech mailing lists and in places where women and minorities are underrepresented, instead using the same budget we would have used on places like unicorn jobs, in places such as in Ethnic minority related magazines and publications, LGBT related publications and websites (such as <a href="http://out.com">out.com</a>). The cost of advertising was so expensive in tech related spaces we could cover many more adverts in spaces that would reach to minorities and we got an excellent response. </span></font></li><li><font color="#1f497d" face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6666669845581px">We never assume to know someones preferred pronoun. When responding to applicants we always ask for their preferred pronoun, even if it seems obvious (there's more than 2). The response to this has been great so far.</span></font></li><li><font color="#1f497d" face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6666669845581px">We've effectively had to create our own internal structure independent from the rest of the company to ensure that diversity is catered for. Slowly but surely though, we're affecting the rest of the business. </span></font></li></ul><div><font color="#1f497d" face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6666669845581px">So far we've grown the team to 6. 4 of us identify as female (with one being transgender) and 5 of us are PoC. </span></font></div><div><font color="#1f497d" face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6666669845581px"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#1f497d" face="Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="font-size:14.6666669845581px">Eve.</span></font></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">From:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> Chat [mailto:<a href="mailto:chat-bounces@lists.lrug.org">chat-bounces@lists.lrug.org</a>] <b>On
Behalf Of </b>Najaf Ali<br>
<b>Sent:</b> 06 May 2015 14:14<br>
<b>To:</b> Thayer Prime<br>
<b>Cc:</b> London Ruby Users Group<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [LRUG] [OT] A blog post about writing tech job ads</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Konbanwa minnasan,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Strong agree with
everything Hannah had to say in that blog. Here's what I'd add:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">* <b>Include a
clear description of the application process</b> - A step-by-step
explanation of exactly what's going to happen from when a candidate sends you
an email to when you extend them an offer. This should include whether or not
they're being formally assessed at each stage and an approximation of the time
interval to expect while you're considering their application. I stole this
wholesale from <a href="http://matasano.com/careers/" target="_blank">here</a> (from "Our hiring process" down).
This helps busy candidates (who've probably had <i>plenty</i> of horrible
job application experiences) figure out how much effort the process will
take and how to prepare.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">* <b>Mention the
downsides of working with you</b> - Put genuine negatives to working with
you here. Be wary that you may have backwards rationalised things to yourself that
are unpalatable to the average developer (e.g. "Rails 2.3 isn't so
bad..."). Doing this serves to disqualify candidates for whom these
negatives are absolute deal-breakers, which is cheaper at the application stage
than it is during probation. It also adds credibility to the rest of your post.
Try not to insult the intelligence of the people you're trying to hire though,
they'll see right through veiled attempts at aggrandising yourself framed as a
negative.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>* Ask ideal
candidates for feedback on the job post </b>-<b> </b>Pick four or
five developer acquaintances of yours that fit your job description and ask
them nicely to review the post. Ask them to be brutal and uncharitable in their
reading of it. Is any of it unclear? Is there anything exclusionary? Is there
anything preventing them from applying? What other information would they like
to see? Thank them graciously for whatever feedback they give you. You don't
have to take all of their feedback on board but that's not the point. Like in a
good first UX test, you're looking for the head-slappingly bad mistakes. In
particular, if diversity is important to you, I'd suggest that you include
people from a demographic underrepresented on your team in your reviewers. A
nice side benefit of asking for feedback is that if your "ideal
candidates" happen to like your job post, they may end deciding to apply
to it (exactly what happened with us, the candidate got the job).</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All the best,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">-Ali, <a href="http://happybearsoftware.com" target="_blank">http://happybearsoftware.com</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>P.S. We were
until recently hiring a senior developer using all of the above for the job
listing, but as I mentioned the position was filled before we went public with
it. It got broadly good feedback from reviewers so let me know off-list if
you'd like to see it.</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Wed, May 6, 2015
at 8:00 PM, Thayer Prime <<a href="mailto:thayer@team-prime.com" target="_blank">thayer@team-prime.com</a>>
wrote:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Just came across:
"Writing an effective tech job description", by<br>
@smokingpun > <a href="http://contentedstrategy.com/blog/2015/05/01/Writing-an-effective-job-description.html#.VUnx3qbXiw0.twitter" target="_blank">http://contentedstrategy.com/blog/2015/05/01/Writing-an-effective-job-description.html#.VUnx3qbXiw0.twitter</a><br>
<br>
It's got some really important and smart points in it, and I know<br>
there's plenty of hiring and job description writing on this list,<br>
figured it may help anyone in the position of writing ads to really<br>
think about hiring for the team you want to be, instead of just hiring<br>
for a project or work or back filling a role (likely, male) that just<br>
opened up.<br>
<br>
Particularly, as I was reading I was +1ing about the diversity stuff<br>
she writes about.<br>
<br>
We (Team Prime) get asked by all our clients to hire for diversity as<br>
their number one priority (which is brilliant! Yay ace clients!), but<br>
often that takes some changes in the org and structure to accommodate<br>
what they're after. Well worth bearing in mind if you want to reap the<br>
benefits of having a diverse team - it's not just about Getting More<br>
Minorities Sat At Desks, it's about how you structure your company and<br>
recruitment process to allow for diversity to be encouraged and<br>
embraced.<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Thayer<br>
<br>
--<br>
Thayer Prime<br>
--------------------<br>
CEO & Founder<br>
Team Prime Ltd<br>
<a href="http://www.team-prime.com" target="_blank">http://www.team-prime.com</a><br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/thayerprime" target="_blank">http://www.linkedin.com/in/thayerprime</a><br>
<a href="http://www.thayerprime.com" target="_blank">http://www.thayerprime.com</a><br>
@Thayer<br><br></p></div>