We’ve curated a list of diversity job boards, tools and resources to help you or your company attract diverse talent throughout your design organisation recruitment.
Let’s kick this post off with a few stats:
The UK design industry is 89.5% white and 60%, male. While the US design industry is 73% white and 55%, male.
According to the Office for National Statistics, the estimated total population of England and Wales is 66.5million, and out of that 87.2% of the population is white and 49% are male. The UK design industry makes up less than 4% of the total population of the UK.
72.4% of the 330 million people living in the US are white and just under 48% of the population is male.
Whilst the data makes for sober reading for the design industry, the good news is that employers are starting to recognise the strong business cases for improving the level of diversity and inclusion within their teams. By recruiting people from a range of backgrounds at all levels of seniority, businesses can develop their internal and external relationships, as well as enhancing the knowledge and experience that they bring to their clients. Mckinsey has found that companies created from a broad range of backgrounds outperform firms with a less diverse workforce by 35%.
“Over 69% of executives consider diversity and inclusion the most important issues. Recognising that the organisational and individual benefits of a positive, ‘inclusive’ experience can lead to strong performance throughout the organization.”
In our current digital world, which operates as a network of teams, thriving on empowerment, open dialogue and inclusive working styles. One of the more popular fields right now is the creative industry which has continued to power growth across both the UK and US. Based on recent studies by Nesta, the UK’s creative industries were growing at twice the rate of the economy and by 2025 could also be worth £128.4 billion to the UK’s economy. Unsurprisingly because of its relative size, the US has the largest creative economy, with 5 to 6 times as many creative employees as Canada or the UK.
"Despite employers recognising the benefits of increasing diversity within their workforce, less than half have a programme or strategy to attract candidates from a diverse range of backgrounds."
Diversity Recruiting Initiatives and Diversity Job Boards
A New Direction - Giving underprivileged candidates new opportunities in tech
A London based non-profit organisation that generates opportunities for individuals who are underrepresented in the creative and digital industries. They partner with creative companies across a wide range of creative industries, to support and help individuals to develop their creativity and play an active part in the cultural life of the capital.
Women Who Code - Diversity Job board focused on hiring women in tech
An international non-profit organisation that provides services for women pursuing technology careers and a diversity job board for companies focused on hiring women in the tech industry with some listings for product related roles. Besides providing training, professional evaluations, meetings, and scholarships, Women Who Code also offers networking and mentorship.
POCIT - Job board focusing on hiring people of colour in the creative/tech industry
A tech-first type of job marketplace that works with companies and talent all over the United States and in London, the UK. Helping people of colour connect to other great companies no matter their experience level for new roles and opportunities. There are many types of diversity jobs listed from technical to non-technical roles, for developers, designers, marketers, sales and business devs.
Blacks In Technology (BIT) - Diversity Job board and community focused on helping black people into the tech industry
One of the largest community and media organisations that are focused and dedicated to increasing the representation and participation of black women and men in the technology industry. BIT provides resources, guidance and challenges to their members to surpass the bar of technical excellence and establish new standards of global innovation. Their diversity job board has a range of listings for different levels of experience and contracts.
Tech Ladies - Closed job board focused on helping marginalised people into the tech industry
A worldwide community with over 50,000 members that help people from all marginalised genders/sexes in tech to grow their career by a supportive online group, free diversity job board, and opportunities to learn. Boost your career and learn valuable skills from other women in tech via the weekly webinars.
Hustle Crew - Social enterprise targeted at creating a more inclusive workforce
A for-profit social enterprise working to create a more productive and inclusive workforce within the digital tech sector through talks, training and mentorship. Hustle Crew works with underrepresented young professionals, tech companies, digital agencies, university staff and students' unions, schools and non-profits to promote and facilitate greater inclusion.
Inclusive Boards - Job board for women going into senior positions
An executive search agency that specialises in diversity and inclusion at a governance level. They work to support organisations, giving them access to the most diverse shortlists when recruiting, to develop more diverse boards, senior leadership teams and improved governance structures. Inclusive Boards also provide an executive leadership programme for senior women looking to take their career to the next level and champion diverse leadership with highly curated, sector-specific conferences.
Entelo - Recruiting platform to help companies search for underrepresented candidates
This US data-driven platform creates identifiers which are layered on top of a candidates skills and qualifications for a more objective and unbias look at what each person might bring to your company based on gender, ethnicity, and veteran status.
Hack the Hood - Introduces young people of colour to tech careers
An award-winning non-profit that introduces under-resourced youth of colour to careers in tech by hiring and training them to build websites for small businesses in their own communities. Young people gain valuable hands-on experiences, including leadership, entrepreneurship and life skills with mentorship from staff and tech professionals working in the field.
Resources and Tools
InHerSight - Find out how women rate employers
An anonymous platform that allows women to rate and review their experiences at companies. Data gathered is used to help women find and improve companies where they can achieve their goals. InHerSight also helps employers understand how their policies are seen and how they can better attract and support top female talent.
Gender Decoder for Job Ads - Check for hidden bias
Without realising it, we all use texts that often contain inadvertent gender bias because of the style and language that they are written in. ZipRecruiter has found that cutting gender-biased terms can increase the number of applicants by 42%. Gender Decoder for Jobs Ads can assess what might be subtly gendered language and help recruiters to eliminate it.
Joblint - Checks job descriptions for issues within the tech culture
A free website that checks job descriptions for issues such as sexism, culture and recruiter fails that you may find in the tech industry. Any phrases or specific words that are flagged come with suggestions on how to improve your job description.
Joonko - Automated AI-driven diversity recruiting platform
Joonoko pushes diversity, inclusion and belonging in companies to the next level and work towards improving the lives of people from underrepresented groups. By using AI technology, Joonoko seamlessly integrates with any tracking system and checks that every candidate has been identified as diverse and qualified by at least two steps on a hiring process.
Textio - A writing platform to help you write better-recruiting copy
An augmented writing platform that accurately predicts how your writing will compete for talent, suggests changes to get more qualified and diverse candidate pool, in a fraction of time. Textio finds language that best represents your company’s distinct values and cultures to help you stay on brand, whilst highlighting and removing any unconscious bias and negative language.
ALT (Ambitious Ladies in Tech) - Mentoring network for women in tech
ALT gives extra structure and guidance to ambitious women who want and deserve to be promoted up via masterclasses, workshops and events to provide additional skills in development, coaching and networking opportunities, across some of the world’s leading technology companies.
Fearless Futures - Programmes for organisations to challenge their way of thinking about inequalities
Fearless Futures engages with organisations using different programmes that help facilitates participants critical thinking and learning, whilst building a community of positive thinkers and transforming future strategies and solutions.
The Wrap Up
Many companies and product/design teams have started to take steps to improve their hiring process for diversity, but there’s still a long way to go. The era of diversity as a ‘check the box’ for HR is over, companies and people must take ownership and drive accountability amongst others to close the gap between what is said and what is actually being done.
“When we listen and celebrate what is both common and different, we become wiser, more inclusive, and better as an organization.” — Pat Wadors, Chief Talent Officer at ServiceNow
Diversity will bring new and innovative ideas, features and products to market that will truly serve the needs of the global audience that now has access to our digital exports. The creative industry can flourish and get to places we've never dreamed of.
Do you know of any great resources to add to this list? Send us a tweet to let us know.
