Hamilton Forth: Championing Women in Technology

The first word in our company name is a nod to one of our heroes – the lead software engineer for Project Apollo – Margaret Hamilton.   Societal norms of the 1960’s would have led Margaret to support her ‘husband’ through his degree – instead she followed her own path & ended up sending humans to the moon.

No surprise that she was (eventually) honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Despite the inspiration provided by women like Margaret, it is no secret that women in technology continue to be unrepresented group, especially in more senior roles.

Aside from more fairly representing the society in which we live & work , research points to diverse Boardrooms & management teams delivering significantly better bottom line results , & although progress is being made to deliver in this area , there is still a long way to go .

We all have a role to play to attract an appropriately diverse workforce that harnesses the skills of all talent in society. Equate Scotland hosted a very helpful webinar last week. Top three tips for drawing a more diverse talent pool with your advertising below:

1. Language – we continue to see male dominated words in adverts the word Ninja, aggressive, determined, competitive that lead to high responses from men – it is important to think about gender neutral language that will be attractive to all potential applicants
2. Long shopping lists of skills and experience – research shows that most women will only apply to a role if she meets 100% of the criteria, while men will typically apply if they only meet 60% – think about this when describing the skills actually required to do the job
3. Social impact – highlighting the social impact of the organisations tends to attract more female applications. If your organisation is strong in this area – shout about it!