🔮Love is blind but is HR?
The Allyance newsletter provides many useful references on recruitment, diversity and inclusion.
Good morning readers !
Did you know that Netflix did a whole show around the idea that “love is blind”?
Well, I will not spoil you in any way if I tell you that a show called “human resources are blind” would never exist. That’s right: it’s a well-established fact that HR are anything but blind and are instead fraught with gender, racial, religious and age biases. Not convinced?
You’ll find a few recent articles below that I have curated, not only with the purpose of stating the facts but also in the hope that, with awareness combined with concerted efforts, we can collectively do better.
✅ The Allyance newsletter provides many useful references on recruitment, diversity and inclusion. Here are some articles about racial bias, gender in tech, fasting during the Ramadan, breastfeeding at work and being an experienced developer.
👉🏿 Racial Bias : “What Researchers Discovered When They Sent 80,000 Fake Résumés to U.S. Jobs”
“A group of economists recently performed an experiment on around 100 of the largest companies in the USA, applying for jobs using made-up résumés with equivalent qualifications but different personal characteristics. They changed applicants’ names to suggest that they were white or Black, and male or female — Latisha or Amy, Lamar or Adam.
Some companies discriminated against Black applicants much more than others, and H.R. practices made a big difference. Some companies showed no difference in how they treated applications from people assumed to be white or Black. Their human resources practices — and one policy in particular — offer guidance for how companies can avoid biased decisions in the hiring process.
“We want to bring people’s attention not only to the fact that racism is real, sexism is real, some are discriminating, but also that it’s possible to do better, and there’s something to be learned from those that have been doing a good job,” said Patrick Kline, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted the study with Evan K. Rose at the University of Chicago and Christopher R. Walters at Berkeley.”
🌙 Ramadan: What employees and employers should know about the month of fasting
As Ramadan 2024 is almost over, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on Ramadan. During a talk I gave, I noticed a man was unfocused with crossed arms. I asked him if he was fine. He answered : “Yes, it’s Ramadan and it’s tough”. I felt stupid not to have thought about it.
Later on, I read The Spiegel which addresses the corporate implications of Ramadan for Muslim employees. This an occasion to reflect on how to improve our behavior.
The magazine has interviewed a lawyer and a sociologist to answer practical questions such as:
My colleague is fasting, seems tired and unfocused and is less productive - how can I talk to him about this?
I am not a Muslim, but I would like to invite my fasting employees to break their fast. Is that inappropriate?
Should I wish my colleague a happy Ramadan - or is that strange because I wasn't particularly interested in his religion before?
🥊Gender Bias: 73% of Women in Tech Experience Discrimination
No words needed. Please read this piece from Hackernoon and the following data:
61% of the time the word “visionary” was used, it was in order to refer to men. When you’re a woman, you’re less likely to be recognized for your achievements in fields where intelligence and innovation are highly valued. Most people subconsciously associate those kinds of words with men.
Despite 82% of venture capitalists claiming they’re prioritizing DEI practices to help underrepresented groups, 40% of women tech startup founders say investors have harassed them.
“Fixing the discrimination problem is a combined effort. Every employee — regardless of whether they’re in the C-suite or an intern — has to rethink their gender-coded language, confront their subconscious biases, and support their female colleagues if they want to give this field any hope of recovering.”
🍼 Breastfeeding at the office : a standard office amenity
Every female candidate I met shared negative feedback about the manner they were breastfeeding at the office : hidden in the -2 floor, stuck next to the copy machine…etc.
When I read that “the United States has some of the least supportive laws when it comes to working mothers.”, I decided to address the topic here.
In this article, Fast Company highlights the work done by Work & Mother. The company wished to make the pumping-at-work experience a pleasant one. Their goal is to make pumping suites as common as office gyms and roof decks.
“It can be hard for many employers to provide a comfortable, shielded place because developers often did not design office buildings with nursing mothers in mind. As a result, companies repurpose another room for these women."”
In 2022, President Biden signed the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, which requires employers to provide reasonable break time for a worker to express breast milk, along with a place to work—other than a bathroom—that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from coworkers and the public.
🛝 Senior avec 6 ans d'expérience, et après ?
En ce moment, The Allyance coache 5 personnes qui accumulent réunies 71 années de vie professionnelle dans la tech (23, 18, 13, 11 et 6 ans d’expérience). Malheureusement, le constat est sans appel: plus on est expérimenté·e, plus le chemin vers l’emploi est semé d’embûches, même dans un secteur en tension!
La faute à qui, à quoi? Aux idées reçues : “salaire élevé”, “vieux = lent”...etc.
En 2021, Hugo Lassiège a écrit un article sur les évolutions possibles en tant que développeur / développeuse. Les postes de Staff, Principal et VP Engineering n’auront plus de secrets pour vous.
Le sujet récurrent dans l'IT : si on est senior après 6 ans d'expérience, quel est l'avenir du développeur(euse) passé 10 ans ?
Les vieux et vieilles développeurs(euses) sont-ils voué(e)s à partir élever des chèvres dans l'Ardèche ou pire, deviennent-ils tous manager ?
🔦 The Allyance in the spotlight
The Allyance shared how the company supports trans candidates in a video. We got many positive feedback when we posted it on Linkedin 🏳️⚧️
🤫 Backstage secrets
✨ Congratulations to Mathieu for landing a Founding engineer role at Konvu !
✨ Congratulations to Lauren & Yannick for their Front-End roles at Resilience !
🚀 I gave a Masterclass at Ada Tech School on “Les 5 choses à faire ou à ne faire pour favoriser l’inclusion”.
⭐️ We can connect you amazing women in tech : Rebecca Marocco, Senior Product Manager and Alex Mooney, Head of Solutions / Pre-Sales Manager. Both of them are available ASAP and speaking several languages.
You can contact us : contact@theallyance.one
🩷Hot jobs we are working on
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Caroline Therwath-Chavier, The Allyance CEO
