Blendoor – Merit-Based Matching 

Blendoor is a mobile job matching app that hides candidate name and photo to circumvent unconscious bias and facilitate diversity recruiting in tech companies. Studies have shown that two identical resumes with only a name difference (i.e., Joe to Jose) can yield 100% difference in the response rate. Our goal is to highlight the information that’s most relevant to a candidate being a “good fit” independent of race, gender, ability, military history or sexual orientation.

What’s Holding Back Women in Tech? 

Padmasree Warrior, U.S. chief executive of electric auto startup NextEV Inc., said she asks her recruiting team daily for a list of diverse candidates. Now her team tells her who the candidates are without her needing to ask, she said.

Facebook Inc. and Pinterest Inc. have tried out an approach known as the Rooney Rule, which requires that at least one woman or underrepresented minority be interviewed for open jobs. The Rooney rule was born in the National Football League as a way to ensure that teams interviewed minority candidates for head-coaching jobs.

Cisco is ensuring that job candidates encounter at least one interviewer of their same gender or ethnicity, a practice that has resulted in a roughly 50% increase in the odds a woman will be hired for a given position, said Ruba Borno, a Cisco vice president and chief of staff to Chief Executive Chuck Robbins.

Why companies that take pride in diversity programs still wind up hiring white guys 

Although there’s no data to prove it, Miller and Effron both suspect that this effect impacts the way companies go about short-listing candidates for positions. If companies put together a diverse short list, they may feel as if they’ve fulfilled their moral obligations and allow their unconscious biases to guide them toward hiring another white guy.

Virtual reality could be a solution to sexism in tech 

I’d invite the candidates, in the form of avatars, to sit with me for an interview where we would view each other in the same virtual space through our headsets. A candidate could choose to project any avatar they chose. Some women might opt for women avatars; others might choose to appear as men or in other forms altogether. Some men might want to look like aliens. It wouldn’t matter. The important thing would be that I could see the job candidates as they chose to be viewed. That’s better than me projecting my own views on them.

It’s not just about catching people who are guilty of bias, but teaching them not to be biased. “So, if I have a problem I can uncover it immediately and address it,” writes Barson. Then, critically for the new California legislation, he adds: “If I don’t have a problem with bias promotions or hiring, I can prove it.”
How artificial intelligence is finding gender bias at work by Sean Captain in Fast Company
Because diversity is such an important topic, it must be prioritized early in a company’s life. As Lisa put it, “I’m a believer that you have to start thinking about diversity early, otherwise it just becomes really, really difficult the bigger that you grow. What you want is to grow your company where diversity is one of your core principles and core values, because trying to inject it later on is inorganic and it’s off putting to people.” Start today.
Lessons from the USV Diversity Summit