How to achieve gender balance in your recruitment processes

When a business identifies a need for recruitment, the initial response to advertise the role should be paused to allow for important considerations. We at Savvi Recruitment recommend that a business seeking new employees conducts an internal review first to determine if the team is well-balanced - and if not, what needs to be done to correct the imbalance. Are people with a particular skill set needed? Is there a lack of diversity in one or more fields, be it gender, ethnicity, age, or civil status? If there is an imbalance, can it be addressed in-house before recruiting new employees? As our co-founder Therese Cadell points out, many successful Irish financial service firms are putting a priority on helping staff get the mentorship and guidance they require to progress up the ranks. A firm should balance external recruitment campaigns with internal recruitment strategies.

"The financial services sector has evolved," explains our Recruitment Director John Ennis. "We're increasingly asked by our clients to present a diverse shortlist of candidates. More women are in Irish financial services than there were before and getting qualified candidates of both genders is not as challenging as it would have been even five or six years ago." John explains that outsourcing the creation of a diverse shortlist to a professional recruitment agency that understands the importance of a diverse workplace is an important step in increasing an inclusive work environment that attracts customers and top-tier professionals alike. Even so, it's not the only thing a financial service firm should do to create a balanced team.

Gender-inclusive advertising

Creating a gender-inclusive advert is important in order to attract the right candidates, Therese explains. Words that highlight qualities and characteristics associated with men will likely attract more male candidates than female candidates. Such words can include but are not limited to, "competitive", "dominant" or "leader". On the other hand, words such as "support", "understand", and "interpersonal" appeal to women and will thus likely attract more female candidates than male. "That's your first step", Therese says. "Any companies coming to us, we can give them guidance on the whole process from start to finish so that you're going to attract both genders, but always with an eye on the end-goal that you get the best candidate, irrespective of gender, for your company and for the position."

Granted, assessing gender balance in financial services is easier than doing so for IT and construction companies. The CSO Labour Force Survey for Quarter 3 2022 shows that only 9.1% of Irish construction industry employees are women (although this is up quite considerably from 6% in 2018). In the IT industry, only 22% of middle management level employees are female. In both instances, it is clear that cultural norms in these industries are keeping many women out even though many individual companies are making an effort to diversify their workforce. For such companies, gender-neutral advertising can play a key role in enabling a firm to create a balanced workforce with the skills and abilities needed to propel the company forward; although we have to concede that such companies automatically attract more male candidates than female ones. 

While in some cases women may be uninterested in certain roles, past bias in these industries keeps women out because a lack of job and job advancement opportunities in these fields has made it impossible for women to gain the experience and expertise many employers need in advanced positions. What's more, many women and minority ethnicities are hesitant to join a firm that isn't diverse. Thus, the fewer women there are in certain industries, the fewer women will want to join firms in these industries. Even so, Savvi Recruitment's tools and expertise have enabled it to produce a very strong gender-balanced shortlist for 95% of all its clients.

Preventing bias in the interview process

"The best thing to do is to start, if you can, with a gender-balanced interview panel," Therese explains. Because humans, including those with the best of intentions, have inherent biases and preconceived ideas, a diverse interview panel ensures that no one individual's unconscious biases keep a good employee from taking on a necessary role in the firm.

John adds that such a panel should use a list of core competencies and core requirements. He points out that interviewers must be aligned around what the company is looking for so that each candidate is asked the same structure and format of questions to accurately compare each applicant's skills and abilities in key fields. Keeping a score tally helps prevent bias in the interview process because candidates are judged solely on their abilities rather than other factors such as age, gender, or physical appearance. John also notes that a company will need to determine which skills and qualities are "must-haves" and which are "nice-to-haves", as it is unrealistic to expect any employee, male or female, to have all the required skills and qualities a company may be looking for.

Achieving and maintaining gender balance can be a change for an organisation, but it's one they have to overcome. We understand the importance of an inclusive workforce and offers all the tools and expertise any firm needs to target and identify the right candidates for any position in any industry.