I wish more companies had transparency about their teams and their job postings. If you're talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion, but *who* is working with you and *how much* you're paying for open roles is obfuscated... how can I trust you?
Maybe I'll do a separate write-up of this a different time. But there are reasons that these things matter. For instance, if you state the pay for a job upfront, it's easier to address biases and outright pay discrimination. It doesn't solve these things, no, but it helps.
There are a lot of factors that play into this. Folks who might be the first in their friend groups, families, or communities to enter a new field might not know what the typical salary looks like, and this can cause them to receive far too little pay when it's not stated.
There's also a sort of stereotype threat in the situation when pay is not clearly stated & one has to state their own pay. Underrepresented and historically underpaid folks might end up proposing or accepting salaries that are far too low as well.
And of course, by being transparent and explicit about pay on a job application, it lowers the possibility of promising prospective employees vastly different pay, because there's a clear, concrete number to refer to. Of course, this doesn't stop folks from paying more secretly.
Transparency and open data are key, and sometimes I wish more companies just stated clearly who's getting paid what. A lot of public organizations are required to do this (like knowing what principals and police officers are being paid). This helps with pay equity & negotiations.
But also, by making it transparent what folks are being paid, others can know if they're being paid too little or know what to expect in terms of pay for specific roles in a field in a geographic location. Often we don't know that info & we have to trust sites like Glassdoor.
Like, my first job at an AI company, where I was doing full-stack development, design, and a *little* bit of RL, I was being paid $60K, with a MS in CS living in NYC. Imagine my shock finding out that this wasn't typical, and that folks were being paid *way* more.
All this to say, in my recent job hunt, I have seen the whole spectrum of "this is exactly how much this job pays" to "here's a range based on 'experience'" to "we're not telling you". And guess which companies I immediately know not to trust.
Additionally, on your job postings, you should make it very clear what your policies on leave and time off are. Specifically, parental leave and sick leave. You should have these (and also mental health policies) in place. It's a warning sign to me when you do not.
For instance, some folks *need* to take time off for routine medical procedures--blood transfusions, check-ups, etc.--and if your leave policy is limited to "five sick days a year", we want to know about that before we deal with the entire interview process.
And on parental leave, you should have plans around that. Not just in terms of pay, but also in terms of how you support the team and the people on leave. I've seen too many times where parental leave just means "work 80 hours a week before you leave to make up for it."
Also on parental leave, this is something I've seen less of, but let's stop calling it just 'maternal' or 'paternal' leave and acknowledge that people of any gender can give birth. The language that is currently used here is not trans-inclusive at all. That's another thing I see.
Something I haven't really seen either is a policy on mental health and therapy. Very often, therapists only work M-F 9-5. And if a role also happens to require working from M-F 9-5, this means that every week (or other week), we need to take an hour off for therapy. Can we?
Following up on the therapy point: not everyone is comfortable telling others that they go to therapy. It's hard to bring this up in interviews. If more companies made it explicit that this is OK and encouraged, it would help so many folks not have to stress about this.
And trust me, there are so many barriers to therapy already, it's not like we can control the time we go with absolute freedom. I know folks who cannot go to therapy because their workplace creates schedule barriers that prevent them from taking that time. It's frustrating.
I have *a lot* of other thoughts on job postings and what makes them more or less inclusive. Like, one thing I love is when orgs leave an email & encourage folks to send a message even just to learn more about the role & get feedback on applying. This lowers self-selection bias.
Be explicit when you're talking about people. Don't just say "we support underrepresented groups". I've seen postings that emphasize that their org is run by queer, Black and Brown women and non-binary folx, and being clear and direct is a huge difference.
In fact, most of the time when I've been applying in this past year, I look not just as the job posting, but at the company mission and *who's* working there. If you're talking about diversity, but your entire leadership is all white folks, I'm gonna have questions.
When your team, your leadership, your board, *and* your funders are all kept anonymous, it brings up a ton of red flags. What don't you want us to know? Whose interests are you serving at this organization? Are there known abusers, White supremists, etc. in this org? 🤔
I love when org websites show all their employees, by the way (at least, for orgs that aren't like hundreds of people large). It tells me you value your employees enough to show who's working there, who you're (hopefully) investing in. It shows they aren't rendered invisible.
But also, by showing who's working on your team, you're forced to confront the truths about your hiring and recruitment. Is your team dominantly White? Dominantly male? Own that. Don't just sweep it under the rug. Face it & change it.
But also, on the flip side. Know that representation isn't everything. There are companies who hire for optics, and that in itself is racist & sexist. If your hiring practices reduce to "we don't have any Latina folks on our team, we gotta hire one", that's **tokenizing**.
To clarify this last tweet, the point is, you shouldn't be thinking about people wrt to their identities. You need to see people as whole people. Confront the barriers within your company and in hiring and recruiting that led to this lack of diversity.
So often, lack of diversity is a *structural* issue. Do you know the # of tech companies who complain there aren't enough Black engineers who *never* bothered to recruit & interview folks from HBCUs? You don't solve that by making a single hire, you gotta fix your whole approach.
Also, to be explicit, you should talk about how you support disabled folks. It's not enough to just slap some boilerplate ADA and EEOC text on there. In addition to considering application language, consider the accessibility of your workplace and the tools that you use.
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