Why is diversity crucial for tech?

The pandemic has been tough for many organizations and their employees. Layoffs, streamlined organizational goals, reduced working hours to save jobs and decreased global mental health means that many reevaluated what’s really important in their lives.

For most of us, we learned to cherish the bond we have with our friends and family even more, but we also learned to appreciate our colleagues. We missed the informal chitchat, the spontaneous run-ins at the office, and being in the same room as we brainstormed new concepts and solutions. Simply put, we missed feeling like “normal”, and we often strived to do things that made things feel less unfamiliar and scary.

This is fair enough – we all need coping mechanisms in place, for our own personal wellbeing as well as for our workplaces. We, as human individuals, like to be within our comfort zone, to be with and interact with people that are just like ourselves. But – what happens if, or when, we let these coping mechanisms that make us seek the known and the familiar continue to be our guiding principle?

Not only do we know why we seek comfort and the familiar, but we also know why it’s unwise to always do so. In order to create innovation and develop ourselves as well as our teams, we need different perspectives, people with diverse experiences and cultural backgrounds that will accelerate the speed and quality of innovation further.

Luckily for all of us, the last two years didn’t only bring with it businesses and organizations going back to basics; we saw a crisis accelerating digitalization, we saw people from a wide variety of different industries coming together to solve emerging issues quickly, and we saw people getting to know people from different parts of the world in a way they wouldn’t have if not for the pandemic.

This, in turn, made my career path one of the most sought-after – Talent Acquisition. Finding the hot talent is just as hot as being the right talent, according to LinkedIn Jobs on the Rise 2022: The 10 roles that are growing in demand in Sweden. So why is Talent Acquisition becoming trickier these days?

Finding the right candidate

I’m happy to say that the candidate pool is becoming more diverse. However, it is still far from being able to label it “diverse”. Finding the right talent is becoming more difficult as organizations are realizing that a diverse workforce is a good and profitable workforce.

We know that a world created by a homogenous group of people constitutes a world that caters to that particular group’s needs and wants. That is why, for example, car crashes are more likely to cause severe harm to others than average-sized men. It is why women are often seen shivering in offices whilst men are thriving in a temperature perfect for their performance.

Everyone that knows me knows that my mission is to create diverse workplaces, driven by fair and objective recruitment (i.e. Talent Acquisition) processes. I am eager to share my tips and tricks on how to attract the right talent.