Gender Biases in Recruiting, and How to Reduce them
Gender biases, which can result in treating male and female job applicants differently, has a measurable impact in architecture, an AIA/The Center for WorkLife Law investigation found. Gender biases affect women’s career paths, pay, sense of belonging, and more. It can also reduce the talent pool for employers and contribute to turnover. Often the biases are unconscious and therefore hard to mitigate.
Adopting processes that result in equitable recruiting and hiring is one way to reduce biases in architecture and other professions. Some of the available tools, like training to reducing implicit biases, are similar to those used to retain existing employees, but others apply to attracting talent. Here are three things firms can do to attract female applicants:
Create and celebrate a diverse and inclusive firm. This quality is 23 percent more important to female than male prospective employees, Gallup found.
Include salary ranges and benefits in job postings. While pay and benefits are important to all potential candidates, they are 10 percent more important to females, according to Gallup. In addition, pay transparency signals a commitment to fair pay.
Meaningful work that allows employees to do what they do best is 9 percent more important to females than males, Gallup found. This difference might be owing to the “glamor gap” in work typically assigned to male and female employees.
While these are the three areas of greatest difference between males and females, greater “work-life balance and personal well-being” was the most important factor for women considering seeking a new job, Gallup found. “[J]obs that promoted flexible work, working from home, and additional medical benefits were among the most popular among women,” Sarah O’Brien of LinkedIn writes in the Harvard Business Review.
Crafting job descriptions that accurately describe the essential skills needed for a position is an important step for employers. “Highly restrictive criteria for consideration will narrow candidate pools and may do so in a disproportionate way for women,” Kristin Barry at Gallup writes. This is because men will apply for jobs when they meet 60 percent of requirements, whereas women only apply when they meet all the requirements, O’Brien writes.
Once applicants respond to a job posting describing the salary range, benefits, and the work itself, eliminating biases in the selection process becomes key. Barry suggests employers be open to gaps in work experience. While women do a disproportionate share of the caretaking that might result in such gaps, employers should not make assumptions about a candidate’s commitment to their careers based on her gender and potential family responsibilities. Employers should avoid reviewing candidates on social media until the end of the hiring process. Doing so will help keep something unrelated to qualifications—for example, family status or a favored sports team—from creating an unconscious bias, Lisa Schuster of iHire writes in Forbes.
Women welders, 1943 (Department of Labor Women's Bureau)
It is also important to avoid justifying a decision not to interview or hire a candidate with what Merideth Somers of MIT Sloan describes as “lazy language” like “not a good fit.” Instead, develop standard criteria for evaluating candidate based on the job description. Rate candidates on a Likert scale for each criteria to reduce the inclination to compare candidates against one another, Somers suggests.
Metrics are essential to interrupting bias in hiring, Joan C. Williams et al. write in their AIA/The Center for WorkLife Law investigation into bias. They suggest tracking how different groups progress from resume review through hiring. Analyze the data to see at what stage members of underrepresented groups are eliminated, and look for patterns that should be disrupted, Williams et al. write. Implicit bias training can also help.
Establishing and following an evaluation system for resume and portfolio reviews, and interviewing candidates using the same set of questions, will also decrease bias, Williams et al. write. If any qualifications are waived for any candidates, this should be justified, tracked, and analyzed for patterns. Another resource is the AIA’s Guide for Equitable Practice which includes a Recruitment and Retention guide.
Currently just 36 percent of licensed architects identify as female, according to the AIA’s 2022 Firm Survey Report. While equitable promotions are essential—just 23 percent of firm partners and principals are female, the same survey found—supplying the pipeline is also critical. With 53 percent of students enrolled in accredited architecture programs in 2022 and more than 40 percent of newly licensed architects identifying as women in 2021, the opportunity is there.
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