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We are setting up a new consultancy group and want to get a good spread of talent and diversity. The original dozen (including me) are plucked from various parts of the existing organisation and now we are looking to recruit in fresh talent. We want to add some genuine diversity to the team which is currently a mixture of nationalities but all male. We have absolute autonomy on the recruitment so thought it would be easy to even out the gender imbalance, get a few younger people, add people from outside of the normal IT consultancy who will all bring new ideas, different perspectives and improve the blend.
So far we have had one female applicant who described herself as unsuitable for the role but just wanted out of her current company. While we want diversity we don't want to employ clearly unsuitable people just for the sake of tokenism.
Does anyone know, or is anyone, a person with a consultancy mindset who can add to the team. UK and US positions, PM me for details.
Yes, my brother’s partner. There’s probably more though.
They definitely exist, I work with some excellent ones.
I would guess at least 50% where I work (large company) are female. They are FTEs rather than consultants though.
They are out there, although noticeably fewer than the men. Tbh, I'd say it's the combination of the (traditionally seen as) "men" trait of being fascinated in and able to talk well about data, with the self-regard and slight arrogance confidence to be a "consultant" - the venn diagram of the two skillsets does have fewer women in there than there perhaps should or could be.
I've worked with a few, none who'd fit the bill spring to mind right now, but I'll have a think
Maybe you just need to make the job a bit more attractive and get more overall applicants. I guess you might also want to consider whether or not the hours are suitable for working mothers (yeah, gender role stereotypes still hold true).
There are plenty of women and non-binary people out there who I would call data scientists or analytics scientists. At UK university undergraduate level many places have 50+% women in mathematics courses. But in physics or computer science courses it is lower. I work in the geographical / Earth observation side and would say we are around 50% in those fields. I know women and non-binary statisticians at McKinsey to data managers at data centres or large organisations as well as the EO specific / geographical information systems (GIS) type stuff.
What field do you work in? Analytics is a pretty generic and broad term.
Where are you advertising the jobs, what fields are you advertising under, and what requirements are you setting out?
If this is some generic 'data analytics' company then you probably aren't wording the job role and the advert broadly enough that a diverse group of people are seeing it. Or your company looks shit to work for 😉 (That was a joke, but you may need to consider how you come across as a potential employer, especially if a completely new venture.) I am also intrigued what 'consultant' means in IT circles - to me it just means someone who works on different projects for different clients - above comment seems to imply it's a class of employment (i.e. a contractor employment rather than a FTE) or it is somehow a different role (requires 'arrogance', wtf)? I mean the arrogance thing, there are lots of companies that provide specialist skills or workforce to other companies, the staff aren't arrogant, they are just specialised in what they do and sell that skill / experience and often chartered / professional status in advising a client. Is that not what a consultancy is?
Plenty in London. My female neighbour that fits your profile was moaning to me the other day that there were actually no native English speakers left on her team which meant no one to help her perfect her English 😂
Where you based? Everyone is recruiting this profile in London right now. The smartest people that fit the profile know it and are leveraging it to their advantage. If you are offering £££ and working on decent projects they will find you. If not I would recommend headhunting any US public tech co or big name consultancy co with offices in London.
I mean the arrogance thing,
I didn't mean it in a derogatory way! Just that I run a consultancy business, and was thinking more in terms of freelance/ self-employed consultants, for which I'd say one definitely needs a certain self-belief or confidence that you're the expert and people will definitely come to ask your hallowed wisdom 🙂
(which I *think* goes a little way to explaining why I see a lot more data-focused independent consultants in my line of work. But I could be wrong!)
At UK university undergraduate level many places have 50+% women in mathematics courses. But in physics or computer science courses it is lower.
That's changed since the 80s! Could count the women on one hand (even after a few circular saw accidents) when I was an undergrad!
If you are working remotely also plenty in the Nordics. Even more if you’re happy to train and are essentially doing advanced Excel / a little SQL rather than any fancy magic.
there are recruitment companies that specialise in sourcing talent from diverse backgrounds. maybe get one of those to help you out.
or there's a big meeting of them, in 2 weeks time. https://womenindata.co.uk/
Good to hear there are more out there than we are currently seeing.
IT Consultant = Full Time Employee for large consultancy company. Expected to know detail about specific areas of technology such as MDM, Data Governance, AI Analytics, IT Sustainability reporting etc and also have some industry specific insight in Telco, Pharma, Retail etc. They will then connect with senior client roles to understand their challenges, present a point of view and work together on the solution roadmap.
Suitably jargoned description? Still understandable to those in the business?
Working remote, office or client site as required. UK, Europe or US located.
Will check out https://womenindata.co.uk/Thanks
Is the issue the genuine fear to life and limb of working anywhere near WCA?
I'm a "Data Analyst"!
I work for a large multi-national - my team includes people from the UK, the US, India and Israel. I would reckon around 80% are male.
The team has been understaffed since at least 3 years ago, when i took up this role.
We have consultants on the team, as we just cant hire enough staff here n the UK...
The point Im trying to get to is that there are definitely non-male analysts out there but overall, filling roles seems to be an issue at the moment.
when i read that back - its not really much help at all, sorry.
Looks over to the 'data team' near me, 2 blokes out of 7 !
@WCA if you have not done so its worth getting your job description checked over by an actual hiring specialist for diversity. There is a lot of language that seemingly normal is very offputting to chunks of the population. I was very surprised!
You may also do well taking someone that wants to move out of sales that is essentially using / demonstrating the tools you will end up implementing. Plenty of females in Ireland selling a number of BI / AI / Data tools that have a better understanding how to use them then many of the consultants out there 😂
There is a lot of language that seemingly normal is very offputting to chunks of the population. I was very surprised!
Worth a thread in it's own right!
I am 30 years out of touch with job adverts...
Textio can go a long way in helping write a job description that's attractive to a wider range of people.
We have similar issues in outdoor learning. It is dominated by male, white and middle class people, and is the awkward spiral of lack of diversity leading to lack of diversity, and needing an intervention.
We managed to a) recruit a much more diverse board to lead from the top, b) undertake a lot of staff training and engagement last year, then c) recruit and train a (small) group last year who were from a much more diverse set of backgrounds.
Which means d) we're looking to work with others across the industry to keep expanding our diversity in every way we can.
My Daughter has a Bachelors in Forensic Science and is looking for a position- message me if you would like her details
IT Consultant = Full Time Employee for large consultancy company. Expected to know detail about specific areas of technology such as MDM, Data Governance, AI Analytics, IT Sustainability reporting etc and also have some industry specific insight in Telco, Pharma, Retail etc. They will then connect with senior client roles to understand their challenges, present a point of view and work together on the solution roadmap.
Oh yeah, there definitely are women out there who do this, and they're not necessarily hard to find - just got to look in the right places. Good luck with filling the role! 🙂
They definitely exist and I work with a bunch of them.
Recruitment of great data and AI people is difficult at the moment though, lots of roles and not enough skilled people.
The point on language is a great one, worth running it past some women or using a tool that can assess your advert.
It sounds like you are looking for people with reasonably specific experience though (for example, I know some amazing women DS consultants but not with experience in those industries). I suspect that for woman who have worked in tech before and have the scars to prove it, moving to an unproven new company entirely staffed by men is not going to fill them with confidence. Unless you are able to demonstrate psychological safety in some other way it could be tricky to get someone with experience in.
Perhaps it would have been a good idea to create this new organisation with diversity in mind from the start, rather than start at a disadvantage?
If you can't change that now perhaps you could consider funding a data scholarship/apprenticeship scheme and try and get 2 or 3 women in at once? Safety in numbers and all that?
Good luck, it's one of the hardest things about growing a tech team right now, but so worth working at.
We want to add some genuine diversity
Why?
Because you get a wider view of opinion, strengths and skills. The team I work in circa 50% female and the better for it.
When I read that ad I see many criteria around experience required that make it rather specific . how old do you think acceptable applicants will be?
Because you get a wider view of opinion, strengths and skills.
Why not hire people with diverse skills and strengths then instead of dogmatically believing that identity is a proxy for them?
There is virtually no solid evidence that diversity of identity per se results in better performance.
In fact, in some cases, diversity of identity can lead to worse performance because 'fault-lines' can be exploited. I'd look for academic references but am too busy.
Why?
@i_scoff_cake
For us we have a few reasons:
Different ways of thinking, behaving and problem solving.
Because anything that is dominated by one group excludes others.
Add the previous two together and we are a happier, more inclusive, more creative, more dynamic organisation. Good for employees, for recruitment & retention and good for meeting our business and charitable aims.
Because anything that is dominated by one group excludes others.
In a sense that's true; we don't have unlimited Doctors because there's a standard of competence. We must exclude the incompetent.
However, it's just not true that for one identity group to be overrepresented in one walk of life there must be an active exclusion (a conspiracy theory) against other identity groups simply because of their identity.
Do Chinese Americans do so well in higher education because they're conspiring against everyone else? No, it's because they work hard and value academic achievement, in general.
To justify your position we have to go down the post-modern rabbit hole and declare that things like qualifications, punctuality, standard of dress, etc., are deliberately exclusionary (which is normally code for racist).
Because if I've got a bunch of near identical CV's I'd rather round out my team profile a bit.
My next problem comes because I likely won't have that , I'll have a bunch of different CV's with differing skill, experience, or rather, time on the job experience. So I'd rather not jsut hire a bunch of tired out hacks heading for requirement as they have , on paper, the best CV's, I'd like some younger blood, again to round out the team. Time on the job has pro's and cons.
I'm happy with our team mix, and the advantages it gives us. Sorry it doesn't match your agenda.
A hsrd right anti equality agenda
We are a new team in a larger company, much larger. Biggest private company by employee count in the world, or 3rd biggest if you count China postal, grid and petroleum as private companies.
We want a diversity of gender and culture to get a diversity of views. The two main drivers I see are understanding the customers better and getting better thought through proposals.
1) As we are selling to a diverse client base so it would help to have a better understanding of their view point. To trivialise this a moment with an example. When going to buy curtains for our house, I want to make sure they fit, keep out the light, will last reasonably well but the colour and style is of little interest. My wife's perspective is very different as she starts from the visual perspective of how the curtains will look with the rest of the room and decor etc and then the fit and finish are considered. Both approaches work, both are valid but by working together we are better able to select the curtains quickly and discard far more unsuitable ones quickly.
2) It is sometimes difficult to come up with meaningful transformations and improvements if everyone in the discussion is looking at the problem with the same mental perspective and filters. It can be extremely useful to have someone suggest something very different or bring ideas from a different area and then blend these with existing experience to create a new, innovative and most importantly better solution. You didn't get light bulbs by making candles better.
This is nothing to do with any agenda or political dogma, it is just to do with making things work better and ultimately delivering better for the customer and therefor the company.
At the risk of repeating myself, a diversity of views is great but there is no good reason why point of view correlates with identity per se.
@WorldClassAccident - yes what you say makes sense instrumentally. Women have different bodies so could have different points of view and having sinophiles probably helps you. However, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion really isn't about that per se. It's not there to help the business but to use it.
I'll go further than WCA - if you working with data and analysis of said the last thing you want to do is misinterpret the data based on your preconceptions of what the data is telling you. For that purpose diversity is a benefit, as you get different view points, perspectives, interpretations. Also, these groups will in general be younger, as they're filtered into the workspace, and younger people will also come with new interpretations than old, and sometimes a lack of experience can help as you redefine it as a lack of preconception.
That is my experience, and yes I work with data interpretation.
i_scoff_cake - Don't get hung up on the word "Diversity" with reference to what I am asking for. I want a team of people with different backgrounds and perspectives that they can use to inform their thoughts and designs using the same common technologies.
You are at risk of sounding "Daily Mail" because f the baggage you are putting on the word. I agree that there are a lot of people that get hung up on a word or concept and chase that rather than the actual thing it was trying to create/promote. I like to think that I don't do this. I just seek the benefits.
wbo - I would say that no-one has had an original thought after the age of 29, they simply modify or rework existing one. Like all absolute statements (this one too) it is possibly wrong but there are not that many examples.
Examples of youth ideas* - Rolls Royce suffered from ice forming on the centre of the spinning turbine at the front of their jet engines and a visiting school kid told them to make them from rubber. They did. It cured the problem.
Examples of diversity of thought* - A bunch of vacuum cleaner experts were struggling to make more effective and efficient domestic cleaners. A guy with an industrial water pumping background who was a temporary member suggested using those cone bagless pump design things which were used to pump water.
Examples of dogma defeating facts* : It is illegal to recruits a 25 year old man over a 25 year old woman for a 5 year placement because you believe the woman is more likely to require time off to have babies. The woman is more likely to require time off to have babies.
*All these are based on truths and show the point but the actual; details may be slightly different i.e. was it a turbo-prop engine?
The client I'm currently assigned to (a government agency) is having a hard time recruiting data analysts and scientists of any gender (they do have a few women in those roles already but it's definitely male dominated). The trouble is getting people with 2+ years experience, I'm also guessing they're struggling to afford the market rate
a government agency
and
market rate
Not two things you normally associate!
Lots of bright Russian IT staff being laid off by Western companies at the moment. Look East?
IT staff does not equal data analystics.
[i]IT staff does not equal data analystics.[/i]
Correct. Also, good at statistics and graphs does not make a consultant. I remember the producer/director of the movie Bodyguard starring Whitney Housten saying if he every made a film like that again he would cast an actress and teach them to sing like Whitney than take a singer and try to teach them to act.
The roles we are looking to fill are not low skill or simple jobs and require the right personal skills as much as the right technical skills. I would rather recruit someone who thinks right and train them in technology than someone with all the tech qualifications and the wrong mental attitude. If it was easy, we would have found someone.
Are there really no data analytics people in Russia then?
Perhaps no data analystics people though.
The reason for your fruitless search is becoming clearer.....
Toni Erdmann is on Amazon Prime right now. Worth a watch for a laugh. Whole film is based around a high end female consultant and what the job entails for her…
Cap Gem also recruiting for similar role right now. Decent job description inc salary expectations if you need some inspiration / target range to be competitive.
Good luck with the search.
Apologies for the spelling on my phone... :-). In the past we've had good results with fresh graduates, and just training them up. Expecting to get box ready analysts means you're going to be in competition with everyone else, for a relatively small pool, and your advert doesn't look that attractive to be blunt.
Have you ever tried hiring summer students, then hiring them full time the year after? That's worked well for us. Is that possible as you're working as a consultancy/body shop ?
Yes, they do exist. I work with many of them.
No, you can't have any 😉