Research by telecoms firm Openreach into the language of its job postings found that gender-biased language holds around 50 % of women back from applying for ICT roles. The findings show that removing e.g. the word “engineering” from job postings for a ‘junior engineer’ role significantly improved women’s interest in the job when replaced by ‘trainee network coordinator’.
However, changing the language in job adverts is only one step in narrowing the gender gap in the IT sector. Problems such as stereotypes (approx. 25% of women claiming they believe some careers are better suited to men), lack of role models and unconscious bias in hiring processes and internally within businesses.
Read more on Computer Weekly’s website.
