Challenging norms in recruitment

Last week, AllBright released their report ”Recruitment companies - gatekeepers of the business world”.

In the report, they’ve examined the diversity of recruitments to executive positions (CTOs, CEOs, CPOs etc). As always, their reports make room for introspection and reflection for people like me (even though I don’t work with recruitment, but help companies that need a helping hand to fill a pair of shoes during e.g parental leaves).

This is my (pretty personal) reflection on what they found.

In short, they conclude that;

• men get the positions 65% of the times when executive recruitment firms handle the recruitment process.
• 12% of the recruitment firms have goals regarding etnicity and foreign background, and people from Stockholm is in many cases favoured
• despite ambitions to hire with a diverse talent pool in mind, there’s often a predestined type of person for an assignment anyway, making the relation between recruitment firm and company troublesome when it comes to challenging norms

And it is that last takeaway I find the most interesting, that I a few times also noticed and struggled with seeing within my industry (non-executive consultant roles in the tech industry).

I’ve seen consultant processes where males where favored by the client, even though the female developer was more senior. Some of the assignments comes with the requirement that the person knows Swedish, even in companies where Sweden isn’t their only operational market. It has happened that I've also felt reduced to, for example, my age, instead of skills or role - making it hard to build any type of trust in that relationship.

I joined this line of work to do mine to change this industry, to diversify the tech scene. But it’s really hard when you’re not part of the norm, and you yourself have to overcome certain biases. When you have to stand up for yourself first and foremost, instead of focusing your energy on making wise business choices.

Giving feedback on this subject to clients or maybe-to-be clients, have I found to be hard. But it’s something I really want to get better at doing, and is somewhat of a 2024 career goal. I value transparency and honesty, and there will be no change in this industry, if I don’t bring it up. Sadly.

I’m happy we can talk about those things where I work, that we support each other but also step in for each other when needed. And sometimes it’s totally the opposite - clients being very open with their own biases, problems and asking us and me for help.

However, I hope the AllBright report not only shed a light on that, as they put it, "recruitment firms sit in the laps of the companies", but also that it's a lightbulb to companies to also walk the walk and the talk the talk. If they want to have a diverse work force, whether it's through recruitment or through consultants, they also have to be open for an honest conversation on this topic.

In a market that has shifted quickly, there's otherwise a risk that we stand still, or move backwards, if we cannot have trust in those kinds of relations.

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