Tech jobs: Men are still most likely to get interviews, says report

When trying to fill tech jobs last year, more than one in three (36.7%) companies sent interview requests only to male candidates, according to research by Hired. 

The tech industry has long struggled with issues of diversity: more than nine in 10 software developers worldwide are men. Hired said there had actually been a “significant decrease” in the percentage of positions that sent interview requests exclusively to male candidates during the past year – in 2020, that figure was 42.4%, although this year’s data shows there is still significant work to do.

“This is progress, but means nearly 40% of roles are not requesting interviews with female candidates at all,” it notes.

Hired’s chief, Josh Brenner, said in the report: “Even though employers are more likely now than ever to consider women during the hiring process and give equitable salary offers, women are still underrepresented overall and less likely to receive an interview compared to men.” 

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Hired based its definitions for hiring biases on the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) diversity in tech report, which found that 36% of the tech workforce are women versus 48% for the private sector as a whole.

The high-tech sector employed a larger share of whites and Asian Americans and men, and a smaller share of African Americans, Hispanics, and women. White people also occupied 83% of executive roles in tech, according to the research.      

Gender wage gaps are stubbornly persistent phenomenon in the tech sector. 

A 2019 study by Glassdoor found the gender pay gap in the US is 21.4%, meaning women earn $0.79 for every $1 men earn on average, which is a small improvement from the pay gap in 2016. 

In 2021, the percentage of positions offering a lower salary on average to women had declined slightly, according to Hired’s stats. It was 61.8% in 2021, 63.2% in 2020, and 66.4% in 2019.

The gender wage gap for DevOps roles in the US, UK, and Canada was 5%, meaning women are offered 5% lower salaries than men for the same roles. 

Interview requests sent only to white jobseekers declined from 23.2% in 2020 to 14.8% in 2021, while interview requests to only white and Asian jobseekers decreased from 61.4% in 2020 to 49.0% in 2021. 

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Where’s the best major tech hub for a woman in tech to work based on wage gaps? 

In the US, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco/Bay Area, and Boston had the narrowest wage gaps, where women were offered $0.95 for each $1 offered to men in 2021. The worst places for women were New York ($0.93), Toronto (CAD $0.92), and London (£0.91). 

Brenner also notes that “only 1% of tech talent on Hired were keen to return to the office full-time.” 

Hired’s data is based on data acquired between January 2018 and December 2021 from over 819,000 interview requests on the platform, covering 3,900 companies and 120,000 job seekers.