Working in the banking industry I have seen the need to ensure that my clients receive a fair and diverse pool of applicants for each of their hires, including a fair percentage of female applicants.
I specialise in the Syndicated Loans market, so while this is a niche area of banking in itself, I pride myself on creating a fair, inclusive, and diverse list of candidates that are based on their skills, experience, goals and ability to fit within the role at hand.
I utilise LinkedIn Recruiter to connect with new people. During my search today, I was surprised to see what I feel is an algorithm issue within the LinkedIn Recruiter tool. See below;
The above is a notification I received while in the Recruiter system, and I was baffled to see that these skills were not only believed to be diverse, but will also help me find more women. According to this; Diary management, Office Administration, proofreading and Administration are areas which will be key to finding more females.
I felt that this selection in front of me, while irrelevant to the search I was working on, meant that LinkedIn’s algorithm believes that women are predominately in these particular fields.
At a time when I, and my clients believe diversity and inclusion is paramount, I feel LinkedIn has got this one wrong!
What are your thoughts?