ADDRESSING the unconscious bias against women in the workplace, particularly in sectors such as technology or engineering, is a constant challenge.

Gender blind recruitment has been offered as a solution, but does it really eradicate the bias or simply plaster over the issue?

Tech recruiting firm Speak With A Geek carried out a study where employers were given the same 5000 applications; some received ones with names while others received applications with no gender details.

When gender was included, only 5 per cent of the applicants chosen for interview were women, while women made up 54 per cent of gender blind applicants chosen for follow-ups.

Recruitment entrepreneur Wendy McDougall recalls a client meeting where she was specifically told not to submit any female candidates. The client said it was a “work hard play hard” male environment, and that he had “no time for silly girls”.

“I promptly stood up, walked out and refused to recruit for that company,” says McDougall. “Nowadays I think companies are very much more aware of the gender balance and certainly in the technology industry I see companies positively target female candidates.”

McDougall says there will always be sectors that are faster to change opinions than others, and that certain sectors with gender blind applications may see some candidates getting to interview stage that may have been rejected otherwise. However, she adds, if the bias was present in the first place, the bias will still be there at the interview stage when they meet face-to-face.

“I like to look at the positive outcome a diverse workforce can bring. If HR managers and recruitment agencies can demonstrate this to their hiring managers, you will always get buy in to changing opinions. Recruitment should always be secondary to this change or you are simply reinforcing the issue with every new hire made.”

Using her 20 years experience in the sector, McDougall has developed award-winning recruitment software. Firefish treats talent as talent, she explains, and as soon as a job is created candidates are suggested based on their job preferences.

“Firefish provides recruiters with a rich list of active and passive candidates based on their interest, not just on the skills that they have had in the past or currently. We also track all candidate diversity information behind every application so Firefish super users can monitor different recruitment campaigns in terms of gender, age, religion, location and ethnicity to monitor or highlight areas of bias.”

McDougall says in a time of constant change companies will be forced to adapt to greater demands of flexibility, skill shortages and remote working, out with any gender bias. She is optimistic these changes will assist females, as greater flexibility around work, family and home eradicates many of the traditional boundaries faced.

Michelle Rodger is a communications consultant