Dive Brief:

• Fairygodboss, an online career community for women, announced two new features this month in response to job search difficulties their audience may be experiencing amid the coronavirus pandemic. One of the new features is the ability to complete "one-click" applications with 12 companies actively looking to increase women’s representation in their organizations.
• Pepsi, Toyota, Siemens, Mercedes-Benz, Boston Consulting Group and 3M are among the employers offering the streamlined application that will also increase transparency during the process. Applicants through this channel will "receive real-time updates on their application status and have the ability to directly message recruiters from the participating companies once they apply to open positions," the Fairygodboss statement said.
• The company also launched a free platform for professional profiles, allowing women in the business world to "let recruiters know they’re open to new opportunities, showcase their accomplishments and apply for jobs with top-rated companies who believe in gender diversity directly."

Dive Insight:

Before the novel coronavirus upended business activity, diversity initiatives brought mixed results as companies failed to maintain leadership pipelines and struggled to prioritize diversity. Even organizations that were getting diverse candidates in the door faced problems with inclusion.

Women in the workplace face unique challenges, including a persistent wage gap and lack of representation in leadership. These challenges are magnified during economic downturns and disproportionate job growth during recovery. Though many companies have frozen hiring or made layoffs, Fairygodboss is providing a pipeline for those adding to their ranks to find qualified female candidates.

There are many other ways for HR leaders to build diverse talent pipelines, even during challenging times. Coding schools have been shown to create opportunities for diverse candidates to gain in-demand tech skills. For hiring managers in tech, there is also a resource from HackerRank that helps companies curb bias in their hiring process for technical roles. One simple way to increase the pipeline of female applicants for jobs is to look at the job postings and remove language that may be construed as gendered, as Goldman Sachs has recently discovered.

Many employers, including Microsoft, Pinterest and Unilever, have also started publishing demographic data, both as a way of keeping themselves publicly accountable and also to promote their commitment to diversity.