#ITleaders #turn to #HBCUs for #future #ITtalent
#Careers #DiversityandInclusion
#Hiring
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https://lnkd.in/g7_EJCgA
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IT organizations and technology companies are working with HBCUs as part of their intentional efforts to recruit more Black IT professionals and create a more diverse talent pipeline.
Officials at the North Carolina Department of Information Technology found themselves in a position familiar to most IT organizations: aware of the need to do more to attract IT workers given that they — like most employers — faced fierce competition for talent.
They also believed they needed to take more responsibility for increasing the diversity of workers in their IT ranks.
So NCDIT officials took action, creating an internship program for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) students, a move that would open up for the organization a new pipeline for talent traditionally underrepresented in the IT industry.
“We want students to be aware of us as an employer, and we want to have a diverse workforce,” says NCDIT HR DirectorJoey Harrison.
NCDIT and many other employers in recent years have become more intentional in their efforts to increase the number of workers coming into the IT profession and, more specifically, the diversity of that pipeline.
Those efforts are critical, according to the multiple executives, researchers, and up-and-coming tech professionals interviewed on the topic.
They point to statistics that highlight challenges in IT workforce recruitment and diversity. To start, unemployment in the IT profession in the United States in early 2024 is at 3.3%, below the nation’s overall unemployment rate of 3.7%. Yet, despite strong opportunities in the profession, reports consistently confirm that Black professionals remain underrepresented.
According to The State of the Tech Workforce 2023 report from training and certification organization CompTIA, professionals identifying as Black or African American made up 8% of US tech occupations (compared to 12% across all US occupations). The NAACP cites similar figures, saying that research has found that although “Black people comprise 13% of the US population, they represent only 7% of the computing workforce.”
Meanwhile, the 2022 State of Tech Diversity: The Black Tech Ecosystem report from the NAACP and Kapor Center, a nonprofit addressing racial inequities in STEM education and the tech industry, found that the proportion of Black students receiving bachelor’s degrees in computer science decreased between 2016 and 2020, going from 9% to 8%.
IT leaders say they’re committed to improving those figures, with the 2024 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in IT report from TEKsystems, an IT services company, finding that 80% of responding IT execs, HR decision-makers, and IT employees believed “diversity initiatives are crucial for an inclusive IT workplace.”
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1moDid I miss this is ut too late?