Access Denied: What’s the passcode to the tech industry for underrepresented communities?
Early career access may crack the code
Key takeaways
Access to quality resources and early opportunities to engage with technology are less available in lower income and underrepresented communities
Organizations like Genesys Works, Urban Alliance, CareerWise, NPower, Verizon Innovative Learning Program, Black Girls Code, and Hispanic Heritage Foundation help develop high school-based career technical education programs, which are great opportunities for underrepresented students to try a career before seeking higher-education credentials.
Tech industry gate-keepers must build bridges and pipeline programs directly with schools, colleges, and non-profits to increase access to underrepresented students.
The barriers…
Data is often a good response to systemic issues so let’s start there. Between 2014 and 2019, only 26.7% of tech jobs and an even lower percentage of executive level jobs were held by women. In contrast, executive roles in the tech sector remain predominantly White and substantially male with men accounting for 79% of all technology executives over the same 5-year period. Black talent remains underrepresented in the fastest growing tech roles. At the largest tech companies, the disparities are staggering. Google called 2022 its best year when they were able to announce that their Black and Latinx staff was at 11% of their total workforce. Needless to say, roles in the tech workforce continue to have firewalls for Black, Latinx, and Native American candidates.
Why is this? Lack of college access is a possible factor causing executive diversity gaps in the tech industry. While recruitment of diverse talent is a problem, it is made more difficult by the need for advanced credentials to be considered qualified. Almost 60% of all college graduates with degrees in Computer Science are White. Black and Latinx students account for about 9%. Often, attaining high-level credentials requires understanding complicated college processes and having financial resources. While there do exist a wide range of low cost or free tech credential programs that could lead to entry level jobs in the sector, high-level credentials combined with experience are key to attaining senior roles and higher paying positions, which is where the largest disparities exist.
Even with the right credentials, barriers are stark for underrepresented students. A word to the gatekeepers…get out of your own way! Recruiters from tech companies often bypass more traditionally diverse institutions like Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and public universities to recruit from more selective and less diverse institutions. In some of the more competitive tech hiring regions like New York, Washington, DC, and California, life changing internships evade underrepresented candidates who attend diverse institutions. Wealthier students continue to receive the most coveted early career tech roles.
The results of these barriers prevent access for underrepresented groups, widen opportunities for proximity to selective tech roles, and continue the trend of low representative diversity in the tech industry.
Some solutions…
Early opportunities for underrepresented groups to gain technical and professional skills in the tech industry or opportunities to have hands-on experiences in technology could increase access. Many schools now employ Career Technical Education (CTE) programs which provide scaffolding for and options to work with a company while students are still in high school. In locales like Montgomery County, Maryland, students have been privy to tech apprenticeships and work-based providers through their counselors. School systems like District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) launched the Advanced Internship Program in 2022 allowing high school juniors and seniors eager to explore careers in technology and other industries.
Programs like Genesys Works, Urban Alliance, CareerWise, and NPower have partnered with schools to provide selected high schoolers from underrepresented groups with direct work experiences at large tech corporations like Intelsat, Okta, Sysco, and HawkEye 360. Other programs like Verizon Innovative Learning Program, Black Girls Code and Hispanic Heritage Foundation have established highly effective training programs for middle and high school students from under-resourced schools with access to hands-on technology experiences.
Gatekeepers are the last frontier of accessing the tech industry – the big boss at the end of a video game. Their cheat code is mode nuanced, more challenging to surmount than the other solutions above. This takes executive-level paradigm shifts and directed strategy to course correct. Some companies have developed build your own or pipeline programs with schools, colleges, and nonprofits. It requires cultural shifts among company recruitment teams, implicit bias and equity training for supervisors, resource support of community partners, and sustained buy-in from senior executives and implementation staff across the company’s enterprise.
Some of these solutions could reduce the diversity gap in the tech industry and open up more access for underrepresented groups. What does not work are short-term, underfunded solutions, or go-it-yourself solutions. This systemic repair would take collaboration among schools, community programs, colleges, and corporations. Only then can we crack the code.
