The gender gap in the engineering and technical fields continues to be an issue for companies of all sizes. Hiring more women engineers remains a worthy goal as organizations strive to employ a diverse workforce. Considering the difficulty finding experienced engineering talent in a strong economy, firms need to focus on including female engineer candidates when searching.

Here are a few ideas on how to find and hire female engineering talent. Leverage these insights to ensure your organization employs a diverse and experienced staff.

Work with your HR team to find candidates from sources known for women technology talent. Consider advertising or posting your open positions on online tech forums frequented by women. These include Women in Tech and STEM Women.

Additionally, work with a trusted technology staffing agency to identify other resources suitable for finding experienced women engineers. In essence, the company truly needs to broaden its search.

Fostering an unbiased hiring process is an essential part of employing a diverse engineering team. Bias is a subtle issue that requires the full effort of your HR staff to manage. This involves everything from using inclusive job descriptions in your advertising, to ensuring the interviewing team keeps bias out of its questioning.

Women among your company’s leadership team help make it easier to hire more female engineers. If candidates see a career ladder exists for all your engineers – including women – they are more likely to apply for an open position. Identify leadership potential among your female engineers and ensure they get the right mentorship and training to succeed in this role.

Additionally, make sure any women leaders help keep bias out of the company hiring process. Ensure they also become part of the candidate interviewing team.

Engineers of all genders hope for a measure of balance between their professional and personal lives. Adding perks like flexible schedules, generous health insurance, and the ability to telecommute also serves well in attracting female engineering candidates. Ultimately, treating your women engineers as equals, while giving them the opportunity to fully develop their careers, is a smart call for employing a diverse and talented engineering workforce.

When you need additional insights on building a great engineering staff at your company, talk with the team at Venteon. As one of the top technical employment agencies in Michigan, we provide the women engineers and other candidates to help your success. Connect with us as soon as possible.