Comments
While there are job portals such as Avtar, JobsForHer and Sheroes to cater to the gender diversity hiring requirements of corporates, there aren’t too many focussed on diversity and inclusion (D&I) in its entirety.
To address the gap, Naren Krishna, founder and CEO of Stockroom.io, a tech talent platform, has launched Equiv.in, a job portal that includes the talent profiles of women, physically challenged, senior citizens and LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) candidates.
“It’s been three years since we started providing skills-based technology talent by conducting over 100 coding challenges for IT products/services firms and organisations in the BFSI sector,” Krishna told BusinessLine . “In the past 18 months the demand for exclusive coding challenges for women has risen significantly, so last year we introduced Women Changemakers, a biannual career fair for women. Rising demand in the last six months from corporates for hiring physically challenged people, senior citizens and LGBT community members has prompted us to create Equiv.in.”
The portal went live on Saturday. Right now, it lists about 15,000 women and 500 physically challenged candidates, the list put together through referrals and internal sourcing channels. LGBT and senior citizens will be added in a few months.
Equiv also has several related products in the pipeline, said Krishna, such as a virtual D&I coach that will prompt companies to replace ‘masculine’ words in their job descriptions, like ‘rockstar’ ‘ninja’ ‘hustler’ and ‘aggressive’, with gender-neutral alternatives.
High demand
“There is such a dearth of good talent that companies are willing to go to any source to get diverse talent with the right skills-sets,” observed Nirmala Menon, founder and CEO of Interweave Consulting, an inclusion solutions firm.
“A portal like Equiv.in would serve as a one-stop-shop for companies looking to hire diverse candidates including members from the LGBT community.”
While most organisations try to achieve gender diversity goals with a workforce where at least 30 per cent are women, others such as Accenture, Goldman Sachs, Royal Bank of Scotland and ANZ are ready to hire talent from the LGBT pool. These companies are already conducting culture sensitivity programmes, said Krishna.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.