Companies are being lazy.
Their hiring processes are broken, and they’re pointing to headlines and myths as proof of why we can’t have a more fair and representative tech employee base. You hear excuses like: There’s a pipeline problem. The candidates just aren’t at our level. We don’t have a hiring process problem; we’re not perfect but we’re pretty good on this stuff. The competition is so fierce, we can’t focus on anything else.
The trouble is, there’s less of a ‘pipeline problem’ and more of a ‘you’re looking in the wrong places every time’ problem, followed by a ‘your hiring process is broken’ problem.