Despite efforts to make its workforce more diverse, Facebook, much like Google, has failed to make headway on achieving further diversity.
Prior to 2015, Facebook attempted to increase its numbers of Hispanic, black, and female hires by rewarding recruiters with 1.5 points on their performance reviews for each hire of a minority. For reference, any other hire— primarily a white or Asian man— would earn the recruiter a single point.
In 2015, Facebook revamped their scoring system for recruiters by giving them two points for each minority hire. It was thought that this would encourage the hiring of more minorities, as recruiters’ bonuses are tied to their performance reviews.
Turns out that just like the past two years, only four percent of Facebook’s employees are Hispanic, while only two percent are black.
In addition, only 33 percent of Facebook’s workforce is female, which represents a mere two percent increase from 2014.
Just last month, Facebook claimed that it couldn’t increase the diversity of its workforce because there weren’t enough qualified minority or female candidates. This statement drew controversy across Silicon Valley.
Some competitors in the tech space, such as Intel, have tried to increase their diversity by paying extra referral bonuses for minority employees.
It is important to note that while recruiters bring in candidates to interview, hiring managers are the ones to make the final hiring decision.
Recruiters are known to scour LinkedIn to discover job candidates, finding candidates based upon last names or organizations that are centered around a particular ethnicity.
