In the spirit of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we’re spotlighting our Women at Indeed Inclusion Resource Group and the work they’re doing to empower and uplift women inside Indeed and beyond.
The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is “we rise by lifting others,” a sentiment that’s helped women make major strides in overcoming a history of bias and dismissiveness by a world-wide work culture that has been largely dominated by men.
Sarah, a Senior Director of Global Product Commercialization at Indeed has seen this firsthand as she’s carved out her own career path.
“Before I worked at Indeed, I worked at a small company that was about 80% men and I was told there that I was never gonna be a leader because I wasn’t aggressive enough. It’s taken me many years to unpack that and realize that aggressive is a dog whistle term. That it’s something that is very frequently gendered.”
Women have historically been paid less for doing the same job and regularly passed over for promotions because those in power didn’t see them as having the right mental makeup to succeed in a leadership role.
This bias is often perpetuated and ingrained in women early in their careers as they don’t see themselves reflected in the faces of their managers and senior leaders.
“Before I joined Indeed, I worked at companies in the finance sector. The leadership there was mostly white male,” Val, a Client Success Manager at Indeed Amsterdam explains. “That was what I was presented with and I didn’t see anybody like me in a management role or a senior role. Being that you don’t see that example, you already automatically feel like it’s a goal that you’re not able to get to.”
The lack of women represented in the technology industry is well known, specifically in technical roles. Indeed is not immune to that trend. This knowledge is what’s motivated many Indeedians to join Women at Indeed.
Quality Assurance Engineer, Soumya outlines the hesitation many technical women have in expressing their opinions in a room full of men.
“In the meetings when I just joined, I was scared to talk because I was the only woman in the meetings…I was a bit worried like, okay, there’s no female manager or any leader where I can go and talk.”
The first step in fixing these issues is to acknowledge them. According to Val, Indeed’s leadership has acknowledged the problem and has given Women at Indeed the support and resources to combat them.
“Talking to senior leadership has been amazing. Seeing the support that we get, it just feels authentic. It doesn’t feel like you’re ticking a box.”
The move from the “ticking a box” mentality to one where real change can be made starts with giving those who have felt the impact of these societal roadblocks the leading voice in the conversation.
“We do a lot of trainings and workshops that just help women with the issues that they’ve been able to identify as areas that they struggle with and being able to support them,” Dublin Client Success Manager, Tara explains. “That’s a major goal for us.”
There’s still a lot of work to be done, but people like Soumya are seeing the impact of their work.
“Women at Indeed are developing themselves, being more confident to speak and they’re actually moving out, giving tech talks at conferences very confidently,” she proudly explains.
As the world’s #1 job site*, we also have the power to impact work culture for other companies. This is a unique opportunity and Women at Indeed is our guiding voice in building products that don’t discriminate based on gender.
We are continually inspired by these change-making women as they rise together toward a common goal.
The official mission of Women at Indeed is to champion a culture of inclusion by providing a platform for advocacy, development and support for women at Indeed and be the model for gender equality, both in our culture and product offerings.
Want to learn more? Listen to this podcast to hear Sally’s story.
Need some career guidance from women who have been there? Check out this article from Indeed’s career guide about Mentorship, Staying Motivated and Winning at Work and this article about how women can advocate for their worth at work.
Find more perspectives from Women at Indeed on our Instagram and read more Indeed stories on our #insideindeed culture blog.
Check out the video below to learn more about Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at Indeed.
