Is progress being made in attracting women into engineering?
To mark International Women in Engineering Day on Friday 23rd June, job marketing specialists JVP Group joined forces with Arriva TrainCare to hold a webinar discussing the progress made by employers to encourage more women into the engineering industry.
Held on Wednesday 21st June, the webinar highlighted actions employers can take to inspire more women to consider opportunities both as engineers, and within the sector as a whole.
Webinar host, JVP Group’s talent attraction partner Charlie Wetton, was joined by Linzi Jones, Recruitment Business Partner at Arriva TrainCare, who shared why some of the current marketplace changes, coupled with the challenging economic backdrop, have led to shifts in the way they go about attracting candidates. Arriva Group launched its new inclusion strategy last year which is now shaping activity at Arriva TrainCare both in terms of sourcing talent for current vacancies and also for the future talent pipeline.
The industry has faced many challenges attracting women to work within it but progress is being made; in 2010 the number of women working in engineering was 562,000 but by 2021 the figure stood at 936,000. While there is still a way to go, many organisations are investing a great deal of effort in becoming more inclusive to appeal to more women.
JVP’s Charlie Wetton emphasised how vital it is to clearly highlight the many positives about the sector to prospective candidates. She explained what employers can do to identify and share their employee value proposition by analysing their culture and articulating the specifics about the experiences, benefits and rewards on offer. She also discussed how to create targeted job adverts, giving tips about writing adverts to encourage more women to apply for engineering sector opportunities, and outlining what good practice looks like when it comes to constructing eye-catching adverts.
Charlie comments “International Women in Engineering Day is a great opportunity to put the spotlight on the importance of diversity and inclusion, both in the engineering sector but also beyond it too. I hope that the webinar has inspired employers about what else they can do to spread the word about all the fantastic opportunities in the sector and to encourage more women to consider working within it.”