Executive Recruiting Blog

Final Executive Recruiting Gender Diversity Survey Comments

What obstacles exist in recruiting, attracting and retaining female leaders and managers in your company or organization?

Response #

200	I observe that the talent pool is small in our industry.
201	Family
202	None, historically high level management in the company has had an overepresentation of women.
203	stereotypes and culture
204	Location
205	None
206	N/A
207	It is a male dominated environment with men holding the majority of the leadership roles.
208	none
209	In the construction industry, female leaders (those with 10+ years of experience) are not plentiful. We are recruiting at the earlier stage of their career and advancing them through the organization.
210	No obstacles exist, the dynamics of our environment and the natural support and behavior from the top, make the company a naturally successful place for females, hence no specific program or startegy is deployed - it is a cultural norm.
211	qualified women candidates with technical and management expertise who also have leadership presence.
212	Work life balance
213	There are currently a narrow number of professional opportunities and many women candidates who are qualified for the positions.
214	Pockets of old style behavior/culture who may be resistant. Lack of a good pool of females with required skill sets.
215	This is a native american owned organization, so the employment opportunity focus is on the tribal community of both genders. The development strategies make sense given the organizational focus, but may miss opportunities as a result.
216	available numbers of female leaders and managers
217	Not a priority and history
218	The obstacles are consistent with those that we face as we attempt to attract any leadership candidate whether female orminority candidates
219	Traditionally, Engineering & Construction firms are challenged to attract females. The newer generation has graduated more engineering relative to previous generations.
220	None that I can think of.
221	Not a large pipeline of highly qualified candidates.
222	lack of supply of experienced, executive level women. hard to get them on our slates.
223	The same issues that make it difficult to attract male leaders- salary, residency requirements.
224	There needs to be an overall effective family friendly environment for the female associates. There is not enough support for the single mothers.
225	Corporate culture is the only obstacle
226	competitive compensation
227	Fairly small city and may not offer opportunities for the trailing spouse.
228	I would say training, and retaining talent. It also seems that most of the talent that is staying is not female.
229	lack of a structured recruitment strategy; however, once on board, we're able to retain women leaders
230	none
231	We don't specifically recruit females. However, we have hired and will continue to hire talented female managers/executives. WE look for talent and many time it comes with the female applicants.
232	Having a significant presence of current female leaders as role models.
233	NONE
234	No obstacles. I have had an easy time attracting and hiring strong female talent.
235	Finding a job for a husband during international assignements
236	None to my knowledge.
237	Specific skill sets are hard to come by regardless of gender. We also have difficulty with finding experienced sales leaders that are female.
238	Demographics
239	This survey does not address quality or capability of women in these positions!
240	In the oil industry the culture is very male dominate. Changing the culture is a very long process, for which some women executives do not have the patience to endure.
241	none
242	work hours, travel
243	Like many companies, balancing work-life commitments is difficult and many women make decisions more toward life than their male counterparts which can be a disadvantage in a competitive, merit-based organization. Finding better ways to support work-life obligations will level the playing field.
244	We are a male dominated company.
245	Insurance industry has many women in staff and manager positions. We have developed some in Director level. Hard to recruit/find exec women in insurance industry...not many out there.
246	Work/Life balance needed is a tough sale in a manufacturing organization.
247	convincing the organization that it is an issue
248	Finding qualified and experienced candidates.
249	We have very little staff turnover, so hiring opportunities have been minimal over the past several years - especially for leadership positions.
250	High technology company therefore pool of women with CS or Engineering experience is limiting

251	Tha database and pool isn't enogh.
252	Biased views of senior leaders that women find it much harder than men to combine work nad family in an effective manner. The business case of have women in senior positions is not understood by senior leaders
253	Little ability to identify outside female candidates and bring them to leader attention
254	The entire C suite is men except for the CNO and Legal Counsel. Middle Management is filled with women. The CEO, CFO, CIO, COO are all men as is the majority of the board memebers.
255	We do not face obstacles for female advancement in our company. You earn this based on merit, it is not gender specific.
256	None conceptually, their progress is more the issue and is impacted by corporate and individual attitude.
257	none
258	Lack of females in scientific fields
259	Trailing spousal employment
260	My current organization is very much like a boy's club and only certain females are able to work in that environment.
261	We are an industrial manufafturing company - it is not an environment all females desire
262	None
263	limited acknowledgement of the need for explicit inclusion for female leaders; no encouragement or reward system for successfully hiring high caliber females.
264	Aerospace engineering has been historically male dominated, but women have made great advancements in leadership positions at NASA over the past 5 years, in particular.
265	Engineering & Hard Scientific Discipline is limited pool of females
266	Biggest challenge is in the technical/engineering functions.
267	There is still some legacy good ol boy attitudes still in the organization. Females must still interview and act a certain way not to be viewed as too aggressive or high maintenance. Getting better though.
268	None
269	Lack of opportunities
270	Work-Life balance
271	General automotive industry does not attact its fair share of females
272	To progress, women lawyers need to be able to win work as well as do it.
273	Limited resource pool available at senior management levels in the IT industry.
274	None as far as I know
275	We are a transportation company, which is very male dominated. Let's face it truck drivers tend to be men. As for the other leadersip roles, I think we do a great job. Our CFO is an African American woman, she started out at a very entry level job, to
276	None
277	None at this time
278	We have been very successful in developing interview pipelines that have gender as an area of focus. I think our brand encourage that all have an opportunity to be successful.
279	geographic location is our primary issue; sometimes the talent for many positons is not available locally and it is difficult to get candidiates to consider relocation to the midwest. The current economic uncertainty and housing crisis exacerbate these issues.
280	The main obstacle is that, as an ICT company we recruit a lot of engineers. Only a very limited % (10%) of this target group is female
281	We're an organization sponsored by women religious; there are no obstacles.
282	Identifying females with appropriate technical backgrounds. Navigating the perception of a glass ceiling re opportunities at the C level
283	financial services is not a really exciting industry and high profile women have not found us to be progressive enough
284	Not an attractive industry for women, smaller pool of women available in operations side of business
285	Pipeline
286	No obstacles. We do well here.
287	"Old line" industry; perception that this industry has no opportunities for women among those who make hiring decisions at the "feeder pool" levels. Talented people are discouraged to bid out for other positions because their direct contributions to one work unit take precedence for the immediate manager/supervisor.
288	We develop and promote employees from within. Men and women have equal opportunities for challenging assignments and advancement.
289	I dont feel there are obstacles in recruiting talent, I feel there are obstacles in senior management choosing to hire female leaders.
290	Primarily male leadership at the highest level; several female leaders in entry-level roles ... perception is that there is a limited opportunity for women
291	Rather than an obstacle, it's just not a conscious aspect of recruiting to ensure that there is gender diversity at the most senior level roles that we have recruited for. It's an afterthought.
292	Highly technical workforce, so there is a smaller pool of female employees from which to draw. Most of our female managers are in non-technical areas such as HR and Accounting.
293	because of the global nature of our company the hours can sometimes make it hard for female leaders who are mothers to balance both.
294	We do a great job in recruiting and attracting female executives in fact Nickelodeon is 60% female. MTVN also has a very high female executive leadership percentage. The only other obstacle is that some women dont want to report into other women which i find fascinating Also, sometimes females bring a "cattiness" factor to the leadership table that can be offputting. lead more from emotion than reason
295	Competitive Market

This is the final part (3 of 3) of a raw data blog post on talent acquisition via gender diversity executive recruiting efforts...we'll have the eBook on shortly -- available for download, free of charge.