[jahbrewski]

As someone just starting to grow a development team (currently four people) in Denver CO, I’m already thinking about how to build a diverse group. Does anyone have any resources, books, or maybe just some plain common sense advice to recommend?

[aspenmayer]

I’m not really one to ask about this, as I don’t hire people and am white so can’t really give any context to this recommendation, but you could ask the people involved in Juneteenth Conference for help? It was founded by a Black Microsoft engineer, so I’m sure their network has some people with the right stuff for your needs, and I’m sure they also know some good people of other backgrounds too. We all can help diversity directly by recommending our friends to each other, when appropriate.

Also, diversity isn’t only about race, although it is also about that. It’s also about equal access. @AccessForAll on Twitter can probably help you much better than I can in that area.

https://juneteenthconf.com

[Cthulhu_]

Be prepared to train people. This goes for any job really, some jobs you'll be lucky that you're fishing in a big pool (say, Java developers), but a lot of jobs are more specialized. Have a good onboarding plan. Hire on interest and eagerness, not on current CV / skills.

[auggierose]

I don't think building a diverse group is a reasonable goal. You should try to build the BEST group you can. If you do that right, it might turn out to be diverse.

[concordDance]

From personal experience: Don't hire just to tick boxes. It will cause resentment, insecurity and reinforce stereotypes.

Go out of your way to find underrepresented people (small town girls?) but raise the hiring bar slightly to accomodate for the interviee process error bars (if you're looking at a larger sample with a lower average using an error prone measuring device you'll get more people over the bar due to measurement error).