BBC Design & Engineering is encouraging women to apply for jobs
Charles Miller
edits this blog. Twitter: @chblm
The BBC wants to persuade more women to apply for tech jobs because less than 28% of its design and engineering staff are women.
An event at New Broadcasting House in London was hosted by Rebecca Salsbury, interim director of platform for the BBC. As participants mingled with engineering staff after the formal part of the evening, I asked Rebecca about the changes she wants to see at the BBC - which she already refers to as a tech company. And I spoke to Sareh Heidari, a web developer in BBC News who applied for her job less than two years ago after attending a similar event.
There was plenty of advice about how to succeed with a BBC job application. Sareh Heirdari suggested working out what you’d like to improve about the BBC products you use.
Frances McNamara from iPlayer warned applicants to be specific in their descriptions of their skills and experience and avoid “boilerplate business-speak”. When she sees “self-starter” and “problem-solver” on an application, “it’s almost meaningless to me. I just read that as filler.”
BBC application forms are marked quantitatively against the requirements of the job, so you need to score as many points as you can by providing factual information.
That advice would apply equally to men and women. But Rebecca Salsbury offered a personal view on the application process that’s specific to women. I also asked Frances McNamara for her take on the same question:
Finally, a word of encouragement to potential female applicants from the head of BBC Design & Engineering, Matthew Postgate. He’s clear that women represent “a huge, untapped pool of talent for us.”
Matthew points to other countries where the gender imbalance in engineering professions isn’t as extreme as in the UK, “so there’s absolutely no intrinsic reason why there should be that bias”.
You can find out about current design and engineering vacancies on the BBC careers website
And you can follow news of the BBC initiative to encourage women into STEM careers on Twitter @BBCWiSTEM
