Companies are focusing on diversity with Textio, a new inclusive job-description startup 

Textio, a company that analyzes the writing of job ads to help increase diversity in the workplace, is making quite the splash with big tech companies, and numbers show it’s working.

CNBC reports that Cisco re-upped its 2-year contract with Textio, whose technology helps people write job ads for a more diverse crowd (AKA, not just white guys).

Companies are focusing on diversity with Textio, a new inclusive job-description startup 

According to Cisco’s latest diversity report, the technology conglomerate now gets 10% more female job candidates, with 24% of Cisco’s worldwide employees now female, and 47% of its US employees identifying as non-Caucasian.

What a friggin’ market

Textio Hire uses AI to grade job posts IRL, tracking words that could lead to positive and negative outcomes.

It makes sense: Tech companies have scrambled to improve since the big dawgs released stats on diversity (or lack thereof) in 2014 — and it turns out language plays a huge role in how applicants view job descriptions. 

From 2012 to 2016 the word “ninja” increased nearly 400% in descriptions. Subsequently, ninja made a list of words in a 2011 report by social scientists that made jobs sound less appealing to women — along with a host of others

Cisco isn’t the only company looking to automate wokeness

Before software company Atlassian partnered with Textio 3 years ago, women filled just 10% of Atlassian’s technical roles. This year, that number shot to 22.9%. Dropbox, eBay, IBM, Intel, and Twitter all also use Textio.

Buoyed by its growing client list, Seattle-based Textio has grown to more than 100 employees, raised nearly $30m in funding, and appeared on CNBC’s 2018 Upstart List.

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