Gender Bias in the Recruitment Process of IT Startups in the Netherlands

Abstract

In today’s fast-changing and innovative world, startups must compete amongst themselves and other well-established companies to hire the best talent in order to succeed. Diversity within the recruitment process is typically not a priority, even though it is well known that a diverse team is beneficial for (business) outcomes. Through a multiple case study performed at 5 IT startups based in the Netherlands, we observed that gender bias is introduced from the first moment that the need for an employee has been identified until candidate hiring. This is a direct result from (1) a lack of resources (e.g., time and money), (2) urgency to find the first and best candidate, or (3) the awareness of the startup founders.