Pinterest hires head of diversity to reach “creative potential” – StartupSmart

Pinterest has hired its first ever head of diversity as the photo-sharing platform aims strives towards being a “true meritocracy”.

 

Candice Morgan, who has worked for 10 years in building diversity and inclusive work environments at non-profit Catalyst, will be taking on the role which will be trying to help Pinterest reach its “creative potential as a company”.

 

In an interview with Wired, Morgan said her main goal was to make Pinterest a fairer workplace for all.

 

“The entire point is to remove factors have nothing to do with somebody’s skills in evaluating if they’re ready to take a job or excel or advance,” Morgan said.

 

“The goal of diversity is to create a true meritocracy.”

 

It’s another step for Pinterest towards achieving its goals that were laid out last year with the company released its internal diversity figures.

 

In 2016, the startup wants hiring rates for engineering roles to be 30% female and 8% from underrepresented backgrounds. Currently, 58% of the Pinterest workforce is white.

 

The tech company also announced two new initiatives to try to achieve this goal.

 

The Pinterest Apprenticeship Program will help people without a traditional background in programming experience life as an engineer at the company, while Pinterest Engage will be an eight-week internship for first-year college students from underrepresented backgrounds.

 

One of Morgan’s first tasks will be to improve the way Pinterest hires, including the way jobs are described and advertised.

 

“The less you fill in, the more people rely on their automatic assumptions and gravitate towards people that might be similar to them, or kind of fill in the blanks,” she said.

 

“The idea is to really get things down on paper – to agree on what a great software engineer or product engineer looks like.”