It seems that many companies are wondering what the secret is regarding how to attract more women to a job vacancy – especially those businesses whose core product or services sit within the technical industry.

Roles in these areas are no longer seen as ‘jobs for the boys’ and there’s thousands of technically minded females out there working in engineering, project management and a whole host of other specialist roles.

So why are many organisations failing to attract women to a job vacancy in these areas but are inundated with CV’s from their male counterparts?

I’ll give you a clue, it’s got absolutely nothing to do with flexible working or nice toiletries in the ladies toilets.

When trying to attract more women to a job vacancy, many employers make the assumption that female candidates are interested in positions where flexible working will allow them to work around other commitments at home or have childcare benefits.

Although this might be true for some positions, in the technical arena most women who work in male dominated industries are actually attracted to clear career progression routes and solid training and development packages.

At present, there’s a clear gender imbalance in technical industries such as engineering and construction, with many companies operating in this field citing that attracting women to a job vacancy in these areas is difficult.

Statistics show that only 15 to 20% of applications received are from female candidates which has led to these vacancies being predominately filled by male applicants. To address this imbalance, many forward thinking companies have amended their candidate attraction efforts to make their roles more appealing to skilled and qualified female jobseekers.

So if you’re looking to attract women to your vacancy and have technical positions that need to be filled, it’s a good idea to take note of the things that do attract women to your vacancy, and following on from these findings put in place a career development strategy that’s going to pique the interest of female candidates.

For more information on attracting candidates to specialist and technical roles, click here.