GENDER DIVERSITY IN HIRING
What 60 Years of Data Reveals About How Men and Women Experience Leadership
In 1965, Harvard Business Review surveyed 2,000 male and female executives to track perceptions of women in leadership. Since then, researchers have replicated that study every twenty years to gauge shifting attitudes toward women in top posts. In this latest installment, which includes responses from 193 senior U.S. executives, supported by in‑depth interviews and several new questions, researchers have found some troubling backsliding: Men and women now diverge sharply on whether women are judged more harshly, held to higher standards, and advance through genuinely meritocratic systems. The findings point not to overt hostility but to “underground bias”: informal sponsorship, subjective performance criteria, and unequal access to P&L roles. The researchers argue that organizations possess the tools to fix these gaps but have not yet summoned the will.
AI is pushing India campus hiring towards skills and job readiness
India’s campus hiring market remains resilient, but employers are becoming more selective, with demand concentrated in specialised skills, internships and job-ready graduates, according to Aon’s 2026-27 study. Hiring is expected to rise most for CA/CS graduates and interns, while campus pay is projected to increase modestly and internships remain a key route to full-time roles.
Hyundai Motor India targets 20% women in executive roles by 2030
By the year 2030, Hyundai Motor India is targeting a significant increase to twenty percent female representation within its executive ranks, which currently comprises more than eight percent women. The organization is witnessing a surge in women enrolling in trainee programs and is rolling out initiatives designed to boost their leadership opportunities and career development. This approach supports the company's commitment to ESG frameworks and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
86 percent of employers see rising AI adoption in recruitment, says Deloitte report
Artificial intelligence is reshaping campus hiring as employers increasingly adopt it. Organizations are boosting recruitment budgets and strengthening internship programs for talent. AI integration is redefining campus readiness and driving demand for new skills. Critical roles in AI and technology are attracting higher compensation premiums. Gender diversity is now an explicit campus hiring goal for organizations.
India Inc opens doors wider for LGBTQ+ talent
Indian companies are actively fostering LGBTQ+ inclusion through strategic initiatives. Firms are expanding hiring via specialized sourcing, mentorship, and workshops on gender identity. Manufacturing, pharma, and retail sectors are initiating DEI councils, leading to increased representation at all levels, including leadership roles, marking a significant shift towards workplace diversity.
Top companies find there are not enough women in colleges to fill their gender diversity goals
Deloitte's 2024 study reveals that only 17% of engineering and 34% of management campus recruits are women, falling short of the 45% gender diversity target set by 200 surveyed companies. The study covered 508 campuses, highlighting a significant gap between companies' diversity goals and available talent pools.
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Corporate India's big push for diversity: Companies intensify efforts to recruit women from entry level
Corporate giants in India, such as RPG Group, Deloitte, Tata Steel, Amazon, and Zinnov, are doubling down on diversity by ramping up efforts to recruit more women from the ground up. Strategies include targeted campus hiring, incentivizing recruitment agencies to bring in high-potential female candidates, and creating networking platforms to link women with leadership. These initiatives aim to cultivate a diverse workforce from the start, fostering a culture of inclusion and innovation.
40 per cent of campus hires last year were women
The report reveals that women's participation in campus hiring exams stands at 34% and suggests that the highest proportion of women being recruited by organisations in India is among freshers. In 2023, 40% of the fresh talent hired from college campuses were women, a 5% jump from the previous year, when the figure stood at 35%. An in-depth analysis of the report reveals that most of the women's participation in campus hiring exams in the fiscal year 2023 was for sectors such as IT, BFSI, and R&D.
There are more women in leadership roles now, but challenges & biases still remain
Despite progress, gender diversity challenges persist in corporate India. Initiatives like gender-neutral job descriptions and mixed-gender interview panels aim to reduce bias in hiring processes, supporting women's career advancement and retention.
Companies are taking steps to boost gender diversity
Companies are taking various measures to increase the gender diversity numbers. These include hiring more women from campuses, offering flexibility at work and adding more women in leadership, HR heads and staffing sector experts said.
Companies race to campuses to have more women at finish line
Companies are targeting female graduates at leading engineering and management schools (IITs, IIMs, NITs, etc) and undergraduate colleges such as St. Stephens, Lady Shri Ram College, Shri Ram College of Commerce, and St. Xavier's College for entry-level roles, top executives told ET.
Tata Technologies to hire 1,000 women engineers to promote gender diversity
The company has launched its gender diversity-focused hiring campaign while encouraging women to join it for engineering a better world, Tata Technologies said in a statement.
India Inc is opening up to trans rights, one hiring at a time
In addition to conducting targeted recruitment drives, companies are identifying and creating more positions for trans persons, including at the leadership level. Companies are putting in place gender-neutral measures covering washrooms, application forms as well as policies for adoption, medical and insurance.
Companies step up campus hiring of women
Catching them early will not only help groom female talent and build a future pipeline, but also give the companies access to a larger, fresh pool of candidates to bring in out-of-the-box thinking and promote a more inclusive and innovative workplace culture, say industry executives.
India Inc to hire more women this new year in diversity push
Leading organisations including Cognizant, Larsen & Toubro, HDFC Bank, ITC, KPMG, Axis Bank, Schneider Electric, Cipla and Procter & Gamble are doubling down on efforts to improve gender diversity in the workplace.
Gender gap's closing, at least in the IT sector
Most of them are now chasing a target of 45-50% for female employees in their total headcount in the coming quarters, with several initiatives lined up, like increased campus and lateral hiring, building leadership pipelines and skilling focused on women.
Finally! India Inc makes gender diversity a priority in 2021
In India, there has been a 300% jump in job postings for women so far this year, according to data from JobsForHer, an online career platform for women which included more than 300 companies and over 2,000 women job seekers for its survey. The increase is even higher--450%--when compared with the pre-pandemic period of 2019.
TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Tech to hire 60,000 women employees from campuses this year
All these companies are gradually increasing the hiring numbers of women. In the past two years, 40% of employees hired at the entry level at HCL were women.
Covid drives India Inc to boost gender diversity
Axis Bank, Infosys, Tata Steel, Vedanta, RPG Group, Dalmia Cement and Tata Chemicals among others have accelerated their search for female talent as the new ways of working and the resultant flexibility lead to greater opportunity for women’s workforce participation.
How regressive attitudes towards gender inclusion are deeply entrenched in corporate spaces
In the decade between 2010 and 2020, India has witnessed the emergence of gender diversity & inclusion of women as a prominent leadership imperative, or so it seemed.
Unemployment rate among Indian women more than double of men: Study
The study also noted that increasing female participation in the labour force could increase the Indian GDP by 27 per cent.
How cos can include more women: Gender-neutral language in JDs, more females in hiring teams
Stereotyping based on traditional gender roles affects decision-making at the earliest stages of the process.
ET Women's Forum: Should workplace diversity be a key deciding factor during hiring?
The participation of women in India’s workforce stands at under 30%.
Hiring more women: India Inc sees rise in demand for Chief Diversity Officers
In the engineering sector, there is a push on hiring as well as giving opportunities to women in leadership roles beyond R&D, production, project, etc.
Tata Steel on a gender-diversity drive, aims to have 20% female staff in 5 years
The diversity thrust includes focused hiring of women, offering female staff facilities like flexible working hours, options to work from home and leadership development programmes.
Most CXOs’ goals skip gender diversity
Showcasing why the needle hasn’t really moved, the study said less than one-third of responding companies have gender diversity goals as part of a leader’s KRAs, or key result areas.
IIMs reach gender diversity milestone
The trend reflects improved gender diversity in corporate India as many big companies actively remove biases against women, such as lesser pay and fewer promotions.
Putting women on board: Technology companies show the way
Companies caught in a rush should take a cue from technology companies. They have been aggressively pushing to maintain gender diversity.
Companies devising new ways to hire, retain women talent: Experts
Experts are of the opinion that it is a commendable step towards bringing in gender diversity and having companies re look at the available and future pool for scaling to senior levels.
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