Rebecca is the Early Careers Lead at CGI and has been with the organisation for over 10 years. Having started as an apprentice herself, she was equipped to grow the Early Careers function to over 600 active members from just 50.
Recruitment is at the forefront of her role, she believes equality is for everyone and never is this more important than in recruitment activity. Everyone should be treated fairly when considering a career with CGI and feels welcomed and supported.
Rebecca understands the driver for change she has by recruiting 300 students annually and provides opportunities for people from various communities such as LGBTQ+, ethnic minorities, genders, disabilities and social demographics.
Rebecca’s strategy is to level the playing field for all applicants. That’s why she and CGI are unconditionally inclusive so members always have a place where they can be themselves.
Rebecca has led her team to activate a broad reach of marketing activity, ensuring that opportunities are in enough places for a truly diverse audience to see them and demonstrate the diverse workforce. She has utilised Clear Talents, a tool where all candidates can submit any changes or support they may need to remove barriers in the recruitment process, for example additional time in assessments, prior notice of autism and physical adjustments such as access requirements.
She provides opportunities for members to discuss key topics relating to diversity and inclusion. This includes LGBTQ+, women’s, disability and BAME networks amongst others. CGI is also a Disability Confident Employer helping to foster an open dialogue on key topics surrounding diversity within recruitment.
Rebecca and her team attend events nationwide because they are passionate about promoting alternatives to university and to widen their reach to candidates from under-represented backgrounds. Roughly 30% of CGI’s students relocate away from home to join CGI’s Early Career opportunities. Rebecca and her team recognise this is a big commitment, paying up to £1,000 relocation costs such as first month’s rent and estate agent fees to ensure support what is otherwise a very expensive process, which could deter candidates from some social backgrounds from applying.
Rebecca and her team have undertaken a review of marketing activity and outreach to build new relationships with providers who have a specific reach to a diverse candidate pool. For example, one of our partners has 36% BAME students signed up to their email network and Rebecca is also working with two other companies to provide mentoring on early careers/entry level recruitment who have a 62% and 69% BAME representation across their cohorts respectively.
It’s well-known females are underrepresented in the IT industry (sources estimate only 16% employees in tech are women) so Rebecca increased the female targeted marketing and reassessed our interviewing and assessment centre process to ensure no bias was present. As a result, the female intake increased from 14% in 2019, to 20.3% in 2020 and 32% in 2021. Excellent progress has been made to achieve the end goal of a 50/50 gender split through our Early Careers intake.
CGI’s BAME network which Rebecca is involved in has also been actively involved in attraction activities. A recent event called TARGETJobs Aspire, helps more black heritage students take steps towards their dream careers.
