We created Wallbreakers in early 2019 because we saw the need to remove the guesswork from hiring underrepresented software engineers and lower the hiring costs for companies by optimizing their interview to offer ratio. I firmly believe 2021 is the beginning of a new era for diversity and inclusion, We have already seen great progress But here is the next challenge: underrepresented talent needs to be retained and developed.
The Holistic Solution: W2 (W Squared)
Wallbreakers offers an integrated suite of solutions for companies to successfully recruit and retain and develop diverse talent in the tech/software industry. This suite helps companies build their most important asset--human capital. Both companies and employees benefit from a sustained approach that focuses not only on hiring but also on recruitment and development
Hiring:
In hiring, Wallbreakers has built an apprentice program that transforms computer science grads into software engineers who can contribute significantly to a team on day one. We have successfully sourced, trained, and placed diverse software engineers with leading tech companies.
Retention:
Now, to help companies and talent with retention and development, Wallbreakers is launching W2 (W squared), a wellness program to help a diverse workforce find balance and purpose within their firm. This supports candidates from underrepresented backgrounds in a particularly tense national moment. It also helps companies retain and develop talented individuals.
Wallbreakers’ approach is to invert the “soft” and “hard” focus on human resources. Traditionally, companies have been a somewhat soft focus in hiring—posting overly vague and gauzy hiring ads and only in the interview process figuring out what they are looking for. This creates great costs for the company in terms of time spent on hiring. Moreover, it means that companies have historically lost talented diverse applicants who have trouble navigating an unclear process. At the same, time companies have been hard to focus on expectations of the workforce after hiring, prioritizing quantifiable results at the expense of wellness. Here too underrepresented talent suffers disproportionately, and companies lose valuable members of their teams.
Wallbreakers inverts this. We work with companies to have a harder focus in hiring—in terms of articulating specific skill sets they need for a particular position. This reduces both wasted time in searching for candidates and the potential for implicit bias to creep into the hiring process. We then use these articulated skillsets to:
¶ Source underrepresented computer science candidates;
¶ Train these candidates with educational modules that develop these skillsets;
¶ Evaluate and certify candidates based on mastery of these skillsets; and
¶ Place certified candidates with companies.
With W2, Wallbreakers is now inverting human resources programming to retain and develop a diverse workforce with a “soft” focus that focuses on wellness and mentorship. W2 aims to help new and existing team members from underrepresented backgrounds focus on their own wellness, including finding balance and articulating the purpose, and connecting it to their work.
This programming helps underrepresented employees not only survive the current national moment, but also find a way to thrive—which benefits them and their teams now and over the long run.
Some of the experts we work with:
Enolia Foti, Teresa D. Martinez, Cordero Davis and Andrea Guendelman
If you are interested in learning more, schedule a call or email andrea.guendelman@wallbreakers.com