Twilio Enhances Diversity Hiring Strategy with Gem

Technology Category

Cybersecurity & Privacy - Identity & Authentication Management

Applicable Industries

Cement
Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Procurement

Use Cases

Speech Recognition
Traffic Monitoring

The Challenge

Twilio, a global platform that powers communications for over 40,000 businesses, was facing challenges in meeting its diversity hiring goals. The company needed a solution that would allow individual recruiters to understand their own performance and provide Talent Acquisition (TA) leaders a comprehensive view of pipeline analytics. This was crucial to identify hiring bottlenecks and optimize the recruitment process. The company was also keen on ensuring that all members of the talent acquisition team were focused on the company's diversity goals, rather than relying on a separate team for diversity sourcing and recruiting. Another priority was tracking data to measure progress and make necessary improvements.

About The Customer

Twilio is a San Francisco-based cloud communications company with over 3,000 employees. It powers communications for more than 40,000 businesses globally, enabling developers to add capabilities like voice, video, and chat to their applications. This allows businesses to reinvent how they engage with customers. Twilio has offices in 23 cities and over 250 open positions. Despite the speed at which its recruiting team is working, Twilio continues to prioritize diversity in its hiring. It was named one of America’s Most JUST Companies of 2020, with particular recognition for its diverse and inclusive workplace.

The Solution

Twilio adopted Gem, a data-driven solution, to address its diversity hiring challenges. Gem provided stark, truthful numbers that allowed Twilio to work backwards and identify areas of improvement. For instance, by filtering interview stages by gender, Twilio could identify which hiring managers needed help balancing gender equity on their teams. Gem's funnel also showed passthrough rates, including Offer Extend to Offer Accept, which helped Twilio understand each hiring manager's tendencies and work effectively with them. Furthermore, Gem's analytics allowed Twilio to identify candidates who could be moved into pipelines for different roles, thereby optimizing the recruitment process. Gem also prompted Twilio’s TA team to adhere to good practices, such as reporting details about outreach responses and submitting scorecards.

Operational Impact

The implementation of Gem has significantly improved Twilio's diversity hiring strategy. It has enabled recruiters to observe hiring trends and make recommendations accordingly. They can better understand what requirements to prioritize or where candidates are in a holding pattern, so they can act to move them forward. Gem's data has also helped Twilio scale best practices across the organization. By analyzing the passthrough rates of female candidates across different hiring managers, Twilio can address areas of opportunity when it comes to hiring strong talent that truly represents the diverse market. Furthermore, Gem has prompted Twilio’s TA team to adhere to good practices, thereby improving the overall efficiency of the hiring process.

Quantitative Benefit

Gem's data-driven approach helped Twilio preempt situations that could have hurt their diversity goals.
Gem's analytics allowed Twilio to identify candidates who could be moved into pipelines for different roles, optimizing the recruitment process.
Gem's metrics helped Twilio identify stages in the interview process where the team was falling short on equitable gender hiring.