Federal Task Force Announces Software Development Contest to Tackle Gender Pay Gap
The National Equal Pay Task force yesterday announced a new contest, The Equal Pay App Challenge, for creating software applications that makes use of the U.S. Department of Labor as a means to eliminate the gender gap in pay. On average women are paid lower than their male opposite numbers in basically the same roles, with an even bigger difference for minority women.
"Women make up nearly half of the U.S. labor force and play a vital role in the nation's economy," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "While progress has been made in recent decades, the pay gap continues to disadvantage many women, with consequences not only for them, but for their families and the economy as a whole."
The contest calls on developers to use publicly available information to create novel, easy-to-use apps that educate users about the pay gap and provide tools to combat it. Improved accessibility of pay data broken down by gender, race and ethnicity, and as well as information on early career pay, pay negotiation or career mentorship as just some of the requirements that the applications will need to fulfill.
Online compensation analysis website, Salary.com also announced it will provide its support to the Equal Pay Task Force, by volunteering its collection of salary data – covering more than 4,000 jobs – for use in the Challenge. They chose to take the unprecedented step of opening up its invaluable salary data at the request of the White House, and because all employees should be educated about compensation levels and fair pay.
According to a 2011 survey carried out by Salary.com, just 30 percent of women always negotiate after being offered a job, compared to 46 percent of men. Just over a quarter of women – 26 percent – said they don't negotiate salary because they lack the necessary skills.
The eventual winners will be announced in April will be entitled to receive one of eight prizes, including scholarships to attend an eight-week immersive program on digital product innovation and entrepreneurship hosted by General Assembly, a campus for technology, design and entrepreneurship. The competition is open for submissions from Jan. 31 until March 31.
Job.com and Jobaline.com team up to bring Per-Per-Pick Recruitment Model
Job.com and Jobaline have partnered to establish a new candidate sourcing model called Pay-Per-Pick. The model allows recruiters and employers post jobs for free and only pay when they access resumes of qualified candidates they believe match the position’s assigned requirements.
The technology, developed by Jobaline, powers Job.com’s candidate network which pushes job postings to more than 33 million job seekers and 5 million unique visitors every month. Pay-per-pick gives room for companies to target their recruiting budget at the most suitable candidates as they filter resumes they would like to have access to. Both companies are touting the technology to be more cost efficient than other existing recruitment models such as per-per-post and pay-per-recruiting.
It further differs from the other models as the job postings require no up-front costs and place no restrictions on the number or time frame of job postings allowing for employers to enhance their overall hiring strategy and increase emphasis on results-based recruitment.
The technology also provide an opportunity for job seekers to promote their qualifications directly from with the job posting itself as comments allowing them to side track the “resume black hole” that frustrates many job candidates.
