Pinterest hired more female tech workers in 2016, but fell short of goal

Dive Brief:

Pinterest grew the percentage of women it employs in technology jobs from 21% to 26% in 2016, and increased the ratio of engineers to 22%, but missed its self-imposed goal to boost the latter figure to 30%.
The social media site now aims to have women in 25% of its engineering jobs in 2017.
Pinterest also increased its percentage of engineers from under-represented ethnic groups from 1% to 9% in 2016, more than meeting the company's stated goal.

Dive Insight:

Pinterest stresses the importance of diversity in hiring for senior leadership positions, not just junior positions, as is the case in many companies, but CEO Ben Silberman admitted in a blog post that the process of recruiting and interviewing for those jobs took longer than expected, and that the firm "could have spent more time on this in the first half of the year."

Pinterest acknowledged it probably will be a while before it is able to have female employees comprise 30% of its engineering workforce, and reducing its goal to 25% for 2017 may earn the company a bit of negative commentary after it was so aggressive with its goals last year. However, Pinterest should be congratulated for its efforts. Not that many companies in any industry are attacking the issue of hiring diversity so aggressively and honestly.

Women account for at least 85% of Pinterest's audience, according to some estimates. So, that likely fed into its efforts to emphasize the hiring of women, but its diversity strategy involves the recruiting of under-represented ethnic groups as well. Pinterest has managed to meet its hiring diversity goals in some areas, but not in others, which should mainly serve as a reminder that setting goals and making them real are two very different things.

Pinterest has been having an incredible run of late, with revenue for the full calendar year of 2016 expected to triple to about $300 million. It's clearly growing at a rapid rate, and able to hire across the board at a fast rate. With the priority that Pinterest is placing on diversity and its wild success allowing the company to put some money behind these efforts, there is no reason it can't hit its goals.