Episode 94 · 2 May 2024 · 45:23
The Truth about the Gender Pay Gap, feat. the co-founders of Ivee.jobs
The Truth about the Gender Pay Gap, feat. the co-founders of Ivee.jobs
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The TikTok that hit the wrong side of the internet
interview#tiktok#social-media#hubspot
Introducing Amelia and Lydia Miller
The challenges of returning to work after a career break
Amelia on the gender pay gap — and what she didn't understand 5 years ago
interview#gender-pay-gap#psychology#women
The founder story: watching their mum try to return to work
Does the motherhood tax hit professional services harder?
Why getting women back to work isn't just good for them
interview#women#workplace#benefits
Al channels his inner Andrew Tate (with shades and a gold medallion)
interview#andrew-tate#humor#workplace
Do men actually negotiate better — or is that a myth?
interview#negotiation#gender#myth
The hardest cohort: single mums
interview#single-mothers#career#support
The deficit model explained
interview#deficit-model#women#work
"There's got to be a scalable tech solution"
interview#tech-solution#scalability#startup
The psychological impact of career breaks
interview#career-break#psychology#women
Helping women recognise their soft skills
interview#soft-skills#women#career
How the platform actually works — and the "returner rating"
interview#platform#technology#rating
How employers can work with Ivee
interview#employers#ivee#partnership
The widely unknown risk for women who stay at home
interview#stay-at-home#risk#women
Where to find Ivee
Show notes
The Truth About the Gender Pay Gap — with the Co-Founders of Ivee.jobs
Episode 94 — Al sits down with sisters Amelia and Lydia Miller, co-founders of Ivee.jobs, a tech platform helping women return to work after career breaks. Amelia, a published behavioural economist and gender pay gap specialist, and Lydia unpack the motherhood penalty, the deficit model, and why the gender pay gap gets worse as women get older.
This one started with a TikTok that went viral for all the wrong reasons — and turned into a mission.
The Miller sisters watched their mum, a qualified accountant, struggle to get back into work after a career break. That experience sparked Ivee: a platform that doesn't just match returning women with roles, but rebuilds their confidence, helps them articulate the skills they've built away from the workplace, and scores employers on how genuinely returner-friendly they are.
Al brings his inner Andrew Tate to the interview (yes, really), Amelia dismantles the "women just don't negotiate" myth with hard data, and they get into the uncomfortable truth about single mums, the motherhood penalty, and why the drop is steeper the higher up the career ladder you go.
Top 3 Takeaways
The gender pay gap is a motherhood penalty in disguise. It's not about women being paid less for the same work at 25 — it's about the cumulative impact of career breaks, reduced hours, and bias that compounds as women progress. The gap widens with age, not narrows.
The deficit model is backwards. Telling women they need to "lean in" more, negotiate harder, or be more confident assumes the problem is with women. The real problem is systemic — and fixing it means changing the system, not "fixing" the women navigating it.
Career breaks build skills — but nobody's counting them. The soft skills developed during a career break (resilience, organisation, emotional intelligence) are real and valuable. The problem is women don't recognise them, and recruiters don't ask about them. Ivee exists to bridge that gap.
More From Amelia, Lydia & Ivee.jobs
- Connect with Amelia on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/amelia-miller-100b68149
- Connect with Lydia on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lydia-miller-
- Visit Ivee.jobs: ivee.jobs
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team Can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Amelia & LydiaI think it hit the wrong side of the internet because the comments we were getting were awful. Uh, yeah, like, I mean I don't even want to repeat some of them, but it does make you feel a little bit dejected knowing that there are a lot of people out there that have, you know, that genuinely believe these opinions and genuinely believe that a woman's place should be at home raising the children and nothing more, and that it's absolutely correct that her career should come to a complete halt.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to the Truth, Lies and Work podcast. podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a business psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science and psychology of work.
Al ElliottYep. Welcome back. Welcome back. If this is your first time, 10 seconds. Okay, I know that everyone else has heard this, but this episode today— Thursdays are all about interviews, Tuesdays are all about this week in work news roundup, and we also have the world-famous weekly workplace surgery where Leanne answers your questions. There you go. That's the admin out the way. We can get on with it, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottYes.
Al ElliottSo talking of interviews, this week we have a brand new founder story for you. I recently sat down with Amelia and Lydia Miller, who are the co-founders of Ivee.jobs. That's Ivee.jobs, which is a tech platform helping women return to work after a career break. Now, I'll be honest, I didn't really go easy on Amelia and Lydia. And if you're listening, which I hope you are, then I apologize. I just wanted to bring this from the male perspective. Because we've all seen the sort of posts on social, um, on social media questioning if the gender pay gap is even real, the rolling eye emojis at feminism, which I have to be honest, I don't do, but I see. So as a straight, white, middle-class, child-free man ticking all those, all those boxes for misogyny, I ask the questions that perhaps most podcast hosts are afraid to.
Leanne ElliottYes, let's get to the bottom of this, shall we? And start by meeting our guests. Amelia Miller is a published gender psychologist from the University of Cambridge.
Al ElliottFancy.
Leanne ElliottFancy. She is a specialist in behavior economics and the gender pay gap, with a background that includes 10 years at Goldman Sachs and London health startup Zuki. Most recently, she has co-founded Ivee.jobs with her sister Lydia Miller. Lydia is a future of work specialist. She built her career with Deloitte Ventures as an investment associate and went on to play a critical role in the growth team of early-stage startup. Lydia has rightly claimed her place as an expert in diversity within venture capital and is now focused on leveraging innovative technology to empower women. These visionary female tech founders have just closed £300,000 pre-seed, have more than 65 clients already on their books including PwC and KPMG, and earlier this year were selected for the prestigious Techstars London Accelerator. accelerator with an acceptance rate of less than 1%. The Techstars accelerator has produced— wait for this, Al, are you ready?— 20 unicorns to date.
Al ElliottNice.
Leanne ElliottAnd has an all-time graduate market cap of $111.6 billion.
Al ElliottJust take a second to appreciate this idea of a unicorn. A unicorn, I think, is someone who's got a billion-dollar valuation. Um, a company's got a billion-dollar, or a startup's got a billion-dollar valuation. So that is a big, big deal.
Leanne ElliottIt really is. So I mean, being selected is not only testament, I think, to the innovation behind Ivee.jobs, but also a clear sign that somebody much more cleverer than us all believes that this platform, a platform dedicated to helping women seamlessly re-enter the workforce, is a pretty good idea. So let's go and meet our tech co-founder sisters Amelia and Lydia Miller. We'll hear from Lydia first before Amelia explains why they decided to call their platform Ivee.
Amelia & LydiaHi, I'm Lydia, and this is my sister Amelia, and we are the co-founders of Ivee, which is a platform that helps women return to work after taking a career break. The reason that we called it Ivee, symbolizing the plant, is we, we help women return to the workforce after they've taken a career break. And just like the plant, although these women do need a little bit of support at the beginning, once they reenter the workforce, They can thrive on their own and they do really well and they're loyal and sticky employees. And there's a lot of symbolism between that and the plant that, yes, might need a little bit of support at the beginning of its life, but once it latches onto a building, off it goes, grows towards the sun on its own and has a very long and robust life.
Al ElliottSo the main risk of taking a career break is getting back into work, ideally at the same level and the industry you want. What challenges do women face when they're returning to work? Here's Lidy to explain.
Amelia & LydiaYeah, there's, there's a whole host of challenges, and there hasn't really been a meaningful solution to try and tackle this, even though the majority of women that do take a career break will face some sort of challenge when they return. Just to put it into context, there's about 1.4 billion women that will be returning to work every year after taking a career break. And the kind of biases and stigma they face is firstly because they have a gap in their CV. So whether that's a 1-year gap or a 20-year gap, that's looked on negatively by recruitment managers, but also a lot of recruitment managers and recruitment teams use application tracking systems. And these actually filter out CVs with career breaks on them. And so that's, you know, one way where they're already not getting their foot through the door. There's also a huge host of issues in terms of flexible working. A lot of the time these women are returning from having children or starting a family or caring for elderly relatives, and their demands have changed in terms of the flexibility that they require from their role. We have seen a lot of movement since COVID whereby companies can offer work from home for a few days, but for roles that are requiring 5 days in the office every week. If you have young children, the cost of childcare is astronomical. And so it's really, really tough to find a role that suits your needs. When women have been out of the workforce, their confidence is at an all-time low professionally. And so it can be very difficult to put yourself out there for roles that you think might be a bit of a career move for you. And so unfortunately, that does lead to a lot of applications into more admin-based or secretary-type roles. And this movement from women into— from career positions into more admin-based roles is really the crux of the gender pay gap. And it's the reason why there is such a disparity when we hit our 30s and 40s and 50s between the salaries of men and women.
Leanne ElliottAmelia is a psychologist and an expert in the gender pay gap, a concept that does sparked quite a lot of debate. So what is the gender pay gap and what is the latest data showing us?
Amelia & LydiaIt's so interesting because, for example, me 5 years ago, I'll hold my hands up and say I didn't understand what the gender pay gap was. I didn't know exactly how it was measured, and I had to go away and do a lot of research on it to make sure I fully wrapped my head around what exactly it is and what exactly it measures. There's also a bit of a misconception around What the gender pay gap is. And we get it a lot in comments on social media, to be honest, of people that don't understand and think because more women go into part-time work, that's why the gender pay gap exists. And it's a complete myth because the gender pay gap measures hourly earnings. And so part-time work is irrelevant. What it is, is this movement of women into lower-paying positions and fields after they've taken a career break and In our early 20s, the gender pay gap is only 0.6%. When we hit our 30s, it's gone up to 12%. And when we reach our 50s, it's ballooned all the way up to between 22% and 25%. And this, this is what sociologists have termed the motherhood penalty. And it is that movement of women predominantly out of the workforce for a period of time. And it's the penalty they face when they reenter.
Al ElliottEntrepreneurs exist to solve problems. They build the things that don't currently exist. exist in the world. And often there's also a more personal connection with their startup. Here's Lydia to explain what their connection is.
Amelia & LydiaThe reason that we are building this together as sisters is we watched what our mum went through when she tried to return to the workforce herself. So she took some time out to start a family, um, and when she tried to return— she was an accountant before— and we saw firsthand how the system is absolutely not set up for women returning. Be that jobs boards, be that those application tracking systems I mentioned earlier, be that recruitment agencies. They have such a bias against women with that break because it's more work for them. And unless you're a specialist in this area, they're probably not going to take you on as a client. And so we essentially watched as our mum moved into a position that she was vastly overqualified for, that was more of an admin-based role and had very limited career progression. And so we saw firsthand this exact movement that the sociologists have spoken about, which is ambitious women that have a lot to give pushed into roles they are vastly overqualified for and have no career progression and are then sat at a much lower level for the rest of their lives. And, you know, depending on the length of your career break, that career you move back into could be your career for 30 years. And if you have limited career progression in that and limited salary raises, that gap between men and women just absolutely balloons.
Leanne ElliottLydia and Amelia's mum was an accountant. So does the motherhood tax impact women in professional services more, or is it a trend across industries? Similarly, is this just the case for women who are a few years into their career? And if I've only been in work for a few years before having kids and then take 5 years out, then isn't it understandable that I'm coming back on a lower salary? Well, as Lydia explains, the motherhood tax is a universal trend, and as we'll hear from Amelia, even the most experienced and professional women are impacted.
Amelia & LydiaIt's across the board, really. And we've, over the last— well, over the last few months and weeks in particular, we've been speaking to loads of women that are returning to work now or have struggled to return to work, and we've been Shocked at the stories that we've heard. It's been really, really disheartening, to be honest, and has exemplified how big this problem actually is. We're talking to women that have had 20-year careers as partner at a PR agency, for example, have taken 5 years out and are now back on a $30K salary.
Al ElliottWow.
Amelia & LydiaAnd can't get anything else. And the job market right now is difficult, and we're aware of that, but that is insane. I mean, it's women that are extremely ambitious, extremely capable, have amazing experience under their belt, and are moving back into junior roles, and not for lack of trying. So it is across the board, and I actually think it's—
Al ElliottYeah.
Amelia & LydiaYou know, it's worse the higher up you are almost because the drop is so great. We, yeah, we also, a common conversation we have are women that are stuck in this catch-22 whereby they are getting rejected when they go for roles that they are overqualified for, and they're getting blunt feedback saying, you're overqualified for this role, sorry, we're not going to hire you for it. And then when they go for roles that are at the level they were at when they left, They're also getting rejected. So they are so frustrated because they're stuck in this cycle of rejection on both sides of the coin. And it's so frustrating for them because they're thinking, where do I sit? Where do I fit then? If I'm not at the upper end and I'm not at the lower end and I'm not in the middle, where can I return? And that's why they end up saying, well, I guess I'll have to settle. I guess this job is, is employment, and I've been trying for 2 years straight, which was— that's what happened in our mum's case. And actually, they end up being quite thankful for that, for that receptionist role that they get offered. At the age that women are returning to work, their presence in admin-based roles goes up by 44%, which is, which is crazy.
Leanne ElliottAmelia went on to explain that getting women back into the workplace isn't just good for their own sense of identity and well-being, But it's also good for business.
Amelia & LydiaA lot of women, you know, as I said, are happy to reenter that because it's work and, you know, and someone's hiring them and someone's seeing them. But they shouldn't, you know, they shouldn't have to feel that way and they shouldn't need to be thankful for not being, you know, simply invisible to, you know, hiring manager number 200. They should be snapped up by corporations and companies should really appreciate their value. And the irony is Companies understand the value of these women, and companies are struggling to find qualified female talent at the mid-management level and above, and have a massive issue with losing that talent during that rise up to leadership and partner. Yet no one's really— feels like no one's really put two and two together and thought, actually, this massively dormant sleeping talent pool needs to be brought to the surface and needs to be put in front of companies via a tech-based marketplace.
Al ElliottGender representation, i.e., seeing mixed genders in leadership roles, can also have a huge impact on the actual employer brand.
Amelia & LydiaIn terms of the, yeah, the kind of figures that companies have in there in terms of their gender balance across their organization, depending on the size of the company, this will be publicly available data that they have to publish. And that represents potential brand reputational risk for the company. So part of what we're doing with Ivee is giving them access to qualified female talent that they can hire into those levels, because on some level, they will just want to have better figures so that they can publish them in their annual report and so that their brand reputation doesn't get damaged. That's a pretty transactional way of looking at what we're doing, but it is an important factor when you're having to sell to recruitment teams, essentially. Um, which is giving them a reason to use your platform.
Al ElliottOkay. I promised you I would ask the questions you might be afraid to. So let me channel my inner Andrew Tate. Oh, I feel icky already.
Leanne ElliottDo you need some shades?
Al ElliottMaybe I need some shades and I need to take my shirt off, I think. And I need a little—
Leanne ElliottA gold medallion or two.
Al ElliottA gold medallion. Yes. Okay. So I'm Andrew Tate. Amelia, maybe this gender pay gap exists simply because women aren't very good at negotiating. What do you think about that?
Amelia & LydiaReally interesting. Really, really interesting question. And there's, yeah, there's an amazing organizational psychologist at Stanford called Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer who's written a lot of literature on this. He's written a book called Power, which, and he says that's one of the major factors in contributing to the gender pay gap is gender differences in negotiation. We actually had a negotiation workshop last week We're doing the textiles accelerator at the moment in London, and the stats are shocking. And I'm going to try and make sure I get this right, but the lady that put the session on was saying, at the beginning of getting a role at, let's say, the grad level in the US, 57% of men are likely to negotiate that initial salary versus only 7% of women. And that negotiation average is about $10,000. And assuming you then, you know, both then continue their career throughout your lifetime, that equates to $600,000 difference, all because of that first stage of negotiation, the gender differences in that first stage of negotiation, which is huge.
Leanne ElliottYeah, we do see gender differences in the willingness to negotiate, but is it actually the case that men are better negotiators? Well, studies have shown that gender differences in negotiation are not necessarily because men are inherently better, but because societal norms expect men to negotiate, and they do so more frequently and assertively as a result. Research has also shown that when women negotiate assertively, they can be perceived as less likable than their male counterparts. Not an ideal starting point for a recent grad. In fact, research has generally shown that overall there isn't much gender difference in ability, especially with negotiation training. Instead, differences in negotiation results often stem from societal expectations. It's these societal expectations that are often the barriers for women and other minorities in the workplace. And as Amelia explains, negotiation is just one of the many things in the job application process where gender differences occur.
Amelia & LydiaThere are, you know, there are psychological differences in negotiation tendencies with men and women. That's one of many things in the job application process. I studied psychology and have done a lot of work around the recruitment process and how, for example, putting the flexibility sentence from the bottom of a job advert to the top, keeping everything else the same, will increase female application rates by about 30%, but will actually decrease male application rates. And there's so many little things like that, you know, including the word parent will increase female application rates. That actually, if you take a step back and you think job descriptions at the moment are still, they are still written for the male reader, and women respond very differently to certain phrases, certain words, certain aspects of not only the job, but the employer themselves, the culture. And I think it's so important to First of all, recognize them and then start implementing them. We also know that women are only likely to apply for roles when they are 100% qualified and tick every single box, whereas research by Harvard has shown that men will apply if they tick north of 50% of the qualifications. And that trans— and then it's a numbers game because if, you know, so many more men are applying for a role versus women, the probability is that, that the role will go to a, to a man, um, or more men will make it onto the shortlist, which is what we see happening. Um, and I think, yeah, it's just really important to understand that the different genders approach job hunting very, very differently.
Al ElliottOkay, okay. So let's get back to Andrew Tate. So it's like, just in case you're joining me at this point, I don't like Andrew Tate and I don't subscribe to his opinions. But this is— I'm playing the role of Andrew Tate For this segment, please forgive me. Women are biologically predisposed to care for children, so of course they should be the ones that take time out. And of course, any career gap will obviously mean a drop in salary.
Amelia & LydiaA lot of people that might think biologically and say, you know, because women breastfeed, for example, like, it's, it's a no-brainer that they should leave the workforce. And, you know, it's actually— we get a lot of comments saying, you know, how dare you leave your baby to return to work? How dare you? That's You're a bad mother, you're going against biology, you're going against the attachment that your baby will form. And I'm sure there's a— yeah, as you say, there's probably a lot of quiet people that think, of course, it should be the woman that stays at home. And it's actually a really interesting and delicate debate because biology is undeniable. But then there's also a middle ground that can be found.
Al ElliottYeah.
Amelia & LydiaI think where it's, it's really hard is for single moms, and that's a cohort and an intersectionality that is, is so tough for those women.
Al ElliottOkay, so Andrew Tate would say, well, the solution is clearly just to educate women that if they want to succeed, this is the way it is. Obviously it's still role-playing here. Toughen up. If you want more money, ask for it. Be more confident. Be more man. Channel your inner man. If you think you can do a job, apply for it. Why should I be punished as a man for being more assertive and more confident?
Amelia & LydiaWhile we are focused on helping women put themselves in the best possible position to apply and successfully land roles, it should not be on the women to have to change that much. Um, it should be on companies to be much more aware of the literature that they're putting out there and the implications that has on their workforce. There's so much talk around diverse workforces, you know, having better economic returns and women leaders, you know, being better managers in a lot of cases. And yet this isn't filtering through to their actual recruitment practices, which seems a little bit insane because obviously what you're putting out there is attracting the type of people that will be applying to your roles. And so— Yeah. We firmly believe that we need to bring companies on board and help them to understand the impact of their recruitment practices so that they can attract and retain female talent, especially, you know, in the, in the 30s, 40s, 50s. It shouldn't have to be on the women all the time to have to change and kind of bend over backwards to fit into the niches that currently exist. For this particular cohort that we're talking about, their confidence is even lower than kind of the, I guess, the average job seeker because they have been out of that workforce for a while. And so it's even harder to get them to the point of negotiating like a man, if you will, you know, for that salary because, or negotiating for the flexibility that they want and actually saying, you know what, I'm going to put my foot down. I need to work from home 2 days a week. That's my non-negotiable. That is a key piece of the puzzle, but it's a difficult thing to do. And while we'd encourage it, we're definitely focused If we could change one thing, it would be on the company side for sure.
Leanne ElliottWhat's being described here is the deficit model. The deficit model assumes that solving systemic problems is a responsibility of the community being impacted. As a woman, it's my responsibility to change to fit in and achieve more in a man's world, a person of color in a white world, a gay person in a straight world. And you know, from an individual level, why would people who don't have those barriers want to level the playing field. As we heard from John Amici a few episodes ago, equality and diversity has a target, but it's not men, it's mediocrity. And as Lydia said, from an organizational level, this is about demanding authenticity from organizations that claim to prioritize gender equality. Are your systems and processes backing that up?
Al ElliottSo seeing a problem, identifying the solution, and then not being able to find something suitable that's available on the market at the moment This is what entrepreneurs live for, and as Lydia explains, this is where Ivee began, on a mission to actively connect women returning to work with meaningful job opportunities.
Amelia & LydiaWe thought there's got to be a better way to do this. Um, there's got to be a scalable tech solution that can help solve this problem at large. Um, and, and there wasn't, so we decided to build one. The way that we're approaching building the platform in order to solve the key pain points that we've spoken about is it's first and foremost a community-driven platform for the women. So building up a vibrant community where there's safe spaces to talk about the return to work journey with people that maybe are at a similar stage as you, but also people that are a bit further ahead and that have maybe successfully landed that role that gives them the flexibility and the salary that they want. And seeing those success stories within the community is crucial to, again, that confidence piece. We're also providing reskilling, upskilling, practical help workshops, and career coaches in the form of, you know, an AI chatbot, essentially. And what this is, is it's essentially fed with all the information, all the research that we've done in this topic so that We can speak to almost every woman on a personal level through, through our career chatbot and actually offer those practical advice and tips based on their exact career break length and industry. A lot of women take completely different lengths of careers, and so the same content won't be relevant for everyone. So it's a really good way of disseminating that information and making it, you know, super personalized and tailored to each woman returning to work. And we think, we know that that is something that no other jobs platform is doing. And it's unbelievably relevant for this cohort of women because there's, it's more than just, oh, let me return to work and apply to a job and get it like other jobs boards, you know, might be. It's actually, we're putting in the work, we're putting in the support upfront to help them get to the point where they can return. And then we're also working with companies to make sure that we have you know, the best companies with flexible policies, returner-friendly policies on our platform so that they can use us to get themselves in a great position, directly apply to the roles and get to the interview stage. And we'll have all the data around this process so that we can keep tweaking it and making it better specifically for this cohort and making sure that we remain really focused on women returners. Um, and really provide a service, service that's great for them.
Al ElliottSo as we've learned, Ivee is committed to supporting women with the psychological impacts of this career transition. As Amelia explains, it's much more than just matching candidates with vacancies though.
Amelia & LydiaThe main thing that we've been able to help these women with so far, outside of getting, getting employment, has actually been kind of the tick boxes before that. So Really helping to give them practical, not only practical advice, but practical help to put themselves in a better position to reenter the workforce, but crucially, to give themselves more confidence that they can do so. Because I think for these women, there's a lot of conflicting narratives out there. For example, if you Google CV template or, you know, how to write a good CV, all you see is just bloody SEO blog posts on Google. They're all telling you different things. They all have different templates. One says this is good. One says this is good. And it's so hard to know, especially if you've been out of the workforce, because you have no idea. And so an obvious example is we know that for women returning to work, if they use a one-page hybrid CV template, they have a 49% higher chance of it getting selected for the shortlist by the hiring managers. And that's backed up by amazing research by the Nudge Unit, who did a study purely on women returning to work and things like that. They couldn't find on Google, you know, we're able to walk them through in our CV workshops, transferring their current CV into this template, making sure that they've got everything they need in there, making sure that it's not over one page, making sure that they understand this is the right CV template for you, and this is going to put your application in a better position. Which gives them more confidence to actually say, okay, I can go out and I can fire this CV off because I know it's a great CV, rather than feeling imposter syndrome and loss of confidence, feelings of nervousness about their 15-year-old CV, for example. I think that's really crucial because the confidence piece is such a meta thing, but it is so important for this cohort. And at the moment, there's not many places they can turn. apart from their friendship groups and their inner circles to, to have these candid conversations, but there's absolutely nowhere they can turn at the moment to get practical help.
Leanne ElliottIvee also works with women to help them identify and articulate the skills they've developed during that career break that would bring value to an organization.
Amelia & LydiaThe first thing is them recognizing all of the soft skills that they've built. So what's really interesting is I'm sure any mum that's listening, for example, or any carer that's listening will will know organization, negotiation, conflict resolution comes hand in hand with being not just a mom, a parent, a dad, a mom. And those skills are so transferable to the workplace, and they're skills that make amazing leaders and that companies really value and seek out from their applicants. But I think at the moment, a lot of women don't know that they have those skills or aren't necessarily willing to write them on their CV, for example, or write them on their application or speak to the learnings that they've had during their time as a parent to demonstrate those skills. They almost want to push their career break away, not mention it, not talk about it. So I think the first and most important thing is shedding light on, you know, all of these skills that you have built that go on top of the hard skills that you have from your earlier career. And all of this together makes you an amazing package for a company. And you should, you know, you should be, you should be shedding light on this.
Al ElliottBeing an absolute nerd, I wanted to dive a bit more into the technology. How does the actual platform work?
Amelia & LydiaWhat's really cool about it is we've embedded kind of psychological principles throughout the technology based on the research that we've specifically done in this space, as well as embedding behavioral economic nudge theory. Essentially what this means is we are trying to combat the existing pain points that women returners face when they're on other jobs boards. So we've covered a few of them. That is, they'll only apply when they're 100% qualified and tick every single box, or they're less likely to apply for a role that doesn't have flexibility right at the top. There's, you know, a whole host of reasons. So on the platform, what we do is, number one, all of the job descriptions are written in a way that is conducive to women returners. All of the flexibility is highlighted.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Amelia & LydiaAnd each of the companies are given a returner rating. So this is an internal scoring system that we use to rank the companies based on how good their policies are for women returning to work. So already that's increasing the odds of her actually clicking that apply button. The second thing that we're doing is we have an algorithm that scans the woman's profile for her skills, her core soft skills and hard skills, as well as the job description, and we generate an internal Percentage match. If that is north of 40 or 50%, there's a big green call to action saying you are completely qualified for this role, you know, apply now, easy apply. And that combats the issue that, you know, that we discussed earlier, which is men will apply when they're 50% qualified, but women won't. And so it's nudging women to actually apply as often as men do so that on the other side, the recruitment manager sees. Oh yeah, through Ivee, I'm getting way more female applicants than I am on other platforms, and they are qualified for the role. So that's another way that we are, again, making those matches, you know, ranking the candidates and the companies so that we can determine who matches which job and push them towards actually making that application. We're fully integrated in application tracking systems. So for the hiring managers, they, for example, Any large-ish employer will have an ATS, which is an application tracking system, which means they only need to generate the job vacancy once and it just automatically pings out to all of the job boards, you know, LinkedIn, Indeed, wherever it may be. So having, having a full API integration from day one is, is, is really important for the employer to make their life as easy as possible as well. And so that on their side, they just see through their ATS system, all of the Ivy applicants filtering.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Amelia & Lydiafiltering through. Um, and as Lydia said, you know, they see, wow, what a great list of qualified female talent I have coming through this stream.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work, and we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an And 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in 3s—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie Indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work, and we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such. It's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing, but there's also just some really interesting episodes. It'll be. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Amelia & LydiaI am.
Al ElliottGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this, so come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in.
Leanne ElliottSounds pretty good. So as an employer, how can you start working with Ivee?
Amelia & LydiaNot only does Ivy allow the women to trust in the employers that are on there and not know, you know, there's every employer under the sun on this platform. How am I supposed to know if it's a good place for me to work? But equally for the recruitment teams, the same problem happens for them on LinkedIn, for example, where they go, I've got 1,000 applicants for this role I posted 3 days ago. How am I supposed to vet these candidates? How am I supposed to know?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Amelia & Lydiawho, who is right for the role. And, and, and so we'll work both ways whereby the recruitment managers can, can trust that it's qualified talent on the platform, um, and the returners can trust that it's, that it's vetted employers as well.
Al ElliottAny startup is going to face market challenges as it tries to establish itself, and a startup driving social and societal change is likely to face a few more. The Financial Times reported earlier this year there is a widening ideological gap between young men and women. Basically what that means is that women are becoming more liberal and men are becoming more conservative, generally speaking, trend-wise. We have seen influence like that. Andrew Tate, who you met a little bit earlier, and Jordan Peterson gaining huge popularity with more than 11 billion views on TikTok between them. Who's done the maths for that? Did you do that maths, Leanne?
Leanne ElliottI did do that maths. That's not entirely true. I Googled it and somebody else had done that maths.
Al ElliottSo I want to know, do these trends pose a threat to Ivee?
Amelia & LydiaIt's a very interesting question. Um, we actually posted a TikTok the other day on the motherhood penalty, and I think it hit the wrong side of the internet because the comments we were getting were awful. Uh, yeah, like, I mean, I don't even want to repeat some of them, but it does, it does make you feel a little bit dejected knowing that there are a lot of people out there that have you know, that genuinely believe these opinions and genuinely believe that a woman's place should be at home raising the children and nothing more, and that it's absolutely correct that her career should come to a complete halt and she should never return to the workforce. I think that is really toxic and can be really detrimental. But I by no means think that the majority of people in the world or the majority of men think that, because I know that they don't. But I think The vocal opinions of the minority can be dangerous. I'll just add to that. And obviously there's always going to be haters everywhere on the internet. I guess if you don't have any haters, you're probably doing something wrong. But a great tailwind that we are experiencing now, and that gives me a lot of hope, is there's a whole host of new regulations that is bringing this issue to light. In the EU, it's the CSRD regulation, and there's similar coming in in the UK in July. And essentially, this is, you know, mandatory regulation for companies, and that they need to start reporting on gender pay parity throughout their entire organization, not just gender balance, but gender balance per level. So junior, mid-management, and senior levels. And really crucially, female-focused recruitment initiatives, you know, how are they encouraging and attracting women to their organization. And this will all need to be published annually in their public report. Obviously, we want people to change their hearts and their minds and to want to do this because it's the right thing to do. And it's actually a really good economic decision for their organization. The regulation does help. It helps push companies in the right direction. And it helps bring this issue into the public forum so that it can be discussed more openly. And so that organisations like ours can, can say that, you know, we're, we're helping companies with their annual reporting, but we're also doing a great thing for society as well.
Al ElliottLydia also raised a really important point and a widely unknown risk for women who perhaps choose to stay at home with their children.
Amelia & LydiaI'll just add to that and say there's a whole extra issue that we haven't really covered here. But Even if you're, you know, you're married, you have a partner, and you've shared the caring responsibilities. And let's say the woman has taken that time out of the workforce and the man has gone and is providing in terms of, you know, the salary. What then happens later in life is if that couple do get divorced, there's a new gap, which is the pension gap. And that means that because a woman hasn't been working for 10, 15, 20 years, They don't have a pension that's going to pay them the same as the man. And especially if they then, you know, split up, got divorced, there's no sharing that pension later in life. And so you're hit with the double whammy of having to return to work because, you know, you need to support yourself financially after you've been out for 15 years. Plus, when you hit pension age, your pension is tiny because you've been— you have been out of the workforce for that time. And that's a, you know, a whole other issue. the pension gap, which a lot of people are doing some amazing work on. But yeah, there's, there's a lot more to think about than just the, the right here, right now of taking the career break. It, you know, there's a whole host of issues that you could run into in the future.
Leanne ElliottIf you are a woman listening to this who has been out of work for a while, who may have lost a little confidence, hopefully you now know where to start your journey back into the workplace.
Amelia & LydiaYeah, to any woman listening that Join the Ivee community at ivee.jobs. The community is a great place to start. We have practical help to actually help you match those skills to a new role or help with your CV. We have weekly chats on a Friday where the community comes together virtually and we discuss a themed topic. We also have in-person events that will be happening kind of every month depending on on you live in your area. And then finally, we have our actual jobs board, so you can find meaningful roles that offer the flexibility that, that you need.
Al ElliottBuilding a business from the ground up is tough, and it's important to reflect on how far you've actually come. I asked Lydia what she was most proud of so far.
Amelia & LydiaThe thing that I'm most proud of is this did start with an idea, and we saw a problem and we wanted to solve that problem. The overwhelming response that we've had from women returners has been amazing in terms of the amount of women that have reached out to us that have signed up to the platform so quickly and wanted to talk about their experiences. And the kind of quotes that we have are— make me really proud to be building this because, you know, some of the things they're saying is, Oh my God, thank God I found you. I was so lost and, and you're actually helping me on my journey. And we get that time and time again. And so I'm really proud that we're building something that's genuinely helping people's lives, um, especially in an area that we're so passionate about. And so yeah, that's probably the human element of it is what I'm most proud of.
Al ElliottAnd as Amelia explained, it's also kind of cool to see your, your idea come to life. and to inspire others enough to secure funding.
Amelia & LydiaIt went from an idea in our heads to us leaving our full-time jobs and pursuing it, because I think it's, yeah, it's quite easy to, you know, to go on dreaming of, of having a business today. I'm sure everyone, like, you know, throughout our childhood we had about 1,000 business ideas, um, but I'm proud that we actually jumped and took the plunge I'm also proud that we were able to fundraise and close our first round of investment because I know it's a tough environment out there, especially for women who get, as everyone I'm sure knows, less than 2% of VC funding. So yeah, I'm proud of both of those things because, yeah, had we not done that, we wouldn't have been able to help all of these women and continue to help them.
Leanne ElliottA really interesting founder story, quite a different one as well, I think. I mean, it's always such a joy, isn't it, to add more inspiring women to our episode guest list? Um, and I always enjoy speaking to other professional women out there who enjoy Truth and Lies because we have so many strong women on the show. So if you want to hear more from female founders and leaders, you'll find loads in our back catalog, including episode 33 with Stella Smith, the founder of Perks. Episode 53 with Mandy Price, the founder of Canaries, and more recently, episode 77 with the co-founders of Belonging Base, Danielle and Sophie Wood.
Al ElliottIf you want to find out more about Ivee and the incredible minds behind it, Amelia and Lydia Miller, then this is where you should go.
Amelia & LydiaYeah, go to ivee.jobs, Ivee double E dot jobs, um, that's the web domain. Or you can find us on LinkedIn, again, ivee.jobs. And if you are a recruitment manager listening, you can also find us on there. And if you are a mere employee, but you think your organization would be, you know, would be a great place for returners to work, then, you know, send us to your recruitment teams or get in contact with us directly and we can try and seek them out as well. Yeah, you can reach us on hello@ivee.jobs.
Leanne ElliottWe will leave all the details for Ivy, Amelia, and Lydia in the show notes. Follow them. They, um, they said they have some interesting things on socials, and as we discussed there, some interesting comments pop up, which is educational. Thank you again for listening to the show. We will be back on Tuesday with our bit more kind of a bit more like loosey-goosey episode, isn't it? Chats, news.
Al ElliottQuestions. We tend not to cut out the mistakes on Tuesday's episode. So yeah, join us. And if you have a question for Leanne, as I said, just check out the show notes. There's ways to get in touch. Um, if you want to join the conversation, go to LinkedIn and, uh, just search for Truth, Lies and Work. In fact, search for Truth, Lies and Work on Google. I'm pretty sure we dominate page 1 now. So, um, if you want to talk to us, you'll be able to find us. So we will see you next week.
Leanne ElliottBye-bye. Hello and welcome to The Truth, Lies— oh, my mic's a bit low there, isn't it?
Al ElliottAmelia and Lydia Miller.
Leanne ElliottIncluding episode 33 with Stella Smurf.
Al ElliottSorry, Stella. Sorry, Stella Smurf, she wears a white hat. Lydia also raised a really important point. This is a widely unknown risk for women who perhaps— Lydia also raised a really important point and a widely unknown risk for women who perhaps choose—