FIRST impressions count, particularly if you want to attract talented women into your organisation. The job advertisement, the company’s image and the headhunter’s approach can be just as important as salary and benefits when it comes to sparking initial interest in a career move.

It is hardly surprising, then, that so many of today’s top 50 companies dedicate time and effort to ensuring that their recruitment messages reach a receptive female audience.

Companies such as Barclays and PricewaterhouseCoopers, (PwC) for instance, have recently instructed their recruitment agencies to ensure that shortlists include a range of female candidates. PwC has a scheme to encourage employees to “Refer a Woman Like You”, while Barclays has a team that tours universities and business schools to tempt female students into a career in investment banking.

Barclays’ commitment to diversity was highlighted in its “Bright Sparks” advertising campaign, which aimed to showcase the “inventive spirit of Barclays people”. The campaign made it clear that women employees are valued just as highly as men.

As is the case at PwC. “We briefed all our key recruitment agencies on our commitment to equality and diversity,” says Sarah Churchman, director of student recruitment and diversity. “This emphasised our high expectations of them in helping us to deliver our objective of making PwC the preferred destination for job hunters, whatever their background.”

Internal recruitment is another area in which Barclays is keen to offer equal opportunities. Regular talent reviews are conducted in the retail and banking sections which include explicit analyses of how many women are represented. The number of women is expected to increase each time.

“We are not talking about having quotas,” Acton says. “But monitoring is important to promote the ratios.”

Banking, like other traditionally male-dominated industries, has a bit of an image problem when it comes to recruiting women. Perceptions of a macho, geeky or stuffy workplace can prevent women from even considering some careers. Like IT, for instance.

“There’s a perception that professional IT is very male-dominated and that maybe Microsoft is a particularly high-powered place to work,” Rebecca Dickenson, Microsoft’s diversity programme manager, says. “But we have a really diverse workforce and are at the forefront of flexible working. The majority of people work at least one day a week at home.”

Microsoft’s concern for its employees’ “emotional, physical and intellectual” needs was the focus of a number of recent recruitment adverts. These highlighted flexible working and on-site facilities at the company’s Reading campus, such as crèches, coffee shops, landscaped gardens and a health centre.

“We aim to get across the mixture of tranquillity and the technological buzz that happens here,” Dickenson says. The message seems to be working, with a 30 per cent increase in applications and a shift in Microsoft’s male to female ratio from 70:30 in 2004 to 65:35 last year. The graduate intake is now 50 per cent women, up from 30 per cent in 2004.

Another company seeking to address preconceived ideas about the jobs it offers is McDonald’s. Despite an array of flexible working arrangements and the fact that more than a third of its operations managers are female, McDonald’s is seldom portrayed as an employer of choice. But this year, the company decided to tackle the stereotypes head-on.

“This year we launched the ‘Not Bad for a McJob’ ad campaign, aimed at challenging misconceptions and making people re-appraise the jobs and careers we offer,” says David Fairhurst, McDonald’s vice-president of people.

Using catchlines such as McFlexible and McEquals, the ads highlighted the company’s high ratio of women in management roles and its family-friendly shift arrangements — including a unique family contract in which employees from the same family can cover each other’s shifts without prior notice.

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