Many of the recruiters and managers agree that a diverse team helps businesses be more innovative, creative, and perform better. You don’t even have to look at the statistics (which are plentiful) to intuitively know that diverse hiring contributes to better performance.
Having different perspectives and experiences in a team allows the emergence of new ideas to solve problems and stimulate innovation. It’s no wonder, then, that companies around the world are focusing on increasing diversity in their recruiting strategies.
But the topic of diversity goes beyond results and performance. Diversity is an important cause that every business should strive to champion. It is high time to put together teams of qualified candidates, regardless of gender, origin, religion or sexual orientation, and take a step towards real equality in the workplace.
In this article, we’ll take a look at how to evolve your own diversity strategy. But first, let’s talk about what diverse recruiting is and why it’s important.
Diversified recruitment, what is it?
Diversity in the workplace is the idea that your team should reflect the general makeup of the society around you. Your staff should be made up of a variety of different types of people, backgrounds and experiences. This can include diversity in terms of gender, experience, socio-economic level, religion, sexual orientation, etc.
Diversity can be divided into two categories: inherent diversity, such as demographics, or acquired diversity, which develops or gains over time. Think of inherent diversity as being related to ethnicity, gender, age, and any other natural characteristics of a person. Acquired diversity refers to things like education, experience, values, skills and knowledge, which are more fluid and can develop and change over time.
Diverse recruiting is about recruiting candidates using a process free of bias for or against an individual or group of candidates. This is still recruitment based on merit and aimed at finding the best possible candidate, but it is structured to give equal opportunities to all applicants, regardless of their background.
Why is a diversity recruiting strategy important?
Diversity and inclusion are booming in the workplace and for good reason. In addition to being the right moral choice, diverse recruitment offers many tangible benefits in terms of performance, innovation and productivity. Here are some of the known benefits:
- A wider range of skills and experiences within your team;
- Increased awareness of languages and cultures;
- A larger and more varied pool of candidates;
These benefits show that a diverse workforce is better at solving problems, better avoiding bias, and fostering creativity and innovation. The result is better decisions and better results overall. The diversity of views allows team members to debate the different methods and choose the most optimal, using a wide range of information.
The results speak for themselves:
As you can see, having a strong diversity recruiting strategy is a sure way to improve your team’s performance and drive innovation in your industry.
Now that we’ve looked at the benefits, let’s take a look at how to recruit a diverse workforce.
12 ways to recruit diverse staff
As always, when trying to improve any part of your business, it’s important to ask yourself two questions:
- What is my goal?
- How can I measure its success?
Without clearly defining these two variables, it is difficult to successfully improve your diversity recruitment strategy.
Get your team together and identify what you want to achieve. Do you want to hire more women in technical positions? Good! Take the number of women you currently employ in these roles and set a target for the increase you want.
Now that you have your goals and metrics in mind, let’s take a look at how to improve diversity in your recruiting.
Increase diversity in sourcing
A good way to ensure that you are recruiting a diverse mix of people is to ensure that you have diverse profiles applying for your positions, to begin with. Here are some techniques to increase diversity in your candidate search:
1. Check your vacancies
One of the best ways to recruit diverse candidates is to audit your old job listings and make changes to them to speak to more candidates. You may notice that the language you use is more suited to a specific level of experience. If so, find ways to be more inclusive in your words to attract applicants from different backgrounds.
Don’t be afraid to write job postings with certain demographics in mind to strengthen your diversity strategy. Let your target candidates know you are looking for them, and explain why your business would be a perfect fit for them.
2. Target the sources where the candidates are divers
A great way to ensure that your talent pool is filled with diverse candidates is to source candidates from different locations. Don’t always rely on the same sources when looking for new candidates. By focusing only on the sources you know best, you may end up with a pool of similar candidates and a lack of diversity.
Instead, look for opportunities to find diverse candidates where they are usually found. For example, there are many groups dedicated to women in tech. This is a great way to connect with qualified candidates, directly, rather than waiting for them to find your ads. The more initiative you take to find these channels, the more likely your talent pools are to be diverse.
3. Encourage your diverse employees to recommend their connections to you
It is very likely that your team members belong to networks of people with similar backgrounds to them. Creating a diverse candidate co-optation program is a great way to strengthen your recruiting strategy and show that your company values diversity of backgrounds and ideas.
If you are looking to recruit more people into a specific group, contact your employees who share their characteristics. Encourage them to share your vacancies with their networks and give them the tools they need to promote the business for you. Your employees and candidates will feel that your company values their opinions and their presence, which is very positive for the morale and engagement of the team as a whole.
4. Offer internships to targeted groups
Many companies are launching internal diversity programs which offer internships and work-study programs to candidates from specific backgrounds. This is a great way to encourage promising candidates to join your team and gain experience.
To do this, contact the schools and associations in your area to determine the possibilities of establishing links with the students. Often communities have their own programs, and partnering with these initiatives is a great way to give back while benefiting from new and diverse talent.
5. Develop an employer brand that highlights your diversity
Perhaps the best way to stimulate diversity in your candidate search is to organically create an employer brand that values people and opinions from all walks of life. Discuss the benefits and importance of diversity with your team, gain buy-in and make these values part of your company culture.
By doing this, you will develop an employer brand known to value diversity. Encourage employees to talk about this part of your business. Record their testimonials and use them to promote your employer’s brand. Diverse applicants look for companies that truly value these ideals, and authentic development is the only way to truly benefit from them.
6. Create a corporate policy that attracts diverse candidates
It’s one thing to pretend to promote diversity in your recruiting strategies and in your teams, but it is quite another to embody these values on a daily basis. This is why it is so important to proactively implement company policies that attract diverse candidates.
Consider changing your vacation and planning policies to include more religious holidays, community events, etc. Encourage flexible work schedules that will allow applicants to continue to be involved in their community, and that will not require them to adhere to single schedules.
It’s also important for leadership teams to encourage employees to speak up if they think certain policies are hampering diversity in any way. At work, people will always be influenced by them, so it is important to encourage open and honest dialogue to make everyone feel welcome.
Having these policies in place, and actively promoting them in your candidate search, is a great way to ensure that your pro-diversity recruitment strategy is on track.
Increase diversity in the selection of candidates
If you find that your pro-diversity recruiting allows you to attract a variety of candidates, but you still have trouble eliminating selection bias, then try some of these tactics.
7. Use anonymous CVs
An increasingly popular technique used by recruiters to eliminate bias in candidate selection is to “hide” all personal information on CVs. Information such as names, schools, date of birth, specific places, etc. can all contribute to some extent to a biased assessment of the candidate, even if it is not done consciously.
8. Use anonymous interviews
Anonymous interviews use the same principle as CVs to reduce bias, but apply this tactic to the first few conversations with the candidate. This can be done by sending candidates questions by message, or through a recruiting platform. Candidates answer these questions anonymously and are encouraged to avoid providing any personal information.
The goal is not to be prejudiced about the people you choose to meet. It is obviously much more difficult to eliminate personality and prejudice when speaking to candidates on the phone or in person, which is why anonymous interviews are more effective early in the process.
9. Use AI to review CVs
One way to ensure that you completely eliminate bias in the CV selection process is to use the artificial intelligence of your ATS. Pre-program your platform to spot and filter specific skills and experiences, and let AI analyze your candidates’ resumes based on these parameters. This will give you a completely impartial list of candidates, free of any bias.
10. Rethink the factors you are looking at
This tactic has to do with auditing your vacancies where you’ve rethought what you look for in a candidate and how you talk to them. A critical aspect of recruiting for diversity is always asking yourself what characteristics you value most in candidates, why, and whether it is due to your own biases.
Take the time to look at how you test and select candidates, and honestly ask yourself if you are directing the results to specific types of people. If so, consider changing your testing methods. If you are unsure, ask your peers for more opinions.
Increase the diversity of selections and recruitment
Deciding who to select and hire can be the most difficult part of your diversity recruiting strategy. Indeed, you will have a pretty good idea of who each candidate is, which means that your biases will likely creep into the equation. To combat this phenomenon, here are some techniques to consider.
11. Automate your preselection using an ATS
As mentioned above, your ATS can be used to impartially narrow your list to the most promising candidates. Use the selection tools included in your ATS to find the candidates with the most potential and the best CV. This technique allows you to completely eliminate personal opinions about candidates and focus only on information that is relevant to the job description. Screening candidates on the basis of certain requirements will help you move towards greater diversity.
If your talent pool was diverse at the start of the process, you should have a variety of candidates and backgrounds on your shortlist. If not, the latest pro-diversity recruiting tactic can help.
12. Create talent pools with diverse candidates
There is evidence that diverse candidates are much less likely to be chosen when they are the only ones in their demographic group represented on a candidate slate. To combat this decision bias, you can use a recruiting strategy called the “two in the pool” effect.
The hypothesis is that having several people from the same demographic minority greatly increases the likelihood that one of them will be hired. Therefore, if you intentionally build a list of candidates with a proportional number of different candidates, the playing field will be more level when it comes to choosing one.
Of course, you will only want to add to your list of candidates who are really qualified. After all, inclusive hiring is all about hiring the best person, regardless of background.