As consumers place increased emphasis on corporate social responsibility, they’re putting their spending power behind businesses that align with their ethics and values. Accordingly, market-savvy businesses are seeking out innovative ways to build their brand and enhance their reputation. Key to this are diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts—particularly in recruitment.
Recruiting for DEI means engaging with, interviewing, and hiring candidates across a range of backgrounds. The goal is to diversify the talent pool from which the organization hires. Diversity in this sense can refer to race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic class, education level, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, and so on—it is not limited to one aspect of identity. Different organizations will have different ideas about what types of diversity are most meaningful to them.
A commitment to DEI has huge advantages from a business perspective. Diverse companies are more attractive for younger generations, both as consumers and employees. Diversity also means more breadth and depth in terms of experience and ideas; research repeatedly shows that diverse organizations routinely outperform their non-diverse peers.
In a 2021 LinkedIn study [PDF], 60% of respondents agreed that diversity in their company’s sales team had contributed to their success. The same study showed that organizations ranking in the top quartile for gender diversity had a 25% higher likelihood of outperforming their peers; those in the top quartile for ethnic diversity had a 36% higher likelihood of financial outperformance. The study also showed that inclusive organizations were 35% more productive overall.
From inclusive language in job ads to applicant tracking systems, here are a few strategies to help employers increase DEI throughout the recruitment process.
1. Write Inclusive Job Descriptions
Building a diverse, inclusive workforce starts with the hiring process, and in particular, job description and advertisement wording. Rather than reading as a laundry list of desirable capabilities, a well-written job description highlights the specific skills needed for the role. It is important for recruiters to use sensitive and thoughtful word choices, keeping language gender-neutral, and listing only necessary job requirements. Studies show that women often feel they must meet all job requirements before they will apply for a job; men are more likely to apply even if they don’t tick all the boxes on the desired skills or experiences list in the ad. Recruiters should also try to avoid corporate speak and jargon as far as possible, as these can make candidates new to the industry feel excluded.
- Explore Diversity-Focused Job Fairs
Virtual career fairs offer a cost effective and efficient means of enabling companies to tap into broader talent pools. Online job expos enable businesses to connect with women, people with disabilities, veterans, and other groups. Take, for example, KPMG, which has attracted more than 10,000 job candidates through their virtual job fairs. For employers who regard hosting their own event as too big an undertaking, there are a wealth of online diversity-focused recruiting fairs to choose from, including platforms such as Career Eco, Getting Hired, Diversity in Ed, and Veteran Recruiting.
- Encourage Referrals from Employees
For a company that has already created a diverse workforce, encouraging team members to refer family and friends via a referral program can be an effective means of encouraging diversity. After all, employees from underrepresented demographics are likely to have connections with people who share similar backgrounds. In addition to helping the business expand its talent procurement pipeline, employe referral programs are also a valuable opportunity to demonstrate that the company values people with different experiences and backgrounds.
- Reduce Unconscious Bias
Unconscious bias can be incredibly pernicious and can manifest in a variety of different ways. To set both hiring teams and potential candidates up for success, it is important for employers to build antibias techniques into the hiring process, and to train recruiters to recognize unconscious bias. Other practical steps employers can take to eliminate unconscious bias from the candidate selection process include standardizing interview questions; creating work sample assessments based on the candidate’s work rather than their appearance, personality or background; and conducting blind resume reviews.
- Offer Internship Programs
World-leading organizations are increasingly targeting specific demographics through internal diversity programs—for example, by offering internships to candidates from specific backgrounds. This can be a great way of encouraging new talent to a particular industry and cultivating a diverse pipeline of future employees. To achieve this, many employers reach out to schools and community groups in their area, forging connections with students and early-career professionals. In doing so, businesses not only have an opportunity to give back to local communities, but simultaneously benefit from access to new and diverse talent.
- Use Recruitment Technology Strategically
In an age of AI and data analytics, technology can be a powerful tool in recruiting. For example, an applicant tracking system (ATS) can be an effective way of increasing a company’s chances of finding the right candidate to fill an open role. An ATS can help to reduce unconscious bias in recruiting by selecting candidates based on resume keywords identified by the system’s algorithms rather than the subjective opinions of human recruiters. Because an ATS can automate many aspects of the recruiting process—including posting jobs on multiple platforms—it can help recruiters tap into a wider, and therefore more diverse, pool of talent. Employers can also utilize sentiment analysis tools to screen job ads for biased language. It’s important, however, to note that any technology can be as biased as the humans that created it. Take care to use programs thoughtfully and to screen their output.