Most recruiters and managers would agree that a various team helps companies be more innovative, creative and achieve better results. You don’t even need to check out the stats (of which there are many) to understand intuitively that diversity recruiting contributes to a far better overall performance. It makes sense that having different perspectives and backgrounds on your team will contribute to newer and more diverse ideas to help solve problems and drive innovation. It’s no wonder, then, that companies round the world are focussing on developing their diversity recruiting strategy. Diversity recruiting is actively seeking out job candidates who are from diverse backgrounds, taking steps to make sure talent acquisition processes are more inclusive, and removing barriers that prevent all candidates from having civil right during the hiring process. It is still merit-based recruitment and still aims to seek out the simplest possible candidate, but it’s structured to offer all applicants, no matter background and civil right.
Here’s how companies can hire diverse talents:
- Review your job ads
One of the simplest ways to recruit diverse candidates is to try to to an audit of your past recruitment ads, and make changes to talk to a broader range of candidates. You may notice that a number of the languages you employ are more geared toward a selected demographic of experience level. If this is often the case, find ways to be more inclusive in your language to appeal to candidates from different backgrounds. Don’t be afraid to write down job ads with specific demographics in mind so as to spice up your diversity recruiting strategy. Let your target candidates know that you’re seeking them out, and explain why your company would make an excellent fit. - Write cultural “add” instead “fit”
Subtly, or more overtly, market the worth of your company to less traditional careerists who otherwise won’t feel they fit into your culture. In fact, zeroing in on less “fitting” candidates could also be just the ticket to drawing in diverse people. While culture fit may be a commonly touted value among candidates and hiring companies alike, the intent to rent only those that share the company’s vision, mission and values may result in having homogeneous workforce that think in similar way and have similar perspective. Therefore, the employers should mention cultural add instead of cultural fit in their job applications to target candidates that bring something unique to the company’s culture which may not existed earlier. - Improve your employer brand that supports diversity
Perhaps the simplest thanks to boost diversity in your candidate sourcing is to organically create an employer brand that values people and opinions from all walks of life. Talk about the advantages and importance of diversity together with your team, get their stock and engrain those values into your company culture. As you are doing this, you’ll begin to develop an employer brand that’s known for valuing diversity. Diverse candidates will hunt down companies who truly value those ideals and developing organically is that the only thanks to truly reap those benefits. - Target sources which ensures diversity
Great thanks to make sure that your talent pool is filled with diverse candidates are to source your candidates from a spread of various places. One should never rely on same sources always when hiring new candidates. Focussing on only the sources that you know best can result in a talent pool of similar candidates and a lack of diversity. Instead, hunt down opportunities to source diverse candidates where they typically hang around. The more you try out these new channels to seek candidates, the more likely it is that you get diverse workforce. - Strategise your company policy in favour of diversity
It’s one thing to say that you simply value diverse recruiting strategies and teams, but it’s quite another to truly live those values daily. That’s why it’s so important to proactively implement company policies that appeal to diverse candidates. Encourage flexible work hours which will allow candidates to continue being involved their communities, and not require them to evolve to a cookie-cutter schedule in the least times. It’s also important for management teams to encourage employees to speak up if they think certain policies are hindering diversity in any way. People’s individual biases will always be a factor in how they perceive and navigate the workplace, so it’s important to encourage open and honest dialogue to ensure everyone feels welcome. Having these policies in situ , and actively promoting them in your sourcing, may be a good way to make sure your diversity recruiting strategy is running because it should be.
When you build and communicate your new set of diversity model more diverse candidates will be attracted towards your company. As with any initiative, the longer you invest and actionable steps you’re taking, the more momentum will build, perpetuating success and results.
