How to source more diverse talent

May 14 2021 - Organizations need diversity within the workforce. This is because the workplace and team should ideally mimic that of wider society. If your team is not diverse, it is likely that a plethora of innovative ideas, strategies and working methods are being lost and not fully appreciated. After all, diversity ensures that different perspectives are represented and acknowledged. So, your staff and colleagues should encompass people from an array of backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. This includes inherent diversity, e.g., gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, and also acquired diversity, i.e., skills, value, education, and knowledge.

How to achieve this

So know that you know the importance of diversity within the workplace, you may be wondering how to achieve it. Well, it all begins with the recruitment process, specifically, candidate sourcing. To increase diversity, the people applying to the jobs need to be diverse. You can achieve this by:

Auditing job ads

To recruit diverse candidates, you need to audit past recruitment ads. There is always room for improvement, as they say. Doing so may reveal some areas and language that could be tweaked in order to cater to a greater range of people. Perhaps you notice that the language used in previous advertisements was targeted towards a certain experience level or even demographic. If so, this needs to be changed so that it can be more inclusive.

Source candidates from different places

Another helpful tip is to switch up and change places you seek out new candidates. If you are accustomed to using the same sites, sources, and places to recruit, this could be limiting your talent pool. Instead, focus on sources that you do not regularly use so that you are not recruiting candidates that are overly similar. If you want diversity, go out and look for it. For example, if you want more women into your social media company, look for groups of women in media, whether off or online.

Use smart software

Another great tip is to use smart software. For instance, ATS Software allows recruiters to engage more effectively with diverse talent. Through tools such as intelligent writing, selection, and assessment, recruiter bias (intended or not) is reduced and avoided, which gives recruiters the power to hire more diverse talent. So, if your organization has diversity goals, investing in such software will be extremely advantageous, allowing your team to do more for less.

Use blind hiring and interviews

Recruiting blind may seem ineffective, but it is actually the exact opposite of this. Blind recruiting has many benefits, especially in terms of diversity, as it removes any bias that may impact the hiring process. It has proven to be an effective strategy for many companies from different sectors and sizes, such as Google, HSBC, and BBC. Some blind hiring best practices include using inclusive job descriptions, hide certain demographic information when viewing resumes (e.g., name, location, headshots), and focusing on the candidate’s skills. Basing your decisions on their skills and the potential value they can bring to the organization, rather than judging them too harshly on external factors, will ensure that you are recruiting suitable candidates.

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