Insights

How to improve your diversity recruiting strategy

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No matter if you’re a manager or a recruiter, we can all agree that having a diverse leadership team helps companies achieve better results, be more creative and unlock doors we didn’t know existed. Without looking at statistics and testimonials, we know intuitively that diversity recruiting contributes to unparalleled performance.

Looking at your team’s different perspectives and backgrounds leads to newer and more unique ideas that drive innovation. With this in mind, it’s no wonder that businesses are beginning to refine their diversity recruiting strategy—after all, building teams from qualified candidates regardless of age, background, gender, race, religion or sexual orientation is the first proper step toward true equality in the workplace.

What is diversity recruiting?

Diversity in the workplace is the concept that your team should reflect the general makeup of the society around you. Your staff should have various backgrounds, experiences and people regarding gender, socioeconomic levels, religion, sexual orientation, race and so on.

Diversity, of course, falls within two categories: inherent and acquired diversity. Age, gender, health, race and other natural characteristics fall within your inherent category. Acquired diversity refers to education, experience, knowledge, skills and values, which are more fluid and evolve.

Now that you have a general understanding, let’s talk about diversity recruiting. Diversity recruiting is hiring talent using a process that is free from biases. It’s important to understand that merit-based recruiting still aims to find the best possible candidate. Still, it is structured to give all candidates and applicants an equal opportunity.

Why is a diversity recruiting strategy important?

Not only is workforce diversity a good moral choice, but diversity recruiting has many benefits. Some of the known benefits include:

· Larger and more varied candidate talent pools

· Increased cultural awareness

· Broader range of experience and skills

· Higher productivity levels

· Agile problem-solving

· Overall business growth

Diverse workforces also avoid “echo chambers” or confirmation bias mentalities, allowing for better decisions, effective results overall and a much more comprehensive range of information. Need more data?

· Diverse environments can improve team performance by up to 30 percent.

· Diverse businesses see 2.3 times higher profits per worker

· Companies with diverse leadership and executive teams can see their profits increase by up to 33 percent.

Steps to improve your diversity recruiting strategy

Improving your diversity recruiting relies on several steps in order to promote equitable and fair processes by removing the effects of unconscious bias or other systemic barriers. Your policies and actions should evolve as new information is gathered for your greater recruitment plan.

1. Nurture your pipeline

Level the playing field by fueling your talent pipeline. When it comes to presenting a shortlist of candidates, combat decision bias by using a strategy called “the two in the pool effect.”

The principle of this effect is that having multiple candidates from the same minority demographic increases the chances that one of them will be hired. Intentionally seeding your shortlist with a proportionate representation of diverse talent, therefore, will create a more even playing field when it comes to selecting a hire.

Remember, seed your shortlist with candidates who are qualified. Diversity recruiting is about hiring the absolute best person, regardless of background.

2. Maximize your searches

Employers compete for the same top candidates you are, and they are likely searching in the same places. To win out in the war for talent, you need to get ahead of the curve by maximizing talent searches in your recruiting program.

Look for hires who belong to diverse organizations or belong to specific diversity-oriented groups to maximize your searches on job boards. Examples of these groups could be diverse fraternities or alums of historically black colleges or universities (HBCUs).

3. Leverage your channels

Lastly, improve your diversity recruiting strategy by leveraging your recruitment marketing channels to stay top-of-mind with talent and to promote your employer’s brand. Reach out to candidates via resources such as AbilityLinks and Inroads to connect them with leadership opportunities and employers.

Recruiting alone isn’t enough to compete for top, diverse talent. You will need to go beyond to attract diverse candidates to your organization.

At Talent Partners, our approach to diversity is experience plus a math equation. We have a six-person SWAT recruiting team assigned to each search that identifies and sources as many qualified candidates as possible. We have the business intelligence of a larger sampling of candidate comparison and more diversity in the pool to ultimately find quality HiPo candidates for our clients that can help move corporate initiatives forward. Contact us today to learn more.

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