We know that having a diverse group of professionals within a business, at all levels, can help create a better culture, increase innovation, and help achieve faster growth. In fact, a study conducted by the Boston Consulting Group found that diverse teams produce 19% more revenue.
If you’re struggling to build a more diverse team, read our top 10 tips below for attracting diverse candidates.
- Search Wider – You may often get into a bad habit of searching for new candidates in the same areas, such as the same job sites or the same social media sites. If you are looking for a more diverse workforce then look into job boards in areas your ideal candidate would be socialising or working. If you’re looking for a new source of recruitment candidates why not get in touch with our team today.
2. Audit Adverts Regularly – If you want to attract a specific type of candidate then you need to ensure that your wording is appropriate and appealing to them. Not only should it speak to the level and type of candidate you’re after, but it should also be welcoming, engaging and of course avoid any gender bias. The wording within job descriptions can make them sound inherently male or female focused and it’s important to avoid such biased language.
You may also need to use keywords that candidates will be typing into search engines, including these keywords within your job adverts will also help search engines bring you up as one of the first sites.
3. Accept Referrals – Hopefully your existing staff will already be a diverse mix of different ages, genders and ethnicities. What’s more, they will all have their own personal, diverse networks outside of the office, so why not use their network and encourage employee referrals. Your current staff are likely to know people who will fit the company culture but will have a range of different ages, genders and backgrounds that you might not find through standard recruitment.
4. Set Clear Goals – Once you have decided to make a conscious effort to actively recruit more diverse candidates it can often be difficult to track and prove you are making changes. Therefore we would suggest setting clear goals at the beginning of your journey; you may want to set a target percentage of females recruited into senior roles for example. This will then make it easier to track and prove you have met your targets.
5. Consider Internships – Offering internships where minimal or no experience is required is a fantastic way to encourage inclusive diversity in the specific area you want to target. For example, you may wish to recruit mental health peer support workers with previous personal experience. You may want to work together with community mental health groups and teams to achieve the best results and ensure inclusive recruitment.
Ensuring a Diverse Recruitment Processes
Now that you have advertised for your new job role, you will now need to work through the potential candidates and shortlist them, interview them, and offer the position. We have listed another 5 ways to ensure diverse hiring below to enable you to be attractive to potential candidates.
6. Using Redacted CVs – Although you may always try and have an open and fair recruitment process there can be an element of unconscious bias. It may be that you are unconsciously disregarding candidates based on their location or age etc. This could potentially lose a huge number of candidates therefore we would suggest using a redacted CV process. This means removing irrelevant information such as age, gender and ethnicity etc. from CVs so that they are all judged equally and fairly.
7. Consistent interviewing process and blind questions – You may have now shortlisted your ideal candidates, by ensuring you have a strict interview process can also avoid potential bias. A more common choice for many employers is to offer blind questioning. This involves asking the same questions to all candidates via text or email, the candidate can then respond blindly.
8. Standardised interview questions – Another way to achieve diverse hiring during the interview process is to opt for standardised questions. This will ensure that the interviews are not only fair but avoid any potential unconscious bias. If all candidates have answered the exact same questions it’s easier to compare them against the same criteria and not bring other elements into the decision process.
9. Attractive & Relevant Perks – Businesses will often worry that offering perks to their employers can be costly and not beneficial in the long run. You may have someone with a family who may find benefits including medical insurance or work from home days attractive. An older employee may find a good retirement package beneficial, while working parents may want flexible hours. By having these benefits in place and advertised with job descriptions you can attract a broader range of applicants. Offering ongoing support and training to staff both new and existing will often be attractive too.
10. Standardise Policies – Whilst you are keen to recruit diverse candidates you may want to also consider making your standard benefits and policies more inclusive. Also, places will often close over Christmas time however this does not take into account other religious celebrations, you may want to consider offering time off during Ramadan or Passover. You should also audit your policies to be inclusive of your staff, this may include supportive maternity and paternity packages for example.
If you need support with attracting diverse candidates why not speak to our expert team today!
Castle Hill House