How to create an effective recruitment and selection process for diversity and inclusion

67% of job seekers consider diversity to be an important factor when deciding to work for a company. What are you doing to improve your diversity hiring process?

Whilst unintentional, unconscious biases can prevent you from being a diverse hirer.

Companies with diverse workforces are 35% more likely to experience greater financial returns, according to a McKinsey report. But that’s not the only benefit. The advantages of having a diverse team include:

• A greater range of skills and experience
• Increased cultural awareness, resulting in more comfortable and satisfied employees
• Higher productivity, creativity, and innovation due to there being different perspectives of different people

Below are tips to ensure you’re hiring diversly and retaining a diverse workforce.

Write job ads that are inclusive

Use inclusive language to appeal to a wide and diverse audience. Avoid using gendered terms, and where possible, don’t list job requirements that exclude certain demographics.

Research has shown that women are less likely to apply for a job if they do not meet all listed requirements. As a guide, list only essential requirements.

You can learn more about writing job ads in our Ultimate Guide to Hiring in 2023 .

Consider implementing aspects of blind recruitment

Sometimes unconscious biases impact the recruitment process, and we’re unaware of it. 

To eliminate these unconscious biases, consider blind CVs. Remove or hide any personal information that can give away the candidate’s identity, such as their name, date of birth, address, and school.

Alter company policies to be more inclusive

Read your existing company policies and think about how these include diverse employees. Could they be improved? 

Consider if you have an Equal Employment Opportunity policy and a workplace harassment policy with a specific subsection for discrimination based on gender, race, sexuality, age, and religion.

Offer flexible and remote working arrangements

There are candidate segments that require flexible or remote working arrangements. This could include parents of young children who need to work flexible hours or people who live in remote communities that are unable to travel to work in the office.

Create an inclusive company culture

Your workplace needs to be a safe space for people from minority groups and accept and celebrate all diverse backgrounds.

Create an inclusive culture by running diversity training sessions. Educate your employees on different cultures, gender inclusivity, the LGBTQIA+ community and more. Give your employees regular opportunities to share their diversity with their colleagues.

How do you define who you’re looking for without being discriminating?

Carefully consider what type of person do you want working for you in this role based on the skills and experience they can bring to the table.

Let’s say you’re looking at two resumes for the same position. Both are ideal candidates, so how do you choose between them?

Consider the following:

• Experience
• Skillset
• Personality type
• Area/industry of expertise
• Attitude and values

Think about what is non-negotiable and what is nice to have. Weighing up characteristics and qualities this way will make it easier to compare applicants.

Once you’ve set your criteria, you’ll have a clear idea of who you’re looking for and find it much easier and faster to write the job ad and position description.

Search far and wide and include candidates with transferrable skills

During candidate shortages, your chances of finding a candidate that matches every single requirement are slim. This is where transferable skills come in.

Transferable skills are core, non-job-specific skills that are useful in almost any role. Take a skill for what it is – don’t attach it to the person’s current role title.

 

For example, a Financial Analyst may possess some skills that could cross over with the skills of a Quantity Surveyor. Yes, the person might come from a different industry and would need some training, but many of the analytical and financial skills are already there. 

Candidates with transferrable skills tend to thrive in their new positions and quickly learn any specific skills required for the job. Introducing an employee from another industry also helps to bring new perspectives to your team, which is great for sparking creativity and innovation. 

Check out our guide to learn what transferrable skills you should look for in candidates.

Further widen your search into alternative candidate pools

When you’ve exhausted traditional talent pools that may have worked for your business in the past, alternative candidate pools might solve your problems. 

Alternative candidate pools are a lesser-known source of candidates who can bring a number of benefits to your business. They are candidates who come from industries you may have never considered hiring from or have a different experience from the usual candidates you’re targeting.

By exploring alternative candidate pools, you’ll find candidates who may not meet the job requirements when it comes to education and industry experience but will have transferrable skills and bring new perspectives into your organisation. The other benefit is that many of your competitors are less likely to hire from these pools, so competition for these candidates could be lower.

Our guide touches different candidate pools you could explore to find your next recruit.

Create a candidate shortlist and narrow down your candidates

Compiling a list of top candidates after each stage of the process is a great way to eliminate unsuitable candidates.

Generally, you’ll shortlist candidates after checking resumes, shorten that list after phone screenings, shorten it again after interviews, and again after testing. Then, you’ll need to perform reference checks on the final few before choosing a candidate to offer the role to.

Don’t be too picky! 

Creating a shortlist rather than disregarding all but one applicant will give you a better chance of filling the role with the right person. Your great candidate might get snapped up by another employer, reject your job offer, or they might even find that their circumstances have changed.

When this happens, you’ll have to go back to the start of the hiring process, and by this time, your initial applicants may have already secured other roles.

You’ll also need to consider whether every skill or the number of years of experience is really necessary. You might be able to offer training to candidates with the right attitude and culture fit. It’s much easier to teach someone new skills rather than shift their attitudes.

How to create and use shortlists

1. Create criteria for the type of person you want in this role. This should be done before you even begin writing the job ad. Refer to ‘Defining who you’re looking for’.
2. Have a system for taking notes about candidates. You’ll thank yourself later.
3. Give yourself a limit on how many people to shortlist after each stage. This will vary depending on the role you’re hiring for, and the time you must spend recruiting.
4. Use resume screening tech to weed out unsuitable candidates quickly.
5. Use psychometric and/or skills testing to assess applicants.
6. Conduct reference checks to learn a bit more about your potential hires.
7. Let candidates know if they are unsuccessful or have moved to the next stage of the hiring process.

If you’re looking for a specialist to partner with to overcome the market challenges, contact our team today to learn how a tailored recruitment solution could help you recruit diversely.

If you’re looking for hiring advice in 2023, take a look at our hiring guide below.