Achieving success in hiring senior executives means accelerating the road to full productivity and avoiding de-railers. Critical components include a structured model, stakeholder alignment and a trusted advisor. This is true of all executive hiring, but even more important for diverse and under-represented minorities, especially where organizations have evolving cultures and diversity is a key priority. It’s an investment that will accelerate the business through attracting and retaining the best talent and mirroring the face of customers and suppliers. Having key stakeholders to include colleagues, HR and those who hold soft power aligned on the positions expectations and awareness of the company and culture the person is coming from are critical factors for fast tracking executive success. Ensuring the executive can recognize the challenges that current minorities face, unconscious bias that may exist and the role of DEI curriculum are critical for success.
You should go ahead and reach out to your employees that represent a demographic you’re after. Ask if they can recommend someone that might fit in. Students, for instance, will surely be more than happy to recommend their colleagues of similar backgrounds who share both their interests and competencies. It’s a win-win scenario. If you allow your employees a chance to help a friend of their demographic to land a job, you show that you value their opinion. Let them promote the company for you. Give them the tools to locate a new team member, and consider throwing in a bonus if the employee delivers. They will be glad to recommend the job and you might find a perfect addition to the team sooner than you’d think.
Diversity hiring should be promoted in the sourcing process itself by auditing the job roles and making changes that diversity demands. The language used shouldn’t be aimed at a specific job location and should be inclusive to ensure that candidates from the diverse background all connecting with. If you feel that there is one culture or geographical location that isn’t present in your organization, don’t hesitate to mention it in the job ads. The ad is what interacts first with the job seeker and if it’s diverse, the hiring would be diverse too. So, start auditing your job roles and make them appealing to everyone.
Continue to recruit constantly, not only when there are current openings at your company. Establishing a diverse workplace involves a driven, continuous motivation–not one that gets flipped on and off like a lightswitch when a position comes available. Ensure you are still building connections and learning about new and diverse potential applicants consistently, and you’ll find that, whenever a position does come available, you may have several exceptional, qualified candidates in mind.
When recruiting diverse candidates, make sure your application and interview processes allow candidates to show their creativity and uniqueness. It can be time consuming to review portfolios, watch video applications, or visit candidates’ websites, but these things are easy ways for them to highlight their unique talents. Take the extra time to review applications and portfolios manually rather than using an automated system that might inadvertently weed out the best candidates.
If you want to prioritize diversity in your hiring process, look for candidates in out of the box places. You can partner with universities and local groups, attend job fairs, or use different kinds of job posting websites. Looking in new places for candidates can increase your chances of finding different kinds of people to hire.
Job candidates, especially diverse job candidates are used to being on the lookout for false sincerity. Be careful not to incidentally (or otherwise) use broad marketing tactics to try and attract attention. If your companies outreach approach put a lot of diverse images and actors in their media but a quick look on your website shows a predominantly non-diverse workforce, that will be a big red flag. Its completely possible to be open to diverse hiring without presenting a false image of your company’s current culture. Your policies and worker benefits should reflect your company’s willingness to include diverse hires. Strong inclusive company behaviors have a far greater reach than surface level visual appeal.
Your company culture is the very foundation of making your employees feel supported and safe at all times. If you breed an environment of diversity and inclusivity, as well as offer an open-door policy, then your team will always feel at ease, and ready to be engaged and productive. Be sure to explain your SOPs regarding this during onboarding, and even give your current team an occasional reminder that you want MANY voices at the table.
CEO at Psychics 1on1
Answered 4 years ago
Diversity and inclusive training are the catalysts for diversifying the hiring process, teaching new employees about discrimination, and the benefits of working with different cultures and religions to improve a company’s track record. Most Fortune 500 companies conduct this form of training. It teaches connection and increases productivity. Lastly, diversity and inclusion are excellent tools to mend the racial divide for a better workforce.
Make diversity and inclusion your trademarks and–to attract more diverse job applicants–be sure it shows. To achieve this, add variety to your recruiting team first. Include people of different genders, ages, sexual orientations, and ethnic backgrounds. Their presence may serve as a “tool” to verify potential candidates on the level of unconscious bias. Also, ensure that job offers are free from exclusive descriptions and gender bias. Appeal to a candidate pool with different backgrounds. Hiring managers should always have in mind that diversity is a blessing and thanks to it, companies get the best of all worlds.