It’s almost 2022 and having a diversity recruiting strategy in place is a must. Diversity recruiting has been a hot topic for years now in recruitment, and almost all reputable companies and recruitment agencies advocate for it.
If you are new to diversity recruiting, or you are looking for the best tips to kick off your diversity recruitment campaign in 2022, then you are at the right place.
In this comprehensive guide, we will talk about:
- What is diversity recruiting?
- Why is having a diversity recruiting strategy important?
- Impactful Tricks to Kick Off Your Diversity Recruitment Campaign in 2022
- Reassessing Job Requirements
- Enhance Your Employee Referral Program and Enhance Diversity Recruiting
- Reduce Bias During Sourcing to Improve Diversity Recruiting
- Use Social Media
- Focus Your Efforts
- Utilize the Power of Diversity Recruiting Software
- Develop Company Policies That Attract Diverse Groups
- Expert’s Advice on Diversity Recruiting
- Best Diversity Recruiting Software
Without further ado, let’s dive in.
But before that, did you know that good recruiting software can help you level up your diversity recruitment strategies in no time? Check out Recruiteze and iReformat, and find out how they can help you eliminate any unconscious bias while recruiting.
What is Diversity Recruiting
Merriam-Webster defines diversity as follows:
“The state of having people who are different races or who have different cultures in a group or organization.”
Based on this definition, we can say that diversity recruiting is the act of recruiting candidates from a variety of backgrounds with the hopes of creating a diverse workplace.
While some recruiters, HR professionals, and company owners fully understand the importance of diversity recruiting, others continue to fall into the trap of hiring the same “type” of people, time after time.
Here is the good thing: diversity recruiting is easier than most people believe. All it takes is a solid understanding of the importance, a targeted strategy, and the ability to focus solely on talent (not assumptions).
Why is Having a Diversity Recruiting Strategy Important?
It’s 2022, and being inclusive in a workspace is a must due to several reasons:
- Increased productivity – Research has shown that just a 1% increase in racial diversity increases firm productivity by between $729 and $1590 per employee per year.
- Increased creativity – Diversity in a workspace encourages free and creative thinking and new approaches to problem-solving.
- Boosting innovation – Diversity and inclusivity has proven to increase the innovation and financial results.
- Better employer brand – Being inclusive has a tremendous positive impact on your employer brand, making you stand out amongst competitors (other employers/companies) and gain positive brand awareness.
Harvard University set out to answer this critical question.
Every company is likely to have a unique response, but here are some of the top reasons for its importance:
- Different backgrounds lead to new ideas and fresh ways of doing things.
- A diverse staff allows people from all backgrounds to learn more about each other, thus creating a positive atmosphere valued relationships.
- Building a reputation for a diverse workplace makes it easier to attract top talent regardless of background.
Impactful Tricks to Kick Off Your Diversity Recruitment Campaign in 2022
1. Reassessing Job Requirements
Often, those who write job descriptions will include some sort of equal employment opportunity language but don’t necessarily think about the factors that influence the chances of certain candidates applying.
For example, a 2014 Harvard Business Review story found women typically won’t apply for positions unless they feel that they meet 100 percent of the requirements. By contrast, men will apply for a position if they can meet up to 60 percent of the job requirements.
Therefore, be careful to include requirements that include a specific number (i.e., 5 years of experience) unless the requirement is absolutely necessary. If your goal is just to hire someone to fill the position, fine.
However, in the case of improving your diversity efforts, you may be missing out on a potentially great employee by adding irrelevant information to your job description.
2. Enhance Your Employee Referral Program and Enhance Diversity Recruiting
We’ve said it before, and we’ll repeat it.
One of your best diversity recruiting sources is your current workforce. In particular, diverse employees tend to know and talk to other diverse individuals.
Therefore, to capitalize on your employees’ network, now may be a great time to beef up the employee-referral recruiting program at your organization. This should include a very specific and deliberate message about your business’s need for a diverse workforce and the importance your company places on diverse referrals.
Be sure to communicate your organization’s goals and what you’re planning to do to build a more diverse and inclusive workforce with your employees.
3. Reduce Bias During Sourcing to Improve Diversity Recruiting
Even the most experienced and diverse recruiters may let unconscious hiring bias take over when sourcing candidates. Black, white, Latino, Asian, male or female recruiters often end up looking at twice as many males as female profiles while searching for candidates.
While unconscious bias training can help, it may be more useful to consider deleting a candidate’s name or even taking gender completely out of the equation by labeling resumes with a number instead of names.
On a similar note, if you want to remove discrimination based on socioeconomic background, you can remove addresses as well.
Great recruitment and resume formatting software can help you with blind hiring. It can hide all the sensitive information on the resume that can trigger recruiters to make biased decisions.
Reducing bias at this stage of your recruitment process is a step in the right direction for a more diverse workforce.
4. Use Social Media
You’re likely already using social media to build your employer brand. If not, social media is an incredibly easy way to improve your diversity recruitment efforts.
However, social media also allows you to identify and target very specific candidates. For example, LinkedIn is an incredibly effective diversity recruitment and sourcing tool. If they aren’t already, have your recruiters join LinkedIn so they can start to develop long-term relationships with active group members, as well as post relevant openings or company updates.
Additionally, Facebook can be an effective channel to target your ideal diverse candidates. For example, Facebook allows you to target specific demographics and create targeted advertising campaigns on Facebook to reach diverse student groups.
You can also create a “Diversity Careers” Facebook Page and promote it through a targeted advertising campaign.
If you are ready to start your recruitment campaigns on social media, ensure to check our comprehensive guides on:
5. Focus Your Efforts
If you are serious about improving your diversity recruiting, it starts with a focused approach that starts with creating the perfect candidate funnel and making online recruiting easy.
We have written numerous articles on how marketing and sales can help you with more focused, streamlined, and efficient recruiting. Here are some of them:
- How to build the ideal applicant funnel
- Recruitment marketing
- Most important recruitment metrics to track in 2022
- SMB recruiting strategies
- Using recruitment automation
6. Utilize the Power of Diversity Recruiting Software
We tackled this a bit when talking about blind hiring and reducing the hiring bias.
What diversity recruitment software does, in a nutshell, is that it hides any information about the candidate that might influence a recruiter to make a biased hiring decision. That information includes:
- Name and surname
- Photo
- Age
- Sex
- Education
- Origin
- Etc.
If you wish to learn more about this, here is our guide on Blind Resume Software.
If you want to start using this software and streamline your diversity recruitment strategy, then try out iReformat for free.
iReformat allows you to source, parse and reformat dozens of resumes in just a couple of seconds while hiding any information that might make you biased along the way. All it takes is a couple of clicks, and you will be presented with blind, reformatted resumes.
7. Develop Company Policies That Attract Diverse Groups
It is simple.
Develop policies that support people of underrepresented groups and minorities and build relationships with them. It takes time, but the ROI is massive. Depending on the industry you recruit for, these groups might be:
- Females
- LGBTQ+ people
- Religious or racial minorities
- Baby boomers
- Etc.
Once you determine who are the sensitive and often discriminated groups of people in your industry, you will easily tailor your communication and policies to appeal to them.
Good Reads for 2022:
- Best Resume Database Software in 2022
- Communication and Candidate Experience
- How to Start a Staffing Agency in 2022