6 Steps To Hiring & Attracting Diverse Candidates For Your Business
In order for businesses to thrive in this day and age, it’s critical that we are all more aware of the importance of workplace diversity.
Part of this awareness means taking steps to ensure that your work environment is welcoming to people of all backgrounds.
It is also important to be aware of how to be inclusive during the job hiring process so you can avoid diverse but qualified individuals being unintentionally left out.
A business full of diverse people will certainly be run better and be full of more ideas that will help it grow. Diversity in the workplace is a competitive advantage.
Today Infinity Staffing will share our tips for helping your company attract and hire more diverse candidates.
Step One: Establish What Diversity Hiring Is
Perhaps you already have a good understanding of this, and you just want more knowledge on how to attract and hire diverse individuals.
However, if you don’t know as much as you would like, it is a good idea to work to understand the importance and value of workplace diversity.
Knowing what diversity hiring is is a necessary first step. Once you have a good understanding of this, be sure to share the vision with your current team.
Ideal says the definition of diversity hiring is:
“Hiring based on merit with special care taken to ensure procedures are free from biases related to a candidate’s age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and other personal characteristics that are unrelated to their job performance.”
Being educated and aware is a great place to start.
Step Two: Assess Your Current Hiring Process
This is a good time to evaluate what your organization is doing right and where change is needed.
Take the necessary time to go through your whole hiring process.
Ask yourself throughout each phase if there could be any discrepancies or problem areas that make it more difficult for diverse individuals to be hired.
Some of these may be biases you and your staff aren’t even aware of, but that need to be discussed and remedied.
When you identify problem areas, come together with your team, and discuss how to best fix these issues.
Identifying the problem areas within your company will ensure that you are on the road to attracting more diverse employees to your business.
Step Three: Create A Clear Organizational Commitment
As an organization, it is important to establish your beliefs on diversity.
Write it in your business plan. Do all you can to make your drive to have a diverse organization a part of your company’s DNA.
It should be very clear to all employees that it is an environment that cherishes and thrives off of diversity and that anything less will not be tolerated.
One way to do this is to take any type of bigotry or hate talk very seriously.
Do not allow staff to ever create an unwelcoming environment. Set a high standard of how everyone is to treat each other.
Another way to do this is by having a very diverse staff. Diversity welcomes more diversity.
Highlight your organization’s commitment to diversity on your career website and your job descriptions.
This way it is very clear that you are an organization that strongly believes in workplace diversity as a priority.
Step Four: Recruit From Diverse Talent Pools
Some businesses try to be more diverse but end up looking in the wrong spots.
“In order to hire diverse candidates, you need to consider widening your talent pool.
Have you tried proactively sourcing and adding veterans, autistic people, ex-offenders, LGBTIQ people, people over 40, people with disabilities, etc. to your talent pool?
Make an effort to reach diverse candidates by placing your job ads in additional magazines, websites, and forums visited by underrepresented groups or dedicated to minorities.”
Strategically widening your search could do wonders in attracting diverse candidates.
Step Five: Educate Recruiters On Unconscious Bias
Unconscious bias is a topic that has come more to light in recent years. It is a big problem in the world, especially with job hiring.
UCFS defines unconscious bias as,
“Unconscious biases are social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their conscious awareness.
Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various social and identity groups, and these biases stem from one’s tendency to organize social worlds by categorizing.”
Biases that most people are unaware of have impacted the hiring process. Recruiters need to be educated about unconscious bias and trained on how to not let it affect who they are hiring.
Hiring should be based on who is best for the job and who will add value to the company. Unconscious biases often get in the way of recruiters seeing who the best candidate truly is.
Step Six: Reevaluate Often And Be Strategic
The key to success in this area is to reevaluate and be strategic.
Every few months evaluate how your company is doing at attracting and hiring diverse individuals. Make changes as you need to, and always continue to educate your staff on diversity.
Be strategic in your hiring process. Try to find the best diverse channels to advertise jobs. Look into the most successful hiring process tactics. And always hire the candidate who is most qualified for the job.
If you need unbiased help adding qualified staff to your business contact Infinity Staffing today!