Are recruitment shortlists a positive step towards cultural diversity?

According to Ideal.com, shortlisting is the process of identifying candidates who best meet the desired criteria for a job; if the candidate is suitable, the decision to bypass the candidate to the next stage of the recruitment process will be made.

The process encompasses finding candidates with the correct skillset, personality to coincide with that of the existing team and general suitability to the role, to make an adequate hire – not by exercising a tick-box hiring process to satisfy cultural diversity quotas.

Managing Director of Macildowie, James Taylor, says he doesn’t think the kind of ‘positive discrimination’ that recruitment shortlists breed is the way forward. He feels that employers should, instead, change their approach to recruiting and retaining staff.

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He says: “As part of a 2017 regulation aimed at bridging the gender pay gap across companies in the United Kingdom, employers have been encouraged to consider introducing fairer recruitment processes by banning all-male shortlists from applications.”