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Putting in place measures during the recruitment and hiring process that showcase inclusion and diversity as part of company culture will help to attract diverse candidates and demonstrate your commitment to being an inclusive workplace.
Equal opportunities and diversity and inclusion (ED&I) is a top priority on the HR & Recruitment agenda for in-house recruiters and the boardroom.
As an essential part of being an employer of choice, employees and prospective candidates now want to see employers demonstrating that they value ED&I as part of the culture. This includes treating individuals without discrimination, which applies to gender equality, age diversity, race inclusion, and disability at work.
CIPD’s viewpoint on inclusion and diversity can be viewed here.
Attracting diverse candidates
Putting in place measures during the recruitment and hiring process that showcase diversity and inclusion as part of company culture will help to attract diverse candidates and demonstrate your commitment to being an inclusive workplace.
Suppose we consider the recruitment and hiring process a candidate attraction funnel. In that case, we can break down the stages of promoting equal opportunities and diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Candidate attraction funnel
Awareness – The candidate is aware of your company. Perhaps they have visited your careers site
Your careers website is a great place to start. Peak-performing careers sites are twice as likely to have Diversity & Inclusion content*. You might also consider an assistive technology toolbar that makes your website digitally inclusive by allowing visitors to customise your content in a way that best works for them.
Interest – The candidate expresses initial interest, perhaps following you on Social Channels
The use of diverse imagery and gender-neutral language is a must. This should incorporate concepts relating to your ED&I policy, values and employee stories. Include videos with captions to make content accessible for vision or hearing impairments.
Consideration – The candidate is considering applying. Perhaps they have subscribed to your email alerts
Now that you have their consent to market to them, be sure to signpost your ED&I content in your communications – encouraging them to view your careers site for further details and help establish yourselves as an employer of choice.
Application - Candidate sends you their CV, joins Talent Pool, or applies for a job
Job adverts and job descriptions will indicate how an organisation operates and need to be crafted to be inclusive and engaging. Here is a free tool to check your job description for unconscious gender bias, length and recruitment best practice
CHECK MY JOB > https://www.eploy.co.uk/resources/toolbox/check-my-job/
Ideally, your applicant tracking system & recruitment software will go beyond this to check reading ease by analysing the structure and language of your content, checking unconscious gender bias and making wording suggestions to appeal to a broader range of candidates.
We can show you how easy it is to go a step beyond and how Eploy’s Applicant Tracking solution addresses question balance to help make job ads and descriptions more engaging with structured content, images, videos, or other rich content.
Evaluation – Candidate is within your hiring process
Organisations should ensure hiring managers are aware of their assumptions and biases that may influence their hiring decisions. Are you using blind hiring within your recruitment processes to aid this?
Joining – The candidate has been selected, and an offer made
Customise email communications that demonstrate your culture of inclusion where difference is embraced. Think about including this with onboarding videos and sharing of resources. Don’t forget to include feedback forms to ask candidates for feedback about specifics of the recruitment process and ED&I elements.
Review the practices you have in place and if they are still current
Monitoring recruitment processes and the diversity of applicants at different stages may pinpoint where issues lie and the steps that can be taken to address these.
Review your ED&I metrics to see if you are capturing the right metrics of the recruitment hiring process to measure and improve. If you don’t have metrics already in place or want to sense check what you have then this free Recruitment Metrics cookbook has some ideas for you.
It is worth noting that ideally, diversity data should only be available to those users who need it, better still if it is also abstracted from personally identifiable information when reported.
Get your free Recruitment Metrics Cookbook
