How Recruiters Can and Should Drive Diversity Hiring

By Victoria Robertson on December 8, 2020

While diverse hiring practices are not new to 2020, they have increased exponentially in 2020, and that trend is likely to continue in the coming year. So, as we experience this influx of diverse hiring across various industries, it makes sense to look at your company’s own practices.

Regardless of your clientele, the desire for diverse hires is increasing, which means you should be optimizing your practices to include more diverse candidate bases. For that reason, and in order to help you get started, here are a few methods to help increase your base of eligible, diverse candidates.

Photo Via: Pixabay

1. Partner with Diverse Networks

There are countless diverse networks available out there, inclusive of organizations dedicated to assisting diverse candidates in their job searches. As a recruiter, partnering with these organizations will help to ensure you have a diverse database of individuals to recruit from.

There are also diversity groups locally and online that you can tap into when you’re searching for candidates for a position, so utilize these in order to accurately recruit diverse candidates that are qualified for the position in question.

2. Talk to the Hiring Managers

Oftentimes, a conversation with the hiring managers is helpful in alleviating any biases that may be present. While this isn’t always possible, as sometimes you won’t know anything about the hiring manager, in cases in which you do, you should have a conversation with the hiring managers regarding the candidates you will be presenting.

You can then select candidates that will not only be a personality fit, but that will also excel in the role. In doing so, even the biases the hiring manager isn’t aware of can be dissipated.

3. Use the Right Verbiage in Your Postings

There are countless studies out there regarding hiring diverse candidates and the verbiage that employers use in their job posts. So, in short, if you want to attract diverse candidates, you should be putting up postings that will appeal to them.

These studies show that certain verbiage doesn’t appeal to certain candidates. For instance, phrases like “rockstar employees” are statistically less effective than other phrases in attracting diverse candidates.

4. Highlight Important Elements for Diversity

Oftentimes, when posting a position online, you simply post the job description and maybe a blurb about the corporate lifestyle. However, when it comes to hiring diverse candidates, you should also be posting information on the corporate culture as it relates to diversity.

For instance, does the organization have an internal diversity team? Do they have any specific policies or plans that relate specifically to diversity? Are there any team photos that showcase their diversity? These are all elements that will appeal to more diverse candidates, as many are seeking such elements in corporate culture.

5. Build a Database of Diverse Candidates

Your recruitment database says a lot about the candidates that you attract. If you are noticing that your database is lacking in diversity, you need to change the methods that you utilize to attract diverse candidates.

For instance, if you notice most of your recruitment pipeline is filled with white men, you should look at the avenues you’re utilizing for recruitment. Are you working solely on referrals? Or have you been joining social media groups that attract certain groups of people?

When it comes down to it, your style of recruiting can leave out many diverse candidates simply because they aren’t on the same platforms or in the same groups that you utilize in your daily recruitment efforts. So, rather than continue down this path, you should ensure you are looking at other avenues and build out your diversity plan accordingly.

6. Utilize Social Media

Last, but certainly not least, if you’re not utilizing social media in your recruitment efforts, you are missing a giant opportunity for success. That aside, social media is hugely important to increased pools of diverse candidates.

For instance, there are countless groups on LinkedIn and Facebook that you can join to attract more diverse candidates, and LinkedIn allows you to target and message candidates that specifically seek certain elements in their job search (such as corporate culture).

In utilizing social media, you are opening a door to a whole new pool of candidates, which will, in turn, increase the overall diversity of said candidates.

Improving diversity within corporations (across various industries) is growing in popularity. While it may have taken a while to get here (in terms of growing corporate diversity on a mass scale), we are finally here, which means it’s time to optimize your recruitment methods to match the industry trends.

These tips and tricks are a great starting point in terms of recruiting more diversity, though you should seek additional methods to ensure you’re able to recruit the most diverse group of candidates for your clients. Happy searching!

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Get College Recruiting News Monthly

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format