Diversity recruiting steps

- The steps in a diversity recruitment process are no different than the steps you take now to recruit every day. What is different is you. In each of the main steps in recruiting, the job description, your sourcing, screening, and interview process, you have to remain aware that bias, discriminatory practices, and unsavory behaviors are all lurking. You have to be committed to identifying and overcoming these behaviors. Take the example of a man with a beard who applies for a job. We assume that no one cares if he has a beard. During the interview, we might care if it's bushy, extremely long or dyed purple. But if you have a general run-of-the-mill beard, no one gives it a second thought, right? Unless you're considering running for President of the United States. There hasn't been a single president with a beard in more than a hundred years. Is that a coincidence or would you say that the people of the United States have a bias towards men without beards? If you could run for president, would you consider shaving your beard in order to have a higher chance of success? Think about that for a moment. You are highly qualified to be president, you meet all of the criteria, you are in great health and ready to take on the world, literally, but you are spending time wondering if your beard would prevent you from even being taken seriously as a candidate. This is what women, professionals of color, veterans, professionals with a disability, non-heterosexual candidates, and older professionals all struggle with. They want to know they are being assessed on their skills and not being immediately rejected because of a particular dimension of diversity. The job of CEO is another example. Of the 479 male CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in the United States, monosyllabic names were most prevalent. Pete was at the top, followed by Bob, Jack, Bruce, and Fred. Is there a bias against men named Jeffrey or Thomas? Have they shortened their names to Jeff and Tom coincidentally? Simply by being aware of this bias, you may find that more resumes with names like Jeremy or Bartholomew, or even Keisha or Jamal, make it past the screening process. Where does this come into play in your recruiting process? Who is doing your screening? How were they trained? What traits are they told to look for? Let's backtrack for a moment to what is usually one of the first steps in the recruiting process, designing the job ad. It's supposed to attract candidates but if it contains sexist language or information that is common only to a specific community, you are inadvertently discouraging candidates from ever applying, thereby narrowing your candidate pool before you even begin. So encouraging a candidate to apply in the first place by reviewing and revising your job descriptions is part of what you have to tackle in a diversity recruitment initiative. This is why each step in the recruitment process needs to be reviewed and revised as appropriate. Otherwise, you can be sabotaging your outcomes before you've even begun. Diversity recruiting is the active commitment to increase diversity within an organization. It's a concerted effort to overcome the traditional lens we are conditioned to look through and move towards engaging candidates who are not usually on your radar for any number of reasons. Each individual step in the diversity recruiting process impacts your desired outcome as a whole. Therefore, in order to create a successful process, your steps have to mimic those of the general recruiting process with deliberate attempts to act without bias.