Top tips for inclusive recruitment

?A diverse workforce is proven to make you more profitable. So why are you delaying building more inclusive recruitment practices?

Hiring people from different backgrounds brings fresh ideas, innovation, and connections into new industries – and as competition increases, that fresh thinking could be crucial to give you the edge.

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1. Understanding the business case

85% of employers say that diversity in their workforce is a priority. A diverse leadership team makes better decisions and is more profitable, and having a colleague base that understands and represents diverse customers and service users is shown to gain market share, identify customer unmet needs and improve brand loyalty.

2. Think about job design and recruitment channels

As recruiters, you should be masters of the job description. But actually, there’s a lot of bad practice when it comes to job design - especially writing inclusive JDs and adverts.

Things to be aware of that can cause exclusion, discrimination or reduce the diversity of the candidate pool in advertising and application are:?

• Unconscious bias,
• Gendered language,
• Not specifying diversity requirements in the brief
• Non-accessible advertising
• Short advertising windows
• One-click cv options with no option for contextualising of experience or skills??

It’s important to cast the net as far and wide as possible, and actively attract diverse candidates. That means advertising internally, externally, and outside of the usual industry-specific places.

3. Support hiring managers to make the best inclusive decisions

Whether it’s unconscious bias, time pressures, or a lack of awareness, there are plenty of reasons that the recruitment process can trip people up when it comes to inclusion – especially when you’re trying to get new recruiters in quick.

Factor in enough time for a quality shortlisting – so you can be aware and limit things that can cause exclusion, discrimination or reduce the diversity of the candidate pool, like:

• Only one person making shortlisting decisions in isolation.
• CVs that disclose personal information such as an address, name, education institutions.
• A specific cap on the number of people allowed to be shortlisted (a guideline is better than a definitive number).
• Having an over-reliance on employee referrals as employees refer people like them, which doesn’t always support diversity.
• Looking for people who fit your ‘culture’ which can mean they’re a lot like you or the people you already have.

Interviews aren’t the only way to assess candidate competency, so try to use more than one approach – group assessments, job role auditions, presentations, in-tray exercises – different people shine in different scenarios. The most important thing is that the skills necessary for the role to be performed are assessed in a fair and transparent manner.?

4. Standardise your approach to recruitment

Following a process will ensure people aren’t making decisions based on their feelings or their bias. Have a scoring system and use the same questions across all applicants. It’s also good practice to regularly review how effective your processes are.

5. Collect and review data continuously

Finally, wherever you can, gather data to tell the story of your recruitment processes. Ask for feedback from your candidates about their experience. See where your applications tend to come from. Keep track of hiring trends.

Start to follow these tips and you'll begin to make an impact in the diversity of your recruitment process, and in turn, move the needle on your internal diversity and inclusion.

Need help with recruiting a talented, diverse back office function? We can help! Whether it's finance, marketing, operations, L&D, HR, talent acquisition, admin or your c-suite leaders, we have tried and tested methods of bringing clients diverse shortlists, packed full of heroes!

www.caminopartners.co.uk