How to Increase Diversity in Recruitment: 10 Best Practices

We’re on a mission to find unity in a world full of different genders, races, backgrounds, religions, sexual orientations, and more. We at Revaluate180 believe that there’s unity in diversity, so hiring diverse candidates has become the foundation of our workplace culture.

Now, it’s not just about hiring diverse candidates. Building a diverse culture is a meticulous process of avoiding any unconscious bias that comes along with the complexities. While lots of planning goes with it, its sole purpose is to bring joy from around the world with diverse aspects that people inherit. Therefore, companies prioritizing diversity enjoy increased productivity, innovation, brand presence, and core identity.

This ultimately cultivates a deeper bond between the organization and broadens the customer base in the long term. In this post, we’ll learn how to increase diversity in recruitment and explore the 10 best practices for building more inclusive teams and reducing bias in hiring decisions.

What is Diversity Recruiting?

Diversity recruitment is a strategic process of seeking candidates from various ethnic, economic, and gender backgrounds. It concerns creating a hiring process that gives everyone a fair shot and recognizing that potential talent comes from all around the world.

Why is Diversity Recruiting Important Today?

Diversity in recruitment is vital to an organization because of its many ripple effects. First, diversity leads to greater innovation. It’s easy to see how a wider range of inventive and analytical minds can lead to more imaginative, sound solutions to complex problems. Differences in perspectives and cultures help companies make products that meet a broader range of customers’ needs.

Due to its widespread nature, diversity has become a crucial aspect of the organization. While becoming the ultimate hub for do-it-all things, it’s also leading the innovation space in the industry. It’s clear how a wide range of socio-ethnic minds can bring creative solutions to the table.

It’s also evident how a change in perspective and culture can help companies create products that serve a wider range of customers. As externally beneficial as it is, having leaders with diverse backgrounds can also resolve internal conflicts. In conclusion, every aspect of diversity in company culture contributes to a 19% higher revenue management.

Therefore, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) model is becoming more popular among candidates and companies. If you’re not on the frontier of the diverse world outside, you’ll lose out on the top talent relevant to this space.

Key Benefits of a Diverse Workforce

Hiring diverse candidates comes with its own set of strategic benefits:

1. Improved Innovation and Creativity

Candidates from diverse backgrounds bring unique perspectives and experiences to the table. When people with such backgrounds come together, they propose new ideas and drive fast-paced innovation with a new, productive energy at the workplace.

While innovation and creativity are the driving factors of company success, according to the diversity recruitment reports by McKinsey & Company, a diverse workforce is 35% more likely to outperform its competitors in all quarters.

2. Better Decision-Making and Problem-Solving

Companies with a diverse workforce have options from all perspectives, giving them a space to push forward creative solutions that are otherwise sidelined due to a lack of opportunity to provide input.

While decision-making accounts for up to 95% of business performance, companies with diverse workforces make better decisions 87% of the time.

3. Stronger Employer Brand and Candidate Appeal

Employer branding and recruitment strategies are two sides of the same coin. A strong employer brand attracts a diverse talent pool, and diverse talent is more attracted to a strong brand identity.

While being a double-edged sword in the business, unity in diversity has become the foundation of future-ready employees who are ready for any challenge.

4. Broader Market Insights and Customer Connection

Just like employer branding and recruitment go hand in hand, candidate appeal and customer connection define the seamless alignment of organizational goals. A strong customer connection helps evaluate your brand’s USP and becomes a staple of comprehensive progress when exposed to strategic market insights.

Insightful data isn’t just about marketing your brand; it’s about using emotional intelligence influenced by all the diverse factors discovered in the data.

10 Best Practices to Increase Diversity in Recruitment

The following recruitment strategies focus on the diverse aspect of hiring candidates, considering the following factors:

• How to shortlist a diverse candidate?
• How can a diverse candidate be screened without any bias?
• How to hire a diverse candidate?

1. Audit and Improve Job Descriptions

Now that we have a job vacancy in the company, let’s start with the job ads. This is crucial in starting a diversity survey for recruitment because unconscious bias often begins here.

• Audit for inclusive language: Using an esoteric language will risk alienating your potential candidates. A company with an inclusive workforce is open-minded and welcomes a universal dialogue. If you think esoteric phrases are being used officially, you can use tools like Textio to spot biased language and rectify it.
• Be specific and honest: After conducting thorough research, you must define what’s truly required when auditing for a diverse position. Clear, concise, and non-inflated words will give you the right job description.
• Focus on outcomes: A paradigm shift from listing the required tasks to describing what success looks like in your company will benefit you fairly.

2. Expand Where You Source Candidates

Are you still relying on older hiring practices? If yes, think again. Your usual hiring channel may be outdated, and you need to move on to an innovative hiring process with inclusive talent shortlisting.

• Targeting diverse job boards: Posting to platforms that prioritize diversity, such as DiversityJobs, Black Career Network, Women in Technology, and more, will instantly connect you to the ecosystem.
• Partnering with relevant institutions like HBCUs: Building relationships with underrepresented institutions within your niche will give you the benefit of the cause that is unity in diversity.
• Create targeted internships: Offering early-career programs explicitly aimed at the diverse student population will help you build the foundation of future-ready employees.

3. Leverage Employee Networks

Now that we understand how to find the best sources for potential candidates, curating and expanding this employee’s network will gradually help you build powerful allies in your company. Here are some examples:

• Encourage referrals from diverse staff: Incentivizing the diverse and inclusive employees who refer similar candidates can positively affect the work culture paradigm shift.
• Build strong Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): You can use intellectual employee resources in the company to connect with external communities for potential hires.
• Use the inclusive circle for hiring: Rather than solely depending on posting job listings, understand your internal cultural dynamics with all the diverse factors included to find like-minded people who are supposed to be more suited to your organization.

4. Reevaluate Screening Criteria

Now that we understand how to cultivate a network of powerful allies, let’s talk about screening the potential candidates.

There may be an exclusion in your traditional screening strategy. If you think you need to reevaluate your criteria to include diverse minds, here are a few things you need to understand:

• Be aware of unconscious bias: Train your employees to locate and mitigate any unconscious biases during the screening. Doing this will create firm procedures solely built on diversity and equity.
• Remove unnecessary requirements: Does the potential hire really need a degree from a top-tier university? Ask yourself about the core requirements needed for the position before screening any candidate. Now filter, curate, and schedule your interview with candidates.
• Use skill-based assessments: Focusing on what candidates have done rather than where they’re coming from will help you mitigate your unconscious bias.

5. Use Technology to Reduce Bias

How can you remove subjective biases and give way to objective truth? Here are some technologies and concepts you can use to leverage your recruitment ideas:

• Blind resume tools: The trend of blind resumes is rising among companies prioritizing a diverse workforce. Removing names, academic sources, and other socio-economic factors will help you make objective hiring decisions.
• AI resume review tools: Since the subjective reality around us primarily influences us, AI tools designed with equity in mind help shortlist candidates without biases.
• ATS features: You can anonymize candidate reviews using applicant tracking systems (ATS) with DEI filters.
• Blind interviews: Do you feel ashamed of turning on your camera while screening? Not anymore! Because you’re doing it for a good cause. Considering asynchronous video tools, where the initial goal is to screen candidates anonymously, will give you a non-biased picture of the candidate.

6. Improve Interview Processes

Here’s how you can standardise and train your interview process and employers for the greater cause:

• Structured interviews: Create a structured interview process that serves everyone equally. An effectively revised recruitment process can potentially become a staple of your diverse hiring initiative.
• Bias training for interviewers: Ensuring every interviewer is trained in inclusive practices will further reduce unconscious bias and help make objective decisions.
• Panel interviews: Your panel of employers will represent the diverse culture of your company. Therefore, choose wisely and help them do the same when it comes to hiring new candidates.

7. Establish Inclusive Company Policies

Diverse, inclusive policies keep the company culture together. Here are some of the most effective HR policies for understanding cultural dynamics:

• Craft creative and inclusive HR policies: Having creative and inclusive policies in action can significantly impact the work culture. Factors such as anti-discrimination dialogue, equitable benefits, and bias-free resolutions can be creatively integrated into the policy.
• Highlight flexibility and accessibility: Diversity comes with its own complexities. While the company aims to become a diverse socio-economic hub, resolving those complexities should be a fundamental policy. How? Offering flexible work hours, remote work, and accommodations will help employees feel comfortable and motivated at work..
• Promote DEI initiatives: Since DEI initiatives are a core tenet of Revaluate180, promoting them offers their strategic benefits.

8. Build a Diverse Hiring Team

From the employer’s perspective, a team can make or break the organization. A diverse team of well-trained employees is responsible for building a whole ecosystem of diversified allies that are more productive and flexible to new challenges. Here’s how:

• Diversifying the recruiters: Hire a team of diverse recruiters and train them to lead the network to cultivate like-minded people.
• Training recruiters in DEI: Ensure your recruiting team is very familiar with the principles of DEI.
• Use cross-functional hiring panels: A cross-functional hiring panel has strategic benefits. It will broaden your hiring input and minimize any individual bias in the workplace.

9. Set and Promote Diversity Goals

Promoting intentional diversity goals is also an integral part of the process. Here’s why:

• Setting realistic, public goals: Using analytics to track and share your diversity metrics will boost your economic productivity.
• Monitor shortlists: Ensure your shortlisted candidates successfully make it to the interview process.
• Market your DEI work: You can share progress in DEI contributions through social media and your company website's career page.

10. Offer Equitable Development Opportunities

Employee development and experience are rapidly rising market trends, so including favorable policies after hiring the candidate also equally contributes to the initiative. Here’s how you can include equitable development opportunities for employees:

• Creating mentorship programs: A strong mentorship program can easily accelerate diversified growth in the workplace.
• Offer career development support: Having equal access to leadership training and advancement is incredibly beneficial for growth opportunities.

How Revaluate180 Helps Organizations Recruit Diverse, Values-Aligned Talent

At Revaluate180, our values align with how our potential candidates approach different collaborations, respond to diverse perspectives, and whether their goals are aligned with the company’s mission.

Using our proprietary analytics and value profiling we deliver quantifiable insights into a candidate’s potential fit within specific roles and teams. We also offer tailored development programs to help diverse talent grow into influential leaders who enhance team cohesion and performance.

Our approach towards boosting engagement, well-being, and productivity is to drive long-term growth and retention.