Do your recruitment tactics inadvertently cause people to avoid applying to your company’s jobs? Though it’s a critically important question for all organizations, it can be difficult to answer.
But that doesn’t mean it has to be. Here are three tactics your team needs to scrap—or rethink—to deepen your diverse talent pool.
Let’s start with a familiar one: employee referrals.
There’s no denying that employee referrals have an impact on hiring: They reduce cost-per-hire and can cut the time it takes to hire a new employee. While that might sound enticing, when you dig in to the data it’s not as straightforward. In fact, too many employee referrals can hurt your company. One group in particular is 40 percent more likely to be the recipient of employee referrals: white men. That portends to a homogenous workforce.
Employee referrals—in moderation—should be a tool in your team’s recruitment toolbox, but understand different instrument are needed.
A fully represented workforce doesn’t happen overnight. Instead, it’s like Field of Dreams—if you build an inclusive application process, diverse candidates will come.
You may be unaware that there are demographics dropping out of your hiring funnel before they even apply. One group is candidates with disabilities: Nine percent of these applicants don’t finish job applications because of usability issues.
Here’s how to ensure your company’s site is accessible for everyone:
● Make sure your site’s compatible with a screen reader
● Use alt-text on images to describe visuals
These are just two ways to build an inclusive application process. Of course, your team may still be guilty of this last issue.
Employer branding isn’t just a cog in your hiring machine. It drives candidates through your efficient hiring funnel. And diverse candidates can better understand a career—or company—they never knew existed because of content like articles and videos. Your organization, therefore, should utilize employer branding to showcase your culture—and how you value D&I.
On the flip side, businesses that belie—or completely neglect—D&I when highlighting their culture stand to lose a great deal. Gen Z embraces 2-D diversity, and 77 percent of them want to work for multidimensional companies.
And let’s not forget Millennials: According to the Institute for Public Relations, 47 percent of them consider the D&I of a workplace an important criterion in their job search. That figure represents a 14 percent increase from their predecessors (Gen Xers—33 percent). By 2025, Millennials and Gen Z will make up more than half of the U.S. workforce, so you can see why this is a critical recruitment issue.
To recruit and hire a diverse workforce, you need to think like the next generation—and have a strategy to match your aspirations.
