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DEI Recruiting: 5 Simple Strategies for Diversifying Your Candidate Pool

19 May, 2022

by Laura Close
DEI Recruiting: 5 Simple Strategies for Diversifying Your Candidate Pool

While diverse teams outperform their homogeneous counterparts––spurring innovation and increasing revenue––the pandemic halted and in some cases damaged efforts to cultivate diversity in the workplace. Now, in the midst of what some call the Great Resignation–organizations have the opportunity to be strategic and leverage new technology to diversify their candidate pools. Remote work allows recruiters to draw talent from anywhere, meaning their local demographics are no longer determinant. Opportunity is in the air, and with the right strategies and tools, recruiting diversely is more accessible than ever before.

Here are some ways to see success with DEI recruiting.

1. Get Involved

While listing open positions on your website and job boards is a good starting point, networking with outside organizations offers a great way to expand your DEI recruiting efforts. Job fairs for minorities and recent graduates can help you find highly skilled candidates from underrepresented backgrounds.

Other in-person events and conferences can prove fruitful. For example, veterans are a seldom-considered resource that often possesses diverse skills and knowledge. By connecting with Military Transition Centers and posting on military-specific job boards, you can target this particular group with greater precision.

 

2. Expand Your Reach

Beyond directly reaching out to candidates through networking, you can partner with your marketing team to develop recruitment campaigns, tailored by channel.

Social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook allow you to target potential candidates on a granular level, often by age, race, and gender. By leveraging these paid media features, you can make sure that your marketing campaign is seen by the exact groups you’re trying to reach.

 

3. Update, Adjust Your DEI Brand

The basis of your company’s approach to diversity, your DEI statement should clearly outline how your company is committed to furthering diversity in the workplace.

Even if potential candidates never view your DEI statement, clearly delineating how DEI initiatives dovetail with your corporate mission will have a downstream effect and can boost your employer brand.

 

4. Cultivate an Employee Referral Program

If your company doesn’t already have an employee referral program, then it’s time to start one and publicize it through your internal communication channels. Tapping into existing connections within your workplace is a great way to find talent and can demonstrate that you trust your employees helping to improve morale.

When informing team members of a push to recruit within their networks, you should feel free to mention the groups you’re actively seeking. One study finds that this has a demonstrable effect on attracting and retaining diverse hires.

 

5. Leverage Data

No matter the scope or target of your DEI initiatives, the most important piece of the puzzle will be your hiring process. All of the targeted outreach can only bring people into your funnel. From there, it’s up to your recruiters to figure out how they can embrace diversity throughout each step. This is where a solution like Included comes in handy.

Included allows you to track candidates’ progress throughout your hiring process, broken out by demographic groups like race and gender. Most importantly, this software will generate insights allowing you to know and resolve equity gaps causing particular demographics to drop out of the process at a statistically significant rate.

During the pandemic, many DEI initiatives were stalled as teams scrambled to figure out sustainable solutions to remote work. Now, with many teams returning to work––and others embracing hybrid or remote models––it’s time to double down on DEI recruiting efforts. The place to start is with your hiring.

Accelerate DEI Recruiting

Laura Close

Laura Close is co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer at Included.ai. She brings twenty years of experience in the DEI space, originating as a political campaigns & policy expert in racial, gender, and economic justice in the late 90s. Laura has spent her career locking in new structural opportunities and institutional access for historically excluded or underrepresented communities. Previously she built an award-winning global executive coaching firm with a client base spanning FAANG and unicorn startups. Her insights have been featured in MarketWatch, the Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM), and she was named an HR tech influencer to follow in 2022.

Learn more about Included, book your demo here.

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