
No More Excuses: Pro Tips for Diverse Hiring
TL:DR — simple ways to source and attract diverse talent sans the fluffy jargon:
- Support, sponsor, co-brand and hire from communities that reflect diverse backgrounds, cultures, skills and ideas (job boards such as Jopwell, HireTechLadies & Career Contessa are great resources)
- Start a referral program turning employees into investors of your company’s culture and success (simply creating “resume drop” folders on company drives are a wonderful way to cultivate employees buy in)
- Practice inclusive language in both speech and writing, from job listings to company meetings (cite key culture fit requirements for the job and include less long-winded, “cut and paste” job descriptions)
At the Betaworks #Diversebuilders series in NYC, I, along with Allison Esposito of HireTechLadies and Meghan Wheeler of Life Labs Learning, discussed actionable steps anyone can use to source and hire more diverse candidates, retain diverse leadership and build a culture of inclusion. I was invited thanks to my connection with Badassery, a digital platform and community that connects diverse professionals to speaking opportunities and each other. The #Diversebuilders conversation, held amongst professionals interested in building startups with an inclusive lens, was punctuated by a central theme: it’s never too late to build a diverse team and the earlier you commit to a diverse hiring strategy the better your growth prospects. Workforces built around diverse hires lead to higher revenue and more creative teams with figures pointing to some industries netting an additional $400 billion in revenue just through implementing diversity efforts.
As a startup VP hustling my way to success, I can relate to the difficulties in hiring, especially when cash or resources are limited and everyone on the team is wearing a million hats at once. In fact, you may think that because hiring is so difficult and there’s so much already on our plates that prioritizing diverse hiring early on as a company may be a waste.
Why not wait until you are more established and just handle any issues that arise due to a lack of diversity on a case-by-case basis?
Failing to implement and address diversity and inclusion not only limits the teams creative engine that will drive your growth, but also discourages attractive candidates from joining. You’ll be more vulnerable to failing to catch more toxic issues around company culture. Just like with personal investment decisions in the stock market, there may be short term upside to limiting your focus on inclusive hiring, but hiring is a long term investment, and maximizing your team’s diversity and focusing on inclusive culture now will bode well for your company’s long term prospects.
So while proven that teams built and hired around diversity and inclusion are competitive and better equipped when benchmarked again their less diverse peers, what can you be doing better now? Check out my recs for diverse hiring:
1. Source talent by actively engaging diverse communities found on Linkedin and Facebook
Some of the most diverse communities I’ve come across exist in the cultural, professional, non-profit and technical groups I’ve found or followed on Linkedin and Facebook. These vast networks have done the hard work of connecting me with culturally and professionally diverse individuals, allowing them to share their interests, advice, networks and talents for me to absorb.
These networks provide:
- a convenient way to gather a pulse of what’s going on in communities outside the ones you engage with daily
- free access to talented individuals to connect with for recruiting
- fantastic events that can serve as great passive networking opportunities where diverse candidates frequent
A few groups I’ve come to actively follow are Young African MBAs (or “YAM” as listed on their FB page for short) and National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), organizations who’ve built valuable alumni networks and communities through their mentorship, resources and career related content. What’s holding you back from diving in and and posting on a page for a group you completely have no ties to? With no barriers to entry, your engagement — comments on posts, answering requests by fellow members seeking beta users, providing answers or opinions to posted topic questions and circulating other job posts to your immediate network — provide social currency that can be later exchanged. This makes you become a passive-to-active “sponsor” helping support communities where diverse candidates exist can attract diverse networks to your company.
2. Hire from and post on diverse job boards
Using diverse job boards doesn’t mean singling out any given group preferentially. Instead, it ensures team productivity and reinforcement of your company’s values because we know that diverse teams outperform non-diverse ones. A range of different platforms exist that you can tap such as hiring full-time/remote using Women for Hire and Power to Fly, female focused tech job boards such as HireTechLadies, full stack career advancement platforms like Career Contessa and Jopwell to name a few. Partner with a few and become advocates of their platforms; as diverse candidates surf through their communities they’ll engage your band, giving you great visibility. Plus these networks will help you take the guesswork out of attracting candidates with diverse cultures, skills and ideas, and provides competitive ways to expand your talent pool.
3. Start an employee referral folder
Using the diverse networks that currently exist in a company and startup are great ways to onboard talent. Referral programs work well because referring a candidate reinforces the idea that team members are “investors” in their team and company’s growth. Referrals breed advocacy and can lead to strong interviews and team fit.
When organized meritocratically, candidates hired through referral programs last longer in their roles and are more satisfied in their work. Weary about having to create a program from scratch? Introduce a “resume referral” folder on your company drive open for everyone to see and encourage additions during team meetings or through email blasts. Getting your employees to be willing collaborators to the hiring process spreads the responsibility and maximizes the buy in from all team members.
4. Practice inclusion in your copywriting
As a college mentor, I hold preparatory meetings with students before job interviews, reviewing their resumes and reading through job descriptions. And often time the students have the appropriate technical requirements to succeed in the role and are excited by the opportunity. But a question that continues to pop up often is,
“will I be a good fit” or “is this the right culture for me?”
Job posting copy should focus more on interests and less on demographics, going above and beyond to connect with candidates and limit stereotyping based on gender or race. Because a marketable job description will only encourage candidates to research more and see if they’d make a great fit. Focus on the following:
- Prioritize things that matter to candidates like culture fit, list of differentiating factors, and attractive perks that set you apart.
- Speak to the company’s overall mission and how the candidate’s contributions should help tackle the collective challenges head on.
- Keep it simple. Focus on behavioral topics and avoid complex, long-winded copy filled with jargon in a job description.
- Consistency across all marketing channels, especially a company’s website and social media pages will lend credibility and authenticity.
