Phyllis Njoroge on How to Attract and Retain Diverse Job Candidates
In 2020, several companies — including Nike, the New York Times, and the BBC — announced a renewed commitment to diversity and inclusion efforts. However, the numbers suggest there is still a long way to go. Phyllis Njoroge is a Product Manager at Redfin in the San Francisco Bay Area. While she isn't a diversity recruiter by trade, she recently began working with Redfin’s hiring team after asking to help with their diversity initiatives. We sat down with Phyllis to find out more about her thoughts on how companies can improve their efforts in finding and retaining diverse candidates.
What do you believe are some best practices that recruiting departments should be implementing to attract diverse candidates?
First, it’s extremely helpful for companies to implement a diverse slate hiring policy, which requires that recruiters fill positions using a diverse pool of qualified candidates. Second, I would encourage companies to go beyond LinkedIn and Indeed when advertising for job openings. Utilizing non-traditional hirings social platforms such as Slack, Facebook, and Twitter will help cast a wider net. Lastly, you always want to be clear in your job posting about role requirements — make sure you leave out criteria that aren’t critical to job function, like having a CS degree or coming from a certain school, of you might scare potential talent away.
Internal referrals are a huge part of how recruiters meet candidates. How can recruitment teams train staff members to diversify the referrals they give or attract diverse candidates?
By encouraging staff to be intentional in their outreach, they can open themselves up to people who may not have seen the opportunity to connect with them otherwise. For example, one of my coworkers at Redfin posted this to his LinkedIn account — that’s actually how I found out there was a job opening at Redfin!
“There are people of all backgrounds, degrees, locations, and years of experience that can be highly qualified candidates. Relying on proxies like a Stanford MBA excludes qualified people and perpetuates inequality.”
What are some of the pitfalls you have seen in terms of recruiting diverse talent specifically for product roles?
It can get tricky when recruiters rely on “proxy signals” of potential and skill that are not actually that relevant to the role — such as where a candidate went to school, if they obtained an MBA, the years of work experience they have, etc. It is more accurate to utilize the interview to ask someone to elaborate on their prior experience rather than make assumptions of their qualifications based on their previous employer or school. There are people of all backgrounds, degrees, locations, and years of experience that can be highly qualified candidates. Relying on proxies like a Stanford MBA excludes qualified people and perpetuates inequality.
With today’s technology, there are so many more data points you can get about a person: their LinkedIn profile, their blogs, their YouTube channel, their portfolio, their podcast, their online community engagement, their speaking events, etc. All of these act as ways to screen someone for their passion, experience, communication, and skill in demonstrated ways unique to that person. This gives you a larger body of evidence of someone’s qualifications than ‘product manager at Apple, 2017-present.’
“In general, companies should avoid creating an environment where a Black staff member or a woman on the team is automatically responsible for DEI work — it should be a required responsibility of every staff member to create an environment where everyone can be their best self.”
Attracting and hiring diverse candidates is just half of the equation — the other half is getting them to stick around. What role does company culture play in retaining talent, and do you have any thoughts on what companies can be doing to create a culture of inclusion?
Of course, to create a safe space, it is critical to have an HR team that remains objective and takes all concerns seriously. I would also encourage HR departments to establish training programs for their management staff on how to manage diverse teams.
In terms of tips for company leadership, I think it's also critical to tie DEI goals to business goals and budget for diversity initiatives — some companies can say that they care about diversity, but their finances may reflect a different truth.
In general, companies should avoid creating an environment where a Black staff member or a woman on the team is automatically responsible for DEI work — it should be a required responsibility of every staff member to create an environment where everyone can be their best self. This article from Better Allies has some great tips for how allies can help create a more inclusive workplace.
You mentioned that you aren’t a diversity recruiter by trade, but that you got more involved by helping your company’s recruiting team. Do you have any tips you can share with others who are not in recruiting but are interested in helping with their company’s diversity efforts?
I would suggest that they contact their HR and culture teams directly. At Redfin, I took it upon myself to reach out and speak up as well as attend relevant discussions and events. Showing initiative is how I ended up being in a position to have a real impact on my company’s DEI goals.
