Make sure your next employer cares about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Photo by Alesia Kazantceva on Unsplash

It can be really difficult to figure out if a company truly cares about diversity, equity and inclusion or if they just tell a convincing story. When you are job hunting, you have a unique opportunity to find out if a workplace is the right fit for you. This includes how a company prioritizes and invests in diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Below are some clear steps to take to find this relevant information about a company before you make a decision to accept an offer (or even apply in the first place). This blog post is mostly geared towards job seekers in the tech industry, though some of the advice might be relevant for other industries (your mileage may vary).

Before I jump into advice mode, let me fully acknowledge that not everyone has the privilege to be choosey when considering job opportunities. Oftentimes, due to financial circumstances, geographic location or visa/mobility issues, job seekers do not have this flexibility. So I just want to acknowledge that. Plainly put, there is not always an opportunity to be selective. But especially later on in your career, you will likely have a better sense of what workplace culture and DEI commitments are important to you. And hopefully you will also have more ability to be choosey when offers come your way. So even if it’s not relevant now, keep this in mind for the future.

Before you decide to apply

What a company has published (on their website or on social media) is key information in understanding the stance they take on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Take a moment and try to find any of the following information:

• An annual diversity, equity and inclusion report
• Regular blog posts related to the company’s stance on DEI
• An inclusion statement on job postings
• A website that talks about their DEI commitments and programs
• Information about their Employee Resource Groups

After reviewing this, ask yourself… Does it feel authentic or like PR fluff? Does it make clear, measurable commitments and report on progress? Did they communicate in support of Black Lives Matter but then stayed completely silent since? Are executives or other senior individuals leading the conversation?

Information that a company publishes typically tells part of the story. You need to do a little more digging to find the other part of the story. Check out twitter and news stories to see if there’s any other relevant and important information. Have they had any scandals (such as Google has had recently)? Check out LinkedIn to see if they have a dedicated DEI team. Check out glassdoor to see if there are any red flags regarding harassment, pay inequality or discrimination?

One caveat: If you can find absolutely no communication about Diversity from a company, it’s not a great sign. But I’d also suggest to keep an open mind and check in directly with the company if you get to the interview phase. It’s actually a good approach for a company to fix their inclusion and equity issues internally before they do PR and marketing. So there may be some companies that are investing the time but not yet telling the story.

If you are contacted by a recruiter on LinkedIn

If you are contacted directly via LinkedIn or Email and invited to apply for a position, you can always use that as an opportunity to ask more questions about the company. See some tips below about questions specifically for recruiters. If the company takes DEI seriously recruiters should typically be prepared to answer relevant questions.

Once you have been invited for an interview

In preparation for your interview, it may be helpful to reach out to someone that you know in the company. Do you have a friend who works there? Check on LinkedIn to see if you are connected with anyone that works there or worked there (who you think would be candid with you). Prepare some questions to ask them about the working culture. Keep in mind that everyone has their own perception of the environment, so the experience may be really different for a white man than a Black woman, for example.

At the Interview

It’s important to remember that an interview process is as much about the company getting to know you as you getting to know the company. Typically you have a few different touch points with an company during the interview process. I would suggest preparing a few questions for the recruiter and a few questions for the hiring team related to DEI.

A recruiter should typically be able to answer a lot of general questions about DEI at a company. Here is a list of questions that you may want the answer to. I would suggest to pick a few questions that are most important to you. You can always ask more if you think you have the opportunity to do so. Additionally, I would suggest giving the recruiter a chance to reply via email, not only on the spot during a phone call.

• Does this company have a DEI team and a DEI strategy in place? (Smaller companies typically won’t have a dedicated DEI team, which is totally fine, but hopefully they still have a DEI strategy with initiatives they can share.)
• Is there anyone on the executive team that champions DEI?
• Does the company have Employee Resource Groups (or Affinity Networks) and which ones do they have?
• How does the company support and empower their Employee Resource Groups?
• Does the company making financial donations in support of anti-racist organizations?
• How does the company support and offer accommodations for disabled employees?
• How does the company support parents and caregivers?

When you have a chance to meet with the hiring team, you also have the opportunity to ask some team/product specific questions related to DEI, such as:

• How diverse is the team you would be working with?
• How does the team keep inclusion in mind in their daily work (this could cover web-accessibility or other inclusive design topics)?

If you have gotten further along in the interview process (for example, at the second or third round of interviews) you may consider asking if the company would introduce you to someone to have an informational chat about the working culture. I don’t think every company would accommodate this but I’m sure some would.

Final Notes

As you go through your career, try to hone your sense of what type of working environment is important to you. Is it important for you to be able to join an impactful Employee Resource Group? Is it important for you to work on a team that is diverse? Is it important for your team to take accessible design into consideration?

And lastly, trust your gut feeling. If you get bad vibes, inauthentic messaging, defensive responses or indifference… the company simply may not take DEI seriously and, if that is important to you and you have the ability to do so, you should look elsewhere.