Ask These Questions to Transform Your Diversity Recruiting Strategy (+ Disrupt Bias!)
This is #IncreaseDiversity, a weekly newsletter series + Increase Diversity Toolbox sharing best practices for employers who want to learn how to… well, increase diversity. To see previous editions, visit JenniferTardy.com. | IG: @IncreaseDiversity | Increase Diversity - YouTube
Have you tried multiple best practices to increase diversity and retention but not seen the results you hoped? You’re not alone. The difference between successfully increasing diversity and getting clogged with bias and other disruptors determines the success and failure of your diversity recruiting strategy.
This week, Team JTC would like to share with you a series of questions designed to guide hiring leaders and recruiters. These questions help identify systematic hurdles, obstacles, and barriers in the hiring process that stifle your organization’s ability to effectively implement strategies to increase diversity and retention. But before we delve into these questions, let’s unpack one of my favorite topics – the hiring system.
The Hiring System: One of the Most Powerful Forces in Corporate America
The hiring system is one of the most influential systems in our society, comparable to the legal, media, educational, and healthcare systems in its impact. From determining whether you’ll be able to put food on the table to making a global impact, the hiring system not only determines who gets the economic wealth but also who passes it on to the next generation.
As hiring professionals, you hold a key to this powerful system. Your decisions can shape the economic outcomes and quality of life for countless individuals. It’s a significant responsibility and one that should not be taken lightly.
The Hiring Obstacle Course
The hiring system is not perfect. Historically, it has been riddled with biases, creating an invisible yet challenging course for historically underrepresented populations. This includes navigating through unconscious biases, microaggressions, and the constant balance between assimilation and authenticity. Team JTC calls this “The Hiring Obstacle Course” to spotlight the hurdles that individuals from historically underrepresented groups face when trying to get employed and later promoted.
So, how do you disrupt this obstacle course? The answer, ironically, is to start by asking the right questions. There are various milestones of the hiring process that determine its success, and if you ask the right questions while strategizing and planning at each stage, you’ll be one step closer to your goals of increasing diversity and retention.
Here are 3 areas to consider when building a more inclusive and equitable hiring process.
#1: Job Descriptions and Minimum Qualifications
A powerful force that perpetuates or disrupts bias, a job description can either roll out the welcome mat or slam the door shut before someone even gets a chance to knock. So, it’s crucial they’re crafted to be inclusive, not just lists of preferred qualifications. You need to ensure they’re asking for knowledge, skills, and qualifications realistically available in the workforce and truly relevant to the job.
Ask: Are the minimum qualifications listed on the job description based on a business need or the last person who filled this role?
#2: Access to Internal Opportunities for Employees
When we talk about access to internal opportunities for employees, we’re really talking about opening doors from within. Research suggests the internal hiring process can often feel like a maze—leading employees to question if they should stay or move on to another opportunity. Employees need to see and understand the path to move up, not be left behind, while others seemingly leapfrog ahead without a clear why.
Ask: Are guidelines made public and visible to all employees wanting access to new opportunities (i.e., lateral transfers, promotions, interim assignments)?
#3: The Hiring Team
Your hiring team is the key component of your company’s hiring process. Any professional to be a part of your company’s hiring process must get it, want it, and have the capacity to do the work. That is, show their understanding, desire, and ability. This ‘get it, want it, capacity to do it’ model is one I’ve borrowed from Gino Wickman, author of the book Traction. Developing your hiring team this way will help you create more dedication, engagement, and accountability among those helping your company increase diversity.
Ask: Do your recruiters and hiring managers feel comfortable, capable, and confident that they have the effective language to use when discussing topics related to diversity and inclusion?
Now, let me guess what you’re thinking: Are these 3 questions enough? Absolutely not. And if you want access to a comprehensive questionnaire to identify bias in your hiring process, Team JTC has crafted a detailed guide of not 3 but 13 thought-provoking questions for 9 important hiring success components. This whopping compilation of 113 questions enables you to ask the right questions and be able to identify systematic hurdles, biases, obstacles, and barriers that might be stopping your organization from increasing diversity and retention.
JOIN ME IN THE COMMENTS: What one action do you think your organization should start, stop, and continue doing to disrupt the hiring obstacle course? We’d love to hear from you.
