How To Reach and Hire Diverse Candidates

by Simon McCune

So, you’ve decided that diversifying your workforce is an important goal for your company. Great! As we laid out in our previous post (Why Diversity in the Workplace Matters, and How to Build It), increasing your business’s diversity, equity & inclusion efforts is not only the right thing to do, but it can also improve your bottom line. However, while setting the objective of boosting your organization’s diversity is an admirable place to start, what you may find more difficult is figuring out how to actually do it. Like anything else, hiring more team members of underrepresented groups doesn’t just happen with the snap of the finger. It takes intentional goal setting, perhaps some changes in your organization structure, and a whole lot of follow through.
 
But never fear because we’re here to help. The team at ExecuSearch has decades of experience in assisting a wide variety of businesses with their hiring needs, and we have always had a focus on presenting our clients with a diverse slate of talent. So, here is some advice we share with our clients while working with them to create a diverse workforce.

5 Steps to Reaching and Hiring Underrepresented Candidates

• Get Buy in From Your Hiring Managers: As a business owner or executive, you may believe that building a more diverse workforce is an important investment. However, if your staff on the ground doesn’t share that belief, it may be a hard goal to accomplish. Getting your managers to buy in and reflect your values in their personnel decisions is a crucial step towards diversifying your employee base and hiring more members of underrepresented groups across your organization.
• Focus On Geography: The simple truth is that your staff is most likely going to reflect the racial makeup of the community in which it works. Therefore, it stands to reason that filling an opening with a diverse candidate is going to be easier in a region, where the pool of candidates from underrepresented groups is going to be deeper. You can’t treat every position the same. Where the job is located can sometimes be as important to your diversity efforts as what the job itself entails.
• Hosts Events and Emphasize Candidate Outreach: Hosting job fairs, dinners, and networking events is a great way for any business to build an applicant pipeline. Hosting versions of these events specifically geared towards potential job seekers from underrepresented groups is a great way to build a diverse pipeline and show candidates of all backgrounds that inclusion in your hiring practices is something that matters to your business.
• Take a Targeted Approach: Are there areas of your company, specifically, that lack diversity? Are there areas in which you have been able to hire more candidates from underrepresented groups? What is working in one department or sector of your organization may be worth translating to another. Try to learn from your successes and your failures, and concentrate both on utilizing your strengths, and correcting your weaknesses.
• Work With an Executive Search Firm: Filling open positions solely with internal candidates, or even candidates who have seen your job posting and applied online, can make it hard to increase your business’s diversity. Working with an executive search firm, such as ExecuSearch, that has already built a diverse applicant pipeline can help you reach candidates who may not have seen your job opening, or even thought to apply. The truth is, ExecuSearch has spent years building relationships with contacts and applicants, and it will be easier for you to reach them with our help.

 
Our team at ExecuSearch has a lot to offer, especially to businesses seeking to interview and hire more candidates from underrepresented groups. Feel free to contact us if you are looking for assistance or support with any of your personnel needs.
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