The art and science of diversity recruiting

By Marylene Delbourg-Delphis

Diversity management is fairly straightforward once people are employees. Diversity reports show how successful (or unsuccessful) companies are. Most are only moderately successful at best, not because they do not want diversity, but simply because they use tools that prevent them to recruit for diversity. The current talent acquisition process is a transactional playing field designed to process resumes and not to hire people. And diversity hiring is all about people!

Building up a consistent diversity initiative requires the ability to create live talent pools that enables you to:

• Decouple candidate attraction and engagement from specific jobs.
• Design diversity circles that provide candidates with the ability to declare themselves as members of a given group (or multiple groups).
• Dialogue with your talent community.

Decouple candidate attraction and engagement from specific jobs

This is what proactive recruiting is about. Do not wait to have job openings to look for candidates! We all know how ineffective reactive recruiting can be... It's a catastrophe as far as diversity is concerned. Build your talent pool through your branding efforts and invite candidates to join your talent network. You will deal with human beings and not simply with resumes. This is the starting point to get any insight on the populations you attract versus the groups you would like to attract. Once you have attracted candidates, you can search your talent pool to identify the best matches for your needs.

Design circles of interest enabling self-declaration

You cannot ask personal questions, but you can offer people the ability to tell you who they are! Using TalentCircles you can segment your community into branded groups of interest like "Veterans", "Students," "Flex-time," "LGBT," "Women in STEM," etc... Then, it's up to the candidates to subscribe to one or several of these groups. Each time you will post an event, any information, a blog post or a job in these groups, your candidates will be automatically notified and thus, continuously be engaged. It is the opportunity for your company to also showcase what it is like for your diverse employees to work in your organization, associate them effectively to your diversity efforts — and give a new breadth and depth to your initiative. Employees are your best spokespeople. Diverse employees who are happy with your diversity management efforts will be your most amazing evangelists.

 Diversity recruiting using TalentCircles

Dialogue with your talent community

So you decouple candidate attraction from any specific job, you offer candidates to declare themselves and now you are in the perfect situation to interact with people: via live video conversations with one or several members of your talent community, invite them to webinars, invite them to write blog posts for you, invite them to in-person events, etc... Building up diversity is all about getting to know people, conversing with them... and proactive recruiting is all about the artistry of looking at people for both aptitude and attitude.

So, just stop saying you care about hiring diversily while show unconvincing results year after year, just do it. It's truly only a matter of selecting a technology that makes it possible and easy!

Three Keys To Unlocking the Challenges of Talent Diversity

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Move over demographics, there is a new category of diversity that reaches wider and deeper than race, sex or age. Managing today’s talent diversity must also now include the unique attributes of those individuals who hear the beat of their own drum.

Those who go against the corporate grain are often considered “different,” at times “adversarial” and clearly “non-conventional.” They may not easily conform, however if managed correctly, these unique types of talent can grow into strong leaders who can manage change and help grow innovation.

The lack of talent diversity can be quite stifling as companies seek to become more innovative. It would seem that business leaders would foster individualism and the diversity of thought to grow competitively. However, strangely, this is not the case.

Uniqueness is not a virtue in today’s corporate culture.

Based on a Harvard Business Review article, “Fear of Being Different Stifles Talent,” 66% of employers reported pressure to mute some acts of employee self identifies with 51% of those saying that perceived demands came from leadership.

We’ve discussed the importance of the candidate experience and the lengths recruiters must go to engage, communicate and create relationships with the most brilliant job seekers in order to lure them to their organizations, but the courting, communication and conversations don’t stop there.

Creating a culture of uniqueness goes beyond recruiting individuals who represent the path less traveled. Being open to the unique perspectives, points of view and experiences of existing employees should be rewarded and embraced as well.

Unlock the challenges to talent diversity.

When companies realize the value of attracting the true entrepreneurial talent that fosters innovation, efforts in the retention and development of this diverse talent will also be necessary. Otherwise, businesses will run the risk of having to staff a revolving door as employees realize the lack of uniqueness from within the organization.

There are three important points to consider when focusing on retention and development of employees who exemplify a truly unique mindset. Here is an overview of the key areas that will foster talent diversity in your organization.

1. Employee Development – either through a formal program or tuition reimbursement, the focus needs to be on growing the employee and fulfilling them as an individual. By encouraging the unique area of interest of an employee to grow, it enriches the talent pool as a whole.
2. Custom Communication – in the form of manager and employee. These must be intentional, regular and guided by the employee. Called one-on-ones these dialogues will help create a customized career path for each employee.
3. Flexibility – Everyone’s career journey is unique. Managers and leaders must be open to flexible career paths not letting their own personal judgment get in the way of the eager, entrepreneurial-spirited employee.

The future of business will be different than today’s typical corporate world of conformity. Successful organizations of tomorrow will require an innovative culture and workforce with unique capabilities. Understanding the value of “individualism” as well as fostering the talent diversity in your organization will be a critical role that will have an impact on the overall success of any business.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s is the Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @jmillermerrell.