Diversity & Inclusion Recruiting

As we watch the world take a stand for equality, it has never been more important for the technology industry to be a leader in creating diverse and inclusive workplaces. While the topic spans the lifetime of an employee’s experience with a company, ensuring your Talent Acquisition team is prepared to identify, attract and hire under-represented candidates is an important place to start. Here are a few simple ideas to get your team started on more equitable recruiting.

1. Inclusive Job Descriptions: Job descriptions are often your first opportunity to present an inclusive approach to hiring with candidates. Removing traditional biases from the text, focusing on the responsibilities and painting a picture of how your company is committed to equality can entice a greater variety of applicants.

   • Remove gendered language (“Ninja” or “Rockstar” or “Killer”) and edit personal pronouns to ‘they’ or ‘the employee’ or “Title”

   • Focus on work to be done rather than necessary qualifications. If you need to include qualifiers only focus on the ‘Must Haves’ and leave ‘Nice to Have's’ off

   • Avoid “corporate speak” and use of language that could make someone feel like an outsider

   • Highlight opportunities for promotion and expanded responsibilities

   • Add a line that encourages applications even if the candidate does not meet all qualifications.

   • Go beyond the traditional ‘Equal Opportunity' Employer’ line and actively encourage under-represented candidates to apply

   • Use Textio’s tool to analyze your JD and provide suggestions for improving it’s inclusive language

   • Mention any perks and benefits that are especially relevant for diverse populations: paid parental leave, childcare subsidies, tuition reimbursement, fertility treatment reimbursement, etc.

2. Showcase Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives: Use the company’s blog, Glassdoor page, and/or Careers page to discuss internal commitments and goals around D&I. This is also a great place to highlight diverse employee successes, particularly within leadership positions.

3. Expand Your Definitions: Many companies focus on diversity in terms of gender and race, but moving beyond just those two factors can produce an even broader candidate pool. When thinking about diversity, consider age, persons with disabilities, veteran status, religious affiliations, educational backgrounds and LGBTQ community membership.

4. Non-Traditional Sourcing Venues: Encourage your recruiting team to utilize platforms, mediums, venues, and tools that host more diverse candidate pools when sourcing.

   1. Twitter, Quora, Include.io (LGBT women in tech), Entelo for diversity filtering

   2. Slack Channels:  Women In Tech, Ruby Developers, TechFam, BIT (Blacks in Tech), and ChiTech. Full list of Slack channels here.

   3. Diversity Focused Job Boards & Services: DiversityWorking, HireAutism.org, HirePurpose (veterans), PowerToFly, The Mom Project, Jopwell (Black & Hispanic candidates)

   4. Groups/Communities: Hack the Hood, Black Girls Code, Lesbians who Tech, Women who Code, Queer Coders, Vets who Code, Code 2040, Project Include, /dev/color, Women in Tech, Women Who Code, Geek Girls Carrots, STEM Women, Women in Technology International, Elevate Network

   5. Host Hackathons where prospective employees can demonstrate technical skills without focusing on language barriers or dealing with other traditional interview biases

   6. Community-Based Hiring Events: get offline and into the community to attract certain populations

   7. Attend university recruiting events HBCU’s, Women’s Colleges and other schools that offer diverse student populations

5. LinkedIn Recruiter Diversity Sourcing Tricks: If you are using LinkedIn Recruiter for candidate outreach, the following keywords and filters can be helpful.

   • Target graduates of the Historically Black Colleges & Universities, Women’s Colleges & Universities or Tribal Colleges & Universities

   • Identify former members of Female Universities & Sororities, Latino Greek Organizations, Cultural Interest Fraternities & Sororities, LGBT friendly fraternities / sororities

   • Use names as keywords: List of most common female names, List of most common Chinese Surnames

   • Join relevant LinkedIn Groups: Women in Tech Sales, Sell in Heels, Women in Sales @ Cisco, Women in New Product Development, Amazon Women in Engineering

   • Use the graduation year filter to focus on older candidates

   • Helpful Keywords:

     1. Women: “she” or “her” or “female” or “women” or “woman” or “women’s” or “maternity leave” or “maternity” or “sorority” or “parental break” or “parental leave” or “parental break” or “Association of Female ________” or “mother” or “women who” or “women in” or “women for” or “for women”

     2. Ethnic Diversity: “African American” or “Native American” or “Latino/a” or “Asian American” or “Asian” or “Pacific Islander” or “Hispanic” or country names

     3. Languages: “Spanish” or “Chinese” or “Mandarin” or “Cantonese” or “Hindi” or “Arabic” or “Portuguese”or “Japanese” or “Hebrew” or “Punjabi”

6. Ban “Culture Fit” Objections: This often becomes a catch-all reason for passing on candidates. Eliminating this objection forces interviewers to address their unconscious biases and focus on a candidate’s qualifications.

7. Develop a Diverse Hiring Panel: Demonstrating your commitment to diversity and inclusion starts from the first interview. Having candidates connect with other diverse employees can make them feel more comfortable and excited about joining the team.

For a more comprehensive overview of Diversity & Inclusion within hiring, check our Lever’s Diversity & Inclusion Handbook which has many effective strategies for starting and expanding these initiatives.