This is a guest post from Rebecca Siciliano, Managing Director at Tiger Recruitment, as part of our Recruiting Weekly Series. Rebecca shares her thoughts on how to improve diversity and inclusion within recruitment.
As recruiters, we have a responsibility to promote diversity and inclusion within our processes and procedures. Through our conversations with employers and the creation of our shortlists, we can create opportunities for people from underrepresented backgrounds. This is something that so many recruiters could be doing better, so we’ve drawn some tips from our own D&I guidelines and recent webinar to help you improve diversity and inclusion within recruitment.
Educate yourself and your colleagues
Discrimination appears in many forms: racism (personal and systemic), sexism, homophobia, ageism, ableism or another prejudice. These can all result in a lack of diversity in the workplace. This is often covert, in the form of unconscious bias. Examining your own unconscious biases can help you understand your part in the exclusion of those from underrepresented backgrounds in the recruitment process. To make a change, join or form an internal committee to put in place actionable initiatives and measurable results.
Our Diversity and Inclusion Committee at Tiger was created as a direct result of our Diversity and Inclusion Plan, covering internal and external actions for the whole company. One of the initiatives also included the formation of a book club with a focus on diverse authors, which allows participants to read the lived experiences of those from underrepresented backgrounds and understand the systemic barriers that mean they don’t have the same opportunities as others. This, in turn, puts diversity and inclusion front and centre of our consultants’ minds in their daily roles.
Get the basics right
Diversity and inclusion should represent a big part of your account management conversations with your clients. When talking about their overarching strategies, let them know that your candidates are asking about D&I initiatives, and any details they can share will be invaluable in helping you attract future talent.
In addition, don’t be afraid to question a client’s criteria for a role, such as a requirement for a degree. Studies show that less than 4% of students at Russell Group universities are black, in comparison to 75% who are white. Making a degree qualification a requirement will inhibit those from underrepresented backgrounds from applying.
If your clients are open to removing the degree requirement, it’s worth asking them to strip the role back to the specific skills needed to do the job well, rather than a candidate’s background. This will also help to ensure your job ads don’t create barriers for candidates from underrepresented backgrounds.
Language is also important. For many years we’ve known that certain words in job ads can encourage or discourage people from different genders to apply for a role. While ensuring you’re using the right words in your job ads, it’s integral to check your language use in conversation with your colleagues, candidates and clients as well.
Broaden and diversify your pipeline
To broaden your candidate pool, look outside the usual avenues of candidate sourcing to find jobseekers you may not have reached before. This could involve posting to different job boards that target people of specific ethnicities, genders, sexualities or ages, or actively approaching candidates from underrepresented backgrounds to apply for your role.
While this is a positive first step, the work doesn’t stop here. You should then discuss the measures your clients will take to ensure candidates move through the recruitment process without prejudice or bias.
Reconsider CVs/shortlists
While CVs are an established method of creating a shortlist for your clients, it doesn’t mean they are most effective at finding the right candidate for a role. While blind CVs have been used to try to eliminate unconscious bias at the shortlisting stage, even they have their limitations. Hiring managers can still read them in a particular way to ascertain certain information, like someone’s age.
In order to combat this, some emerging talent programs have started to eliminate CVs from the first stage of recruitment entirely. Instead, they focus on identifying specific criteria to help design out prejudice. If your client is clear on the required criteria for a role and open to working without CVs, this practice may be something you can incorporate. By working closely with them, you can create explicit metrics with which to assess candidates. This, as well as testing, will allow you to create a shortlist without CVs or bias.
Ultimately, while D&I has been on the agenda of many HR teams for a while, this year, the conversation has picked up pace as businesses are finally realising its significance. By incorporating the basics of D&I best practice into your everyday role, you’ll not only become a better consultant but build long-term relationships with employers who trust you to get the job done properly.
Author, Rebecca Siciliano – Managing Director at Tiger Recruitment 
Rebecca Siciliano specialises in PA recruitment and is the Managing Director at Tiger Recruitment. Tiger is B Corp Certified. They are part of a global movement of businesses committed to improving social and environmental conditions around the world.
