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© 2017 iCIMS Inc. All Rights Reserved.
White Paper
Improve Your Diversity RecruitmentAnd Why It Really Does Matter
© 2017 iCIMS Inc. All Rights Reserved.
How diverse are the people you work with?Most employers have always paid attention to
the answer to this question, in part because they
recognize that a diverse workforce is a sign of
fair hiring practices, and in part because they’ve
always had to due to federal compliance laws.
But in addition to equality and compliance,
today’s progressive employers are prioritizing
diversity because research finds it drives better
outcomes for the business and all involved.
They’re realizing that the more initiative they take
to proactively seek out qualified professionals
from different walks of life—as opposed to just
reactively ensuring all job seekers have equal
opportunity—the more the company, job seekers,
employees, and end-consumers benefit.
First, let’s remember that hiring for diversity isn’t
the same as hiring for cultural fit; though the
terms may sound as though they’re related.
Hiring for cultural fit generally refers to the alignment between employee and employer values; hiring for diversity is about engaging with groups of people traditionally underrepresented or marginalized.
Groups that contribute to a company’s diversity
typically include those from underrepresented
races, genders, ethnicities, ages, disabilities,
sexual orientations, religions, or socio-
economic backgrounds. They’re individuals
belonging to groups that, for a myriad of reasons,
have not reaped as many opportunities as
others over time.
So back to the benefits of maintaining a diverse workforce—the research really says it all.
Gender-diverse companies are 15 percent more likely to perform better than their peers and ethnically-diverse companies are 35 percent more likely to outperform peers.1
For every one percent increase in racial diversity, there’s a nine percent increase in sales revenue.2
Workplaces perceived as diverse have the highest levels of employee engagement.3
Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 percent more likely have financial returns above their national industry peers.4
Findings from the Harvard Business Review suggest that companies that create inclusive environments have employees that are 3.5 times more likely to offer up original ideas and insights.5
While these points demonstrate that employers
have incentives to be more proactively involved
in diversity hiring, not all have invested the effort
or have been successful. Forty-one percent of
managers say they are “too busy” to implement
diversity initiatives,6 while just fifty-seven percent
of recruiters say their talent acquisition strategies
are designed to attract diverse candidates.7 There
are clear opportunities for employers to make
diversifying their talent pools a top priority—it’s
a matter of finding effective ways to do it.
1. McKinsey | 2. Science Daily | 3. Gallup | 4. McKinsey
5. Harvard Business Review | 6–7. SHRM
White Paper | Improve Your Diversity Recruitment And Why It Really Does Matter
© 2017 iCIMS Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The Starting Line: What’s the Goal?An achievable diversity hiring goal is not to simply
“become more diverse”. To craft a strategy that
has a real chance at delivering results, recruiters
need to know how to channel their efforts.
That’s why a hiring goal should be based on an
understanding of what types of diversity is missing,
and where. That means taking a look at your
hiring and employee data from multiple angles.
For example, you might find that collectively you
have an ethnically-diverse workforce, but that
the accounting department individually doesn’t
contribute to any of that diversity. With a specific
goal in mind, like increasing ethnic diversity in
accounting by end of year, determine the metric
you’ll use to measure the success of your efforts.
What will success look like, and how exactly
will you use your applicant tracking system to
measure progress over time? Consider what
types of ongoing monitoring and reporting
will be needed and how to use your applicant
tracking system to carry out.
Meet Job Seekers Where They AreWith goals and metrics identified, recruiters can
begin the work of building more diverse talent
pools. Job boards can be a good place to start,
because they remain one of the most popular
ways job seekers learn about opportunities.
Expanding the number of high-performance
job boards you post to can be instrumental to
amplifying your reach. Keep in mind that even
if job boards are not your top sourcing channel
(maybe you find most candidates come through
your corporate website or social sites), it doesn’t
mean job seekers aren’t looking at job boards.
Sixty-seven percent of professionals said they
actually use job boards to research jobs, so
being present in this arena still matters.
Relying on an applicant tracking system that lets
you post to hundreds of different job boards
without extra expense can be helpful, as can
targeting on niche job boards (such as, women
in technology, military veterans, or international
job seekers). By changing up the channels you’re
currently using and becoming more active on
those that have a specific job seeker focus,
the chances that a qualified job seeker from
an underrepresented background sees your
posts can increase.
In the postings that you share on these niche
job boards, you may also want to give candidates
the ability to just “connect”, rather than just
apply. If you have the right candidate relationship
management (CRM) tool, this type of engagement
with passive candidates can be possible.
When job seekers click your “connect with us” link, rather than apply right at that moment, their information is imported into the CRM’s talent pools.
This opens up two opportunities: one is that the
recruiter now has a way to stay in touch with
the candidate over time, so they can share more
information about why their company is a great
White Paper | Improve Your Diversity Recruitment And Why It Really Does Matter
© 2017 iCIMS Inc. All Rights Reserved.
place to work and what opportunities are on the
horizon. Recruiters can use their CRM to search
from within, and effectively manage, their various
talent pools of passive candidates. The second
is that the job seeker now has an opportunity to
learn more about the company, so that if they do
decide to apply, they’re more confident they’re
pursuing something that aligns with their values
and interests.
Meeting job seekers where they are doesn’t
have to start with digital sourcing. Aligning with
community groups can also be a simple, but
effective way to build a presence among groups
of job seekers that might not know about your
company or may not organically seek out your
job opportunities. Connect with local and global
professional organizations that represent diverse
groups to determine if there are opportunities
to hold, or participate in, recruiting events their
members would attend. CRM tools built to
support event management with things like
mobile kiosks can be helpful to deploy in
these contexts, too.
Deliver Messages That ResonateUsing your CRM, you have the power to
customize how you connect with job seekers.
This can be valuable when reaching out to
job seekers from underrepresented groups,
because it gives you the latitude to create email
templates, write job descriptions, or frame
unique career portals with content that addresses
specific needs and interests. CRM software
like iCIMS Connect lets recruiters deploy
different recruitment marketing campaigns to
different groups within their talent pool, making
customized communication seamless.
In addition to customizing content for different
talent pools, ensuring all recruiting remarketing
materials represent an inclusive point of view is
an important part of attracting diverse applicants.
Be sure that a job post doesn’t insinuate that
assumptions are being made about applicants.
For example, striking a balance between the
use of words with a masculine connotation (like
competitive, decisive, outspoken) and words
with a feminine connotation (like responsible,
dependable, team player) can help ensure that
job seekers don’t feel the job is best suited for
a specific gender.
Understanding how recruitment marketing
materials and even the screening questions within
your application may or may not be biased can
be difficult, but taking a look at resources like
Harvard’s Project Implicit website can be a place
to start, as can using your software’s reporting
features to monitor how language changes
impact applicant demographic over time.
Focusing on what the job itself will require an
employee to do, rather than the qualifications an
employee needs to possess, can also encourage
more diverse applicants. This becomes relevant
in light of research that finds that men will apply
for jobs when they feel they are sixty percent
qualified, while women will apply when they
feel they are one hundred percent qualified.8
iCIMS’ mobile-optimized career portal
8. Hewlett Packard
White Paper | Improve Your Diversity Recruitment And Why It Really Does Matter
© 2017 iCIMS Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Beyond the words you write, think about overall
branding, and how that comes through in the
corporate images you share. Can applicants
visualize themselves on your career portal,
or your company’s social profiles? If you’re
tackling a diversity issue you may not have the
representation you’d like to feature; however,
work with what you have and be clear about
your aims for inclusivity. If the C-Suite doesn’t
necessarily reflect needed diversity, feature the
high-performing employees that do and tell
the story of how your company emphasizes
internal advancement. On your corporate social
sites, consider sharing posts that feature bios of
underrepresented employees, or share third-party
articles that focus on topics of business diversity
or whichever underrepresented group the
company wants to reach.
Champion an Employee Referral ProgramAsking current employees to refer associates in
their professional networks for jobs is another
way to support diversity. It’s a means of getting
in front of those that may not have otherwise
considered learning more about your company
but who may be inclined after learning someone
in their network is not only employed there, but
is encouraging others to apply. Employee referral
programs save both recruiters and employees
time when they fold in an element of automation,
so that sharing each new opening at the company
isn’t a manual task.
A solution like iCIMS’ Social Distribution tool can
automatically post job openings to participating
employees’ social networks, like LinkedIn and
Facebook. If someone in their network clicks
on the post and applies, the application is then
automatically tracked to the employee, so they
can receive proper recognition and reward.
A strong employee referral program can be a
pillar of long-term diversity hiring, too; consider
that nearly two-thirds of referred employees
have referred at least one person to an open
position at their current company.9 Those you
hire through referrals today may help attract
more diverse hires in the future.
You can also work with your company’s
leadership to find ways to communicate
your diversity hiring initiatives. Let employees
know that the company strives to continually
improve the diversity of its workforce, and
that submitting referrals is one way current
employees can help the company reach that
goal. Employees want the companies they
work for to be diverse: fifty-seven percent of
employees think their companies should be
diverse.10 In addition to operating in a spirit
of general transparency, talking about your
diversity hiring goals is an important message
for hiring managers to hear. They are partners
in the hiring process and should be cognizant
of how their hiring selections impact the
company’s overall demographics that can
in turn influence company success.
The Finish Line: There Isn’t OneIf after taking a look at the metrics and finding
that the goal you identified at the outset has been
accomplished, remember that maintaining a
diverse workforce is an ongoing process; there is
no finish line to be crossed. In addition to pursuing
sourcing strategies that proactively engage with
diverse job seekers, a commitment to new hire
onboarding and talent management practices that
9. Hiring Insights | 10. Glassdoor
White Paper | Improve Your Diversity Recruitment And Why It Really Does Matter
© 2017 iCIMS Inc. All Rights Reserved.
make employees want to stay will be necessary. In
other words, successfully hiring diverse employees
won’t be impactful if those employees don’t end
up staying. Make diversity hiring a priority today
and every day to build the dynamic workforce
your company needs to stay competitive.
How iCIMS Can Help iCIMS is the leading provider of talent acquisition
solutions that help businesses win the war for top
talent. iCIMS empowers companies to manage
their entire hiring process within the industry’s
most robust Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Built
on the foundation of a best-to-market talent
acquisition software suite, iCIMS’ PaaS framework,
UNIFi, allows employers to expand the capabilities
of their core talent acquisition technology by
integrating with the largest partner ecosystem
in talent acquisition to help them attract, find,
screen, and manage candidates. Offering scalable,
easy-to-use solutions that are backed by award-
winning customer service, iCIMS supports more
than 3,500 contracted customers and is one of
the largest and fastest-growing talent acquisition
solution providers.
Connect with iCIMS on social media!
White Paper | Improve Your Diversity Recruitment And Why It Really Does Matter