Emotions Are Killing Your Diversity Recruiting Efforts

Diversity recruiting is a tricky game. And according to this ERE article, diversity recruiting has a ninety-five percent failure rate. Diversity recruiting also hasn’t improved since 1985 says this FastCompany article citing some data presented by the EEOC. If you’re an HR professional tasked with the impossible chore of increasing your diversity recruiting efforts, where do you start in the quest to up the diversity at your company while still juggling your equally as demanding hiring responsibilities? For starters, you need to say sayonara to your emotional approach to hiring.

For starters, you need to say sayonara to your emotional approach to hiring.

As ERE’s Dr. Sullivan suggests, emotional hiring is not only detrimental to effective diversity recruiting practices, it’s the bane of all hiring decisions, period. And while you may think that you’re an objective HR professional who makes hiring decision based on the facts alone, the truth is if you aren’t analyzing data or trends to make your hiring decisions, you’re overestimating the amount of rational thinking involved in your hiring process. If you’re an employer guilty of still making emotional decisions, or rather depending on your “gut feelings” to make your hiring decisions in an interview, you’re also hurting your chances at upping your diversity recruiting game.

It’s not something to be ashamed of because it’s a shift that we’re all experiencing and adjusting to thanks to the strong role the web now plays in our everyday lives. Realistically speaking, even our dating is less about emotions and more about data these days. So, how can you navigate the treacherous waters of diversity recruiting without falling victim to the unsuccessful emotion driven approach? Design a data system reinforced with diversity recruiting in mind.

Diversity Recruiting Step 1 – Do Your Candidate Research

Information is power and you’ll need as much information as possible before attempting to design an effective diversity recruiting strategy. The easiest channel for obtaining the data you need to support your diversity recruiting overhaul is to talk to current, successful and diverse employees. The newer, the better. You need to ask your employees questions like: where did you learn about our job opening? What prompted you to apply? How was the hiring process? And finally, what compelled you to accept the job offer? After you iron out the positives, ask him/her about the pains surrounding your hiring process. Was it too long? Did it require more information than necessary (aka collecting social security numbers on the initial application)? Asking the “tough” but targeted questions about your diversity recruiting efforts will help you pinpoint where to focus your energy.

Information is power and you’ll need as much information as possible before attempting to design an effective diversity recruiting strategy.

Diversity Recruiting Step 2 – Calculate Retention Numbers

The last thing you want to do after you spend hours constructing an effective diversity recruiting strategy is to lose all of the time (and money) you invested into drawing in the right candidates by having a work environment that is not favorable to diverse candidates. It’s difficult to draw distinct lines here, but the best way to measure your retention success is to calculate how many diverse team members you recruited and then determine whether or not they stuck around. We all know that losing new employees is expensive, and when you’re viewing the issue from the lens of diversity recruiting, it’s even more costly because you’re adding more monkeys to your already heavy diversity recruiting load.

Diversity Recruiting Step 3 – Let Go of the Impossibility of Diversity Recruiting

Letting go of the notion that diversity recruiting is completely impossible is the first step to altering how you (and the rest of the world) views diversity recruiting. While it’s certainly a challenge to find diverse candidates (especially when they’re in such high demand), don’t be afraid to limit yourself to a one-dimensional diversity recruiting approach. We live in a global economy and have access to diverse candidates all over the world. Branch out and utilize these capable individuals even if the idea of outsourcing is foreign (no pun intended) to your current diversity recruiting strategy.

Struggling to develop a simple and effective diversity recruiting plan? Our hiring experts can help! Contact us for a free hiring consultation today.