Having a diverse and inclusive workforce provides your company with a competitive advantage. Your staff is more likely to be high-performing, innovative, and achieve better business outcomes than the staff that is not diverse. Fostering a culture of diversity involves embedding inclusion in your recruiting practices. You must focus on diversity in all aspects of sourcing, interviewing, and hiring to attain a balanced workforce.

Here are four strategies to ensure diversity and inclusion are at the forefront of your recruiting process.

Post Employee Photos

Include pictures of diverse staff members on your career page. This provides insight into what your organization truly looks and feels like. For instance, use employee photos in job ads, social media posts, and other company information that is publicly shared. Candidates are more likely to apply when they see that someone similar to them working for your company. 

Choose Gender-Inclusive Language

Use gender-inclusive words in your job postings to gain diversity in your candidates. For instance, avoid words like “ninja” or “rock star,” which tend to attract more male candidates. Also, do not use words like “collaboration” or “compassion,” which tend to attract more female candidates. To help you avoid using gender-coded words, use a tool such as Textio. This technology teaches you about masculine-coded and feminine-coded words, checks your job postings for gender-coded language, and suggests improvements. 

Broaden Your Sourcing

The best way to attract diverse talent is by advertising job openings in the places these professionals hang out—for instance, post vacancies on job boards for specific minority groups. Also, use recruitment automation tools included with an applicant tracking system to advertise jobs on social media channels geared toward the type of employee you seek.

Identify Hiring Biases

Educate hiring managers on how to identify unconscious biases – for instance, train managers not to focus on academic pedigree, gender, or company pedigree when reading over resumes. This may lead to over-reliance on academic or work history as a sign of competency for a job. Also, remind managers that being of a certain gender does not make a candidate more qualified for a position because the role historically was filled that way. Plus, emphasize the use of consistent structure, standardized questions, and criteria to screen candidates.  

Hire Diverse HR Professionals

Emphasizing diversity and inclusion in your recruitment processes leads to a more balanced workforce. Monitoring what you say in job postings, where you source candidates, and how you evaluate their competencies results in more diverse teams. Your company gains from the ideas, innovation, and forward movement that develop. 

When you are in the market for diverse HR candidates, turn to Arlington Resources. Our extensive network lets us provide you with highly qualified professionals from a variety of backgrounds to fill your business needs. Learn more today.