Diversity Articles
DIVERSITY RECRUITMENT FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM
10 Strategies For Improving Diversity Recruitment
It has been more than 30 years since the establishment of Affirmative Action and Companies continue to grapple with the issues of not only hiring, but also the retention of minorities, women, and people with disabilities. Now the stakes are higher. Pretty soon, only 15 percent of new workers coming into the workplace will be white men. The remaining 85 percent will be women, members of minority groups or immigrants. Additionally, the total number of workers entering the workplace will significantly decline. This places most employers I the precarious position of having to adjust quickly to these rapidly changing demographics.
Those employers whose goods and services are targeted toward these market segments, whose workforce does not reflect these changing demographics, also face missed opportunities for maximizing their revenue base. The following are a list of tips and suggestions for helping your company enhance its diversity recruitment and retention programs so that you will be prepared for the coming millennium.
Diversity Recruitment Suggestions and Tips
- Emphasize competence-based credentials rather than past experience.
- Encourage the placement of interns and co-op students who are members of diverse groups.
- Establish formal relationships with schools that have great diversity in their student body. This measure will ensure that you are always cultivating talent for your future talent pool.
- Make sure that all levels of management have received diversity training or they might not be in a position to give a fair evaluation during the hiring process.
- Cultivate organization partnerships with groups catering to the needs and interests of people of color, women, and the disabled.
- When using an interview panel, make sure that it is culturally diverse to minimize potential bias.
- Be sure that the qualifications established for a given position are really ones needed to do the job, and are not ones based on historical assumptions.
- Understand your own beliefs and attitudes about the positions that you are filling and the population that you are targeting. Be aware of how this could affect both the way you write job descriptions, as well as how you screen and interview.
- Incorporate nontraditional networking channels to produce a diverse applicant pool. A strong, diverse, informal network is a critical part of any successful diversity recruitment effort.
- Encourage senior people of color, women, and people with disabilities in your organization to assist in providing names of possible recruits.
Your active participation is welcomed and encouraged.
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