Want to Recruit Diverse Talent? Follow These 5 Best Practices.

Shae Crawford

Developing diverse teams is more important than ever. Here’s what recruiters and business leaders need to keep top of mind.

In 2021, diverse teams make for a more profitable and forward-looking business. Those companies ranked highest in terms of their diversity hiring practices are nearly twice as likely to be innovation leaders than their less-inclusive counterparts, a finding reflected in a bevy of other, similar research.

Crucially, diversity comes in many forms and can’t always be seen with the naked eye. In the work we do at BRG, diversity of thought and perspective can really move the needle in crafting dynamic and innovative solutions for our clients. The collectivity of these perspectives can make the difference: a study featured in the Harvard Business Review showed teams with high levels of “cognitive diversity”—that is, groups with varied perspectives and ways of thinking—perform the best (and fastest) when it comes to strategically solving problems. 

As a longtime HR professional dedicated to implementing diverse hiring practices, I’ve spent my career focused on building just these sorts of teams. Here are five best practices I’ve picked up along the way that can help organizations get started. 

Institute a fair process—and give it time to do its job 

A fair recruiting process isn’t some special sauce—there are time-tested practices that we know work. It usually goes something like this: the organization identifies a need, collaborates with its recruiter on what the job description will be and posts it so that anyone who sees the job can be considered fairly and equally. To bolster diverse hiring efforts, these postings should be shared widely on a variety of job boards (e.g., for veterans and disabled individuals). Teams might consider scrubbing names and other details from applicant materials to avoid implicit biases. From there, recruiters typically screen those who are most qualified and send the most interesting candidates to hiring managers for interviews.

This may sound fairly rudimentary, but following through is easier said than done—especially if hiring managers and those at the top don’t have faith in the process. They may want to skip the posting altogether because they know someone already, glaze over the applications they receive to find the candidate referred to them or simply feel the process of finding diverse applicants this way takes too much time. If firms are truly committed to hiring diverse talent, they have to trust what works, have patience and see who’s out there before making decisions.

Broaden the applicant pool and find ways to attract diverse talent 

To find diverse candidates, you have to widen your scope of where you’re looking. The misconception that there’s not enough of a talent pool to draw from stems from a lack of imagination and effort in the recruiting process. If you only target select colleges and universities, you might end up missing out on smart, diverse student bodies from other great programs. Just 6 percent of freshmen at elite universities are Black, and that’s just one way in which these institutions lack diversity.

Broadening the range of schools your company targets is only one place to start. Developing partnerships with different universities—such as with an HBCU—to build a new talent pipeline is another. Doing away with minimum GPA requirements that can disproportionately hurt Black, Latinx and Native American candidates—more of whom have to work longer hours in college—can help too. 

But to be truly effective, you have to go further: you have to seek out and attract new talent proactively by attending career fairs, conferences and other educational events that target underrepresented groups. This will take time and resources, but it can be crucial in not only learning about new candidates but letting them learn about you—while simultaneously staking out a reputation for yourself as a firm that welcomes diversity. 

Offer incentives 

Good intentions are great, but real change won’t come without offering incentives that encourage bringing in diverse talent. Some companies have implemented the Mansfield Rule, ensuring that the applicant pool for any given position is filled with at least 30 percent diverse candidates. 

Another option might be bonus programs: Can companies offer higher referral bonuses for those who bring in diverse individuals? Can discretionary bonuses involve rewards for recruiting and/or mentoring diverse talent? More directly, leadership can incentivize recruiters to find diverse candidates by providing more compensation for those who bring such individuals in. 

Bring in diversity at the top 

Firms can hire all the diverse junior staff they want, but without diversity at the top, those employees may not stick around very long—and aspiring applicants won’t be as excited about throwing their hat in the ring. 

Unintentionally or not, top executives at many companies often don’t select diverse employees to work on their projects. These roles are much more difficult to recruit for, which further justifies offering recruiters better incentives to make diversity a priority. 

Secure internal buy-in and educate your team 

Something else has to come from the top: clear communication about both the importance of diverse teams and how the hiring process is focused on making them a reality. Building trust in these processes, establishing incentives and laying out clear goals and metrics to measure success are crucial in this respect.

It’s also a matter of putting to bed pernicious misconceptions: that there isn’t enough diverse talent out there, that only applicants with certain educational backgrounds can succeed, that hiring for diversity means lowering standards. None of these ideas holds water, but they persist in many workplaces, and it’s on leadership to continuously educate their employees on these and other diversity, equity and inclusion issues. 

A lot goes into growing and nurturing diverse teams, and these best practices are just part of a long, ongoing journey—one that starts with organizations getting the right applicants in the door.