Creating an equitable hiring process is essential for Ohio companies. Along with supporting diversity and inclusion, it will increase the size of your talent pool. Often, that can make recruitment easier to manage, all while boosting your company’s reputation as a fair employer.
While updating your process to ensure hiring equity may seem challenging, it’s often far simpler than you’d expect. If you aren’t sure where to begin, here are four tips for hiring equity in Ohio.
1. Examine Your Hiring Data
Before you make changes to your hiring process, it’s wise to see how the company is performing when it comes to diversity, inclusion, and equity in recruitment. Examine your data to see if you’re attracting diverse candidates. Next, see whether they’re getting screened out and, if so, what the motivations were behind those decisions.
Then, you can start identifying potential problem areas. Once you do, you can seize opportunities to eliminate bias or offer better support, ensuring your hiring process is equitable.
2. Update Your Job Descriptions
Various aspects of your job descriptions can impact how your company is perceived. Using gendered language might make one gender feel unwelcome and insensitive terms like “ninja” or “guru” may cause some candidates to shy away from your opportunities.
Additionally, lengthy lists of must-have skills can cause some candidates to screen themselves out, even if they could perform well in the role. Similarly, having unnecessary educational requirements – such as making a college degree mandatory if there are no licensing or compliance reasons to justify the request – can make your process inequitable.
Review your job descriptions to see if any of the language needs updating, choosing neutral terms as you make changes. Also, limit your must-haves to only the essentials. That allows you to appeal to the widest range of candidates.
3. Incorporate Consistency
Hiring processes are typically more equitable when the candidate experience is consistent. Seize opportunities to provide that consistency. For example, make sure that interview questions are set in advance, guaranteeing every job seeker is asked to answer the same ones. Use a scoring rubric to assess candidate potential, too, as that can prevent unconscious bias from skewing hiring decisions.
4. Broaden Your Recruitment Efforts
For companies looking to cultivate a diverse workforce and create an equitable process, broadening your recruitment efforts is essential. Not all candidates use the same resources when seeking out opportunities. As a result, sticking with the same options won’t improve your results.
Instead, branch out into new arenas. Try niche job boards, connect with minority professional organizations, build relationships with local colleges, and explore job advertising options on several social media platforms.
Partnering with a recruitment firm that values diversity is another excellent option. Along with ample hiring support, you can connect with a wider range of candidates, improving diversity and equity.
If you need to fill open positions and want to partner with a leading staffing firm, the staff at The Advance Group wants to hear from you. Contact us today.
