Now, more than ever, organizations across the world are seriously starting to think about how to source diverse talent. It might seem like common sense, but it is nonetheless critical: diversity has to start early in the sourcing and recruiting process. Only with rich talent pools that form a strong foundation for your strategy do you stand a chance of achieving your diversity and inclusion goals – in any area of your business. It’s funnel logic.
To ensure there are multiple qualified minority candidates in your final pool, your talent acquisition teams must focus on sourcing more minority candidates early on. Known as the “two in the pool effect”, the Harvard Business Review discovered that if there are at least two minority candidates in the final candidate pool, the chances of hiring diverse talent increases dramatically.
Adopt a multi-channel approach: develop and promote dedicated talent community landing pages and set up email campaigns to enrich and diversify your talent pool. Reinforce your efforts not only through highly engaging visual elements but also by giving a sneak peek of where you stand as an organization in terms of diversity and where you intend to go.
As a next step, work to fill your pipelines with as many diverse candidates as possible. Start focusing on a skills-based, AI-powered approach to cross-match candidates and pipelines based on abilities and requirements, instead of leaning on just your recruiters’ criteria, which could be unconsciously biased