Inclusive Hiring Practices
Many organizations claim to embrace DEIB values, especially when it comes to tech hiring. They’ll do things like post their commitment to diversity on their corporate website and feature lofty text about inclusion on their job postings. However, a commitment to DEIB is more than just words on a website; it requires that companies actually deliver on their promise of inclusive hiring, and continue to create a culture of inclusion for all candidates through their tenure at the company.
If companies truly want to address and elevate their hiring practices, there’s much work to be done: Overall, 26% of respondents to a Dice survey indicated that they have witnessed racial discrimination within hiring, while 30% have called out gender discrimination within hiring. Those numbers climbed higher for certain demographic groups (for example, 41% of Black tech pros have witnesses racial discrimination, along with 23% of those with a disability). Some discrimination is obvious: a hiring manager refuses to hire someone because of their gender, race, age, disability, or sexual orientation, for example. But oftentimes it’s more subtle, such as a hiring manager or potential team member questioning whether a tech pro who identifies as a woman would be “too emotional” for a particular role, or offering slightly lower salaries and fewer benefits to candidates from underrepresented groups.
Promoting Inclusion in the Hiring Process
Fortunately, companies can take concrete steps during the hiring process to ensure inclusion:
Diversity Training Must Include Everyone... Including HR: Your recruiters and hiring managers should be fully versed in the company’s DEIB policies, and trained to conduct interviews in ways that interrupt bias and don’t discriminate or marginalize members of any group. For example, you should train your HR team to remove references to age, gender, and race or ethnicity before passing along information about potential candidates to hiring managers and other stakeholders. This can include things like removing their name, what year they graduated college, and their address.
Inclusive Language in Job Postings and Other Materials: Language is very powerful! When crafting job postings and other hiring-related assets, make sure to use gender-neutral language that’s also free from any racial, age or ableist bias. Be careful to avoid the overuse of jargon or industry-specific buzzwords, which can be exclusionary. The goal here would be to use the simplest language in order to attract the largest pool of candidates.
Proactively Mention the Company’s Culture and DEIB Efforts: In job postings and on the company’s website, describe any current DEIB initiatives, as well as any DEIB policy you may have, and how management is committed to fostering an inclusive environment. If your company offers an annual DEIB report, you may want to link to it. You want to publically share the work that your company is doing to showcase that you are an employer of choice for candidates to consider.
Standardize Interview Questions: Non-standardized interviews open the door to unconscious bias on the part of even the most well-meaning interviewers. To avoid this outcome, make sure that all interviewers are using rubrics that ask the same questions in the same order and focus only on questions that directly reflect on the role and the candidate’s capabilities. Clearly define the different metrics on the rubric, and ensure that all interviewers understand the rating scale. The candidate experience should be a streamlined one, regardless of who the candidate is.
Diverse Interviewers and Hiring Panels: Candidates pay attention to who they see and interact with throughout the interview process, so you want to ensure you are showcasing the diversity amongst your staff. At the start of the hiring process, there should be thoughtful intention put into who the interviewers will be. Make sure that you’re not tapping the same folks every time to conduct interviews, so do take this into account as well.
Design Feedback Loops With Action Steps: Genuine commitment to improving DEIB impact necessitates gathering feedback. You can build in “feedback loops” (such as surveys) at several points throughout the process. These can be quick questions that assess what the candidate experience has been thus far, and can survey how the overall process is, as well as where there may be gaps. An important part of gathering feedback is also having a consistent process to assess and analyze data, and implement changes based on data trends.
In addition to these steps, a company must commit on a cultural level to listening to feedback and proactively addressing issues.
Non-standardized interviews open the door to unconscious bias on the part of even the most well-meaning interviewers. To avoid this outcome, make sure that all interviewers are using rubrics that ask the same questions in the same order and focus only on questions that directly reflect on the role and the candidate’s capabilities.
Extending DEIB Culture
It’s critical for managers and executives at every level to embody and promote DEIB values within a company. But how do you carry that out? Fortunately, you can encourage your team and other stakeholders throughout the organization to embrace DEIB in a number of ways, including:
Creating mentorship and sponsorship programs
It can sometimes be very difficult, if not impossible, for individuals from underrepresented groups to be able to grow and succeed within a company, especially if they don’t have any representation that is reflective of their own identities. Mentorship and sponsorship programs can be a real game changer for those individuals. These can help younger workers from underrepresented groups move up in the organization, as well as more clearly define and achieve their professional aspirations.
Pay equity (for yourself and others)
Pay equity is a huge part of DEIB. Use resources like the Dice Tech Salary Report to evaluate the “typical” compensation for your role, and make sure you’re paid commensurate with your skills, experience, and position. Push for pay transparency at your company to ensure salaries are aligned with industry standards, especially if you’re a member of an underrepresented group. With companies increasingly hungry for tech talent (and paranoid about their best workers leaving), you may have more leverage than you think to enact change.
Ensuring benefits, perks and programs are inclusive
Encourage your company to perform an audit of its current benefits and programs, such as training and healthcare. Are any identities not supported through what’s currently offered? How can this be rectified? Another best practice here is to survey your employees to see if there are any gaps in current offerings.
Encouraging inclusive hiring
Many technology professionals have input into the hiring process, especially for tech-oriented roles. Use your position and influence to champion DEIB and center it more within hiring, including advocating for company-wide inclusive hiring training and pay equity (see below!).
And finally, remember that promoting and solidifying DEIB values is a slow, steady process that will have setbacks and pushback. But if enough people within an organization are committed to advocating for change, you can make progress.