Diversity in the workplace is crucial to your company’s overall success, but finding diverse talent can be challenging. When attracting new employees, it’s important to showcase your company’s inclusive culture, and ensure that diversity is front-of-mind in recruiting practices. One of the simplest and most effective ways to do this is through your company’s career site. Here’s how to develop a well-crafted career site to promote candidate diversity.
What is diversity recruiting?
Diversity recruiting involves recruiting candidates of different races, ethnicities, genders, ages, abilities, life experiences, and more. Ideally, a diverse workforce reflects the community around them, and provides a welcoming, accepting environment. Every employee, regardless of their identity, should feel valued, heard, and embraced.
Cultivating a diverse workforce creates inclusivity and brings different perspectives to a company. Achieving diversity in the workplace starts with recruitment. Specifically, recruiting teams should focus on optimizing their career sites to showcase their commitment to diversity and inclusion. This helps a company appeal to a broader spectrum of potential candidates. Not having a clearly inclusive career site can hurt your chances of hiring great talent: McKinsey research shows 39% of candidates reject a role or do not proceed with a job application due to a perceived lack of inclusiveness within the organization.
How to promote candidate diversity on your career site
A well-crafted career site is inclusive, features authentic content visuals, and engages talent of all backgrounds. Here are three ways to promote candidate diversity on your career site.
Connect candidates to real employees
Don’t just tell jobseekers your workplace is inclusive: show it. Recruitment marketing tools like Clinch Employee Generated Content can connect website visitors directly to your employees via live 2-way chat and Q&A. This allows jobseekers to directly ask employees about your DEI initiatives and inclusive culture —and the responses are posted for all visitors to see. This creates a scalable, on-brand and authentic way for you to show your organization is serious about diversity.
Clinch customer Nokia uses employee generated content tools to connect career site visitors to current employees through a Q&A discussion platform. This allows for authentic and honest DEI discussions to occur.
Remove biased language from your job descriptions
Many job descriptions include unintentionally biased language which can deter candidates from applying. For example, terms like “rockstar,” “superhero,” and “guru” can hold an unconscious gender bias. Instead, it’s best to use specific job titles, like “engineer,” “healthcare professional,” or “developer.” It’s also important to use gender-neutral pronouns like “their” instead of “his” or “her.”
Additionally, avoid buzzwords and phrases that appeal to a specific age group. For example, if you include phrases like “work hard, play hard” or “young and energetic” in your job descriptions, you’ll likely miss out on mature candidates who have years of experience. The opposite applies as well; asking for “10 years of experience” can deter younger applicants who could be a great fit.
Another commonly-used phrase is “strong written and verbal communication skills,” which might make highly-qualified non-English speaking candidates shy away from applying. Really consider the requirements of the role you’re hiring for —unless these skills and qualities are strictly necessary, avoid casting a small net.
Showcase your diversity through employer branding
Employer branding is your organization’s identity. Candidates often vet employer brands in the pre-apply stage to ensure they’re a good fit. To recruit diverse candidates, you must ingrain diversity and inclusion efforts into your employer branding. Your branding should be authentic, truthful and transparent —and it should reflect your commitment to hiring people of all backgrounds and experiences. Allow your culture and policies to speak for themselves, and encourage employees to share their stories to showcase your inclusivity. This helps cultivate a welcoming environment for all jobseekers, and motivates them to hit ‘apply’.
Clinch customer Floor & Decor prominently features its commitment to DEI on its career site.
Brand voice is an important part of employer branding. Consider the reputation you’re building for your brand. Are you publishing visuals portraying a diverse workforce, or are your photos only featuring white employees or male professionals? Show, don’t just tell, how your business is inclusive.
Develop your DEI story and EVP
Don’t keep your diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts to yourself. Your career site should tell your DEI stories with specific pages or microsites for DEI initiatives and groups. For instance, if your business sources from diverse vendors, you should highlight this on your career site.
Clinch customer Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has a dedicated landing page on its career site called ‘A Place to Belong’ that outlines its DEI initiatives and resource groups.
Your employee value proposition (EVP), which demonstrates the value your company brings to its employees, should also include your DEI story. Explain how your company prioritizes diversity and inclusivity, and clearly define employee benefits. When creating this statement, consider what candidates of various backgrounds value in a workplace and find ways to embrace these qualities and initiatives.
Businesses looking to optimize their career site to attract diverse talent should consider Clinch. Clinch can help your company optimize your hiring process and source better applicants using employee-generated content tools, smart career sites, automated communication, a customizable CRM, and more. Learn how Clinch could benefit your company with a 3-minute tour.
