Top 8 Strategies For Diversity Hiring To Implement in 2023

January 25, 2023

Diversity hiring is the buzzword in the HR industry, which made companies come up with dedicated diversity reports to boost their employer brand. But is diversity recruitment a critical part of HR or another trend that will fade with time?

Diversity recruitment is the process of hiring people without any bias. This bias could be based on their age, gender, religion, nationality, race, sexual orientation, etc. So, any factor that doesn't directly impact the performance but affects the hiring decision is considered hiring bias.

For instance, a company drafting their JD for engineers might address the candidate as 'he' throughout the description. This gives the impression that a company wants male engineers and takes an organization a step away from diversity.

As opposed to popular belief, diversity hiring is not solely about hiring underrepresented candidates or people from minority communities. It is about giving every candidate an honest chance to go through the screening process and get the job. So, the focus is on making the hiring process 'free from bias'. The recruitment should consider factors that impact candidates' performance, such as their soft skills, competencies, applied know-how, etc.

Companies are understanding the importance of diversity to embrace different backgrounds- socio-economic, education, experience, origin country, etc. They are molding their hiring processes to build a diverse talent pool and workforce.

But how exactly does diversity hiring help businesses? Today we will discuss the importance of diversity and 8 strategies to build a diverse workforce.

Why is Diversity Important in Recruitment?

Diversity hiring is more than just a pass-by trend that will lose momentum eventually. It is here to stay, and companies are investing to improve their hiring process to boost their DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity) efforts. But why put so much effort? What are the benefits of hiring people from different backgrounds?

Tap More Potential Candidates- Diversity hiring means hiring people without bias from different backgrounds with broader skill ranges, experience, ideas, and perspectives. This enables the company to get more qualified candidates with diverse skills and experience to offer. For instance, a person with no educational qualification might be better at coding than a professional coder with a degree. The focus is on skills and potential, and any other factor is irrelevant.

Innovation- People with varied backgrounds provide a unique perspective to the company. Their diverse experience enables the team to explore innovative solutions and ideas to make products/ services inclusive to enhance brand messaging business complexities. For instance, underrepresented people can offer ideas to and reputation.

Serve Clients Globally- Diversity hiring helps companies to be more empathetic and inclusive in their approach and communication with customers. They enable them to tap different markets and capture more clients globally. For instance, an employee from country origin India will have a better understanding of Indian customers' pain points. Companies can serve happy clients by making services/ products inclusive.

Safe Environment- A diverse workforce provides each employee with a safe environment to work in. There is not any bias, and each employee receives equal treatment with no threat to their individuality. For instance, it will be difficult for a woman to adjust to an all-men workplace. There will be a constant threat, and she might be isolated at the workplace.

Employee Satisfaction and Retention- Workplace diversity assures employees that companies prioritize performance and don't run by any bias. This motivates top employees to focus on work and performance instead of spending so much time adjusting to the team. This enables the companies to satisfy and retain employees as the team is driven by performance. A diverse workforce enhances performance by 12% and retention rate by 16%.

Enhance Employer Brand- Well, the chance to improve employer brand is one reason companies invest heavily in diversity hiring. It modifies the perspective of employees and candidates as a company focuses on performance with no bias. It improves the brand image, employees happily recommend candidates, and people are willing to join the organization.

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But how do companies ensure diversity in hiring? How do recruiters guarantee a quality hiring process to hire potential candidates? Let us read about the top 8 strategies to adopt and seamlessly build a diverse workforce!

Top 8 Diversity Hiring Strategies To Build an Inclusive Workforce

Diversity hiring involves setting a bias-free hiring process. But it does not restrict itself to hiring process optimization. It includes planning for a diverse workforce & ensuring a work environment where they can work without feeling excluded or discriminated against.

Hiring bias is not intentional. It roots deep into the psyche of recruiters and hiring professionals. So, diversity hiring is a process of eliminating all biases and building an inclusive workforce. Here are the top 8 strategies for recruiters to eliminate the bias factor and give each qualified candidate an equal chance.

Reevaluate Hiring Process

Your company can miss out on a great opportunity due to loopholes in the hiring process. This could be due to unoptimized JDs, not using inclusive language, and much more. Recruiters can start by using broad keywords and sticking to performance-related attributes. Inclusive language can help boost the application numbers, where your team prioritizes skills and competencies. Additionally, it is advisable to opt for blind resumes and interviews to eliminate bias.

Another point is to enhance the interviewing process. Interview bias can drive away a qualified candidate and hamper the company's reputation. Assess whether:

The hiring team represents diversity.
Interviewees are aware of bias.
The interview process is standardized and bias-free.

Recruiters can eliminate bias by opting for structured hiring processes. This means that all the candidates go through the same set of questions and the same steps with no bias creeping in, in the same conditions.

Moreover, they should be given proper feedback and valuable resources to help them succeed. Additionally, recruiters must deploy a strong onboarding process that involves an open discussion about preferred pronouns, dietary requirements, etc. This will help the HR team to accommodate their preferences and provide a pleasant experience.

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Deploy Technology

Technology can be the recruiters’ best friend to help eliminate bias. The hiring process can revolve around various technologies and tools to make data-driven decisions with no subjective bias. The recruiters shall use specific tools to analyze applications and draft inclusive JDs and other HR-related documents.

One of the crucial steps- screening can go through automation by setting specific criteria and rules. Various tools leverage AI to screen applicants and create a list of qualified candidates without bias. Recruiters can add filters such as experience, attributes, or skills to find the desired candidates.

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Create Diverse Talent Pool

How can recruiters build an inclusive workforce if they don’t have diverse candidates in the pipeline? They need applicants from diverse backgrounds to set a hiring process free of bias. This will require recruiters to tap multiple sources and tweak the hiring process. Here are 8 ways to create a diverse talent pool.

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Inclusive JDs & job post
Leverage formal & informal networks
Network & build relationships with diverse professionals
Set & track DEI goals
Ask employees for referral
Make employer brand inclusive
Actively look for networks and online communities to reach diverse candidates
Opt for a multi-channel outbound approach:

LinkedIn (LinkedIn groups and other HR professionals)
Colleges
Professional associates
Virtual Fairs

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A multi-channel approach involves sourcing candidates from various platforms and actively engaging with them. This involves sending personalized and creative messages on their preferred channel. It requires recruiters to dig deeper into their experience and diversify communication channels.

Nurturebox is an end-to-end solution for the multi-channel hiring process, which helps to source and hire candidates by integrating your entire HR tech stack. You can combine all your tools and start engaging with candidates easily from platforms like LinkedIn. This enables recruiters to build a diverse talent pool!

Companies need to make DEI one of their priorities by making the work environment safe with initiatives like accessible workforce education programs, inclusive brand messaging, etc. It is the recruiter's job to make the employees and leaders aware of the importance of inclusivity and build a healthy work environment.

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Optimize Job Postings

Recruiters must optimize their job postings because they are the first interaction point between the employer and candidates. If applicants find the post or JD non-inclusive, they will not apply and create a negative impression of the company. Glassdoor research found that 67% of applicants prioritize diversity when applying to a company.

Start by updating your job postings, marketing material, and other resources shared by the company to make them inclusive. But how to make all the material inclusive? What is inclusive language? Recruiters can start by familiarizing themselves with exclusionary words. For instance, do not use phrases like “strong English-language skill”, which makes non-native English speakers hesitant from applying. Some other examples are:

“salesmen/women” replace with a salesperson
“he/she” replace with them or ‘the candidate’

Recruiters can employ tools for editing and proofreading these materials. Moreover, they should avoid jargon, racial bias, unnecessary educational background requirements, or qualifications that might not be directly relevant to the position. This applies to both written materials and language used in interviews. The hiring team should be aware of the bias and stick to inclusive language by omitting non-essential phrases and discussing transferable skills related to the job.

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Make Inclusive Company Policies

Company policies impact the candidates that apply and employee retention. If the company policies do not accommodate diverse candidates, they will not apply, which can impact a company's diversity. Inclusive policies attract more candidates and promote DEI within the organization. Recruiters can openly discuss with the employees their needs and establish policies to promote healthy work-life balance. They can collect feedback and consciously build an inclusive work environment.

Leaders should embrace diversity and set an example for team members to create an inclusive culture. Company resources like branding materials, career sites, social media channels, and employee-generated content must promote diversity. Further, the company can take community-focused initiatives such as events, holidays, etc., to accommodate diverse employees.

However, This doesn’t imply offering a biased advantage to any candidate and valuing everyone’s contribution equally. Every employee should get standard perks regardless of any bias. For instance, equal parental leaves for both mothers & fathers or spousal benefits for same-sex couples.

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Leverage Internships

Companies can leverage colleges, universities, and community colleges to expose themselves to a diverse talent pool. However, the company must provide them with opportunities and flexibility to extract real value. Interns can provide companies with qualified, talented candidates who are committed and come from diverse backgrounds.

Recruiters can start by offering students mentoring programs. Here they connect interns and junior employees with mentors and seasoned leaders across the organization who act as guides, advisors, and support systems. They can help them with career and future advancement by enhancing their confidence and competencies. This initiative can help in employee retention and create a competent, talented team.

Employ A Diverse Hiring Team

What if your hiring team needs to be more diverse?

Your hiring team is the biggest indicator of whether the organization is inclusive. Recruiters must employ a diverse team of interviewers with different backgrounds. They can offer different perspectives and help the company to get the most qualified candidate by removing any bias. Additionally, the hiring team should be trained to recognize biases that lead to unfair hiring decisions. Moreover, consider asking for volunteers to assist in the hiring process.

Another way is to establish a feedback system. This involves the hiring team sharing feedback and telling the candidates why they were not selected. This will ensure that the team has tangible reasons to reject a candidate and that no subjective bias is hidden.

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Start To Build An Inclusive Workforce With Nurturebox

Building a diverse team can be easy. Recruiters need a definite plan and strategy to skyrocket diversity hiring efforts.

First, they audit the current diversity status. It involves measuring the diversity in the current talent pipeline, workforce, and departments. This step gives them a clear idea of how they should proceed. They can identify the prioritization areas and set realistic goals for diversity.

Secondly, they set diversity hiring goals based on an audit from the previous step. This is necessary to measure the effectiveness of the efforts and set clear expectations for the hiring team. Recruiters must choose metrics such as the number of female workers, the number of underrepresented workers, the retention rate, etc.

Based on these metrics, they can set goals to increase the number of qualified female candidates for IT roles by 10% in 6 months. Recruiters should deploy specific KPIs by asking themselves questions such as:

How many underrepresented candidates are successfully on-boarded?
What is the percentage of female employees in the firm?
What percentage of workers are disabled?
What's the employee turnover rate, and why do they leave?
Are managers satisfied with the new hires?
How many candidates have reported HR for racial or sexual discrimination?

All these questions serve as a good starting point for setting goals. Moreover, recruiters can refer to competitor firms to analyze their efforts and take inspiration from them. It is important to measure competitors' strengths and weaknesses and capitalize on them.

Finally, aim to build a database that including diverse candidates. Recruiters can leverage their talent relationship management (TRM) software, ATS system, etc., to create the list. Further, they can ask employees for referrals and engage in diverse communities. The aim is to tap into multiple sources to reach the maximum number of qualified candidates.

Nurturebox can be your helping hand in creating a diverse candidate database and building a diverse workforce. It is the ultimate tool to source and hire people by integrating your HR stack and engaging in passive hiring.

Start by simply downloading our chrome extension and head to LinkedIn. We help you keep track of all the conversations, build a list of desired candidates, and send messages right from the extension. You can do it without switching between tabs or doing any admin work. Hiring is easier with Nurturebox!

Amidst today’s noisy digital world, brands find it challenging to create meaningful connections with their customer base and target audience. Getting the target consumer’s attention and persuading them to buy from you gets even trickier. Hence, content marketing has become more crucial than ever for brands to attract, educate, and retain customers.

Content creation is a top priority for 80% of marketers, and there is no reason it shouldn’t be. Consistent, high-quality, and engaging content impacts your audience’s decisions through education and persuasion.

Depending on your business goals and requirements, the role of Content Marketers you hire will vary. The primary responsibilities revolve around forming consistent brand messaging and deciding upon a unique and identifiable voice, style, and pitch across various distribution channels.

From raising brand awareness to attracting a relevant audience to your website, boosting social media presence and engagement, generating leads, and building brand loyalty – content marketing drives all the growth efforts for your brand. When done effectively, it can help you:

Build positive brand awareness
Make your audience stick around for longer
Get better traction on social media
Gain more trust of your audience than ever
Generate qualified leads
Improve conversion rates
Boost business visibility with SEO
Position your brand as an authority
Cultivate loyal brand fans

While content marketing is a broad role with numerous areas of expertise involved, it’s vital to thoroughly understand your company’s current marketing goals and the related requirements. In this blog, we will dive deep into the step-by-step approach to hiring a Content Marketer.

What is The Role of a Content Marketer?

A Content Marketer must be deeply passionate about telling your brand’s story to the world. The objective is to educate and nurture the target audience to establish brand authority using thought-leadership and drive more people to buy from you.

As a candidate is expected to be a mediator between the brand and the target audience, they are primarily responsible for planning, creating, and sharing valuable content to grow their company’s awareness and engagement to bring more business.

To be more specific, the role of a Content Marketer requires a perfect blend of creativity and attention to detail in an individual. It’s a balancing role, as they need to ensure creating content that resonates and strengthens business relationships, using strategies that position your business as authentic and problem-solving.

Take a look at the core responsibilities of a Content Marketer that most businesses expect them to take over:

Research and Competitor Analysis: The first and foremost step to creating a content marketing strategy is effective initial research. It not only helps a Content Marketer understand the nuances of the industry through competitor analysis but also study and understand the target audience thoroughly. ‍
Building Content Marketing Plans: Once the competitor research and target audience analysis is done, a Content Marketer needs to work on the different plans for all the business objectives, targeted channels, segments of the audience, and the bigger marketing strategy. A content marketing plan typically consists of:
Specific goals along with a pre-decided timeline
Various channels to be targeted for content distribution
Types of content to be created
Budget for the entire staff, outsourced services, and paid promotion (Collabs and Ads)
Creating Editorial Calendar: Creating, managing, and maintaining a content calendar is one of the most crucial responsibilities of a Content Marketer. It is a centralized visual document that enables effective collaboration among the marketing team and helps Content Marketers ensure on-time production and delivery.‍
Content Creation: Once the strategy and calendar have been approved by relevant stakeholders, Content Marketers need to do the on-ground work. This task usually depends on the scale of your company and content marketing strategy. Suppose an organization already has a set of writers, then the Content Marketer doesn’t need to create content by themselves.‍
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Producing quality content that educates your target audience and resonates with them, isn’t enough. You need to optimize your content creation to make it search engine-friendly. While most companies need a dedicated SEO specialist for keyword research and planning, Content Marketers need to closely collaborate with them and should be well-versed in the basics of SEO.

While the practices discussed above are primary responsibilities of a Content Marketer, they also need to be proactive with

Content editing and ensuring adherence to a certain style guide
Continous publishing and distributing content
Measuring and analyzing performance

How to Hire a Content Marketer: Step-By-Step?

Content marketing has become the key to driving growth for businesses. Unlike a few years ago, it’s not possible now to get away with a one-person team for content marketing. You need deeply trained individuals for specialist roles.

Let’s now dive into the step-by-step approach of hiring a Content Marketer. But before you even source your first candidate, you should have a clear expectation of the skillset and experience to look out for top content marketing candidates.

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Step 1: Create a Candidate Persona

Let’s sort out the priorities first, and decide the type of content marketing candidates you want to recruit. From exceptional research skills to storytelling, communication skills, relationship building, audience engagement, and more capabilities must be comprehensively considered. Identify and break down the skill requirements for Content Marketers:

What are the educational qualification criteria for the role?
How many years and what type of work experience do you want in candidates?
What are the specific skill sets you’re looking for?
Which industry experience would you primarily prefer?
Are there any tools your candidates should be hands-on with?
What are some personality traits that will fit your company?
Where do they look for a new job?
What are their career and life goals?

Forming a candidate persona by answering all these questions would ensure you are not shooting in the dark while sourcing candidates. Further, it helps you determine the traits of the ideal candidate, and plan your sourcing and recruitment strategy further.

Step 2: Document the Role Requirements and Decide on Your Recruiting Process

Next step is determining your role requirements suiting primarily to organizational needs and business goals. A content marketing professional is expected to own the entire content strategy, creation, and distribution. But what about your business’s unique requirements?

You might need someone comfortable with frequently creating long-form content pieces like blogs, ebooks, or whitepapers, or creating engaging video content based on your industry trends.

Talk to various relevant stakeholders for seeking the complete detailed company requirements for the role.

Before you enter the recruitment funnel, outline your talent acquisition process. Identify various strategies, channels, and other informational insights you would need – and maintain a collaborative document.

As you update the tactics and tweak your recruitment process for meeting hiring requirements optimally – keep your document up to date.

Step 3: Prepare a Content Marketing Job Description

Once you have finalized the role requirements with respect to your current content marketing goals and team, you can start sourcing candidates. Preparing the job description is the first task you’ll need to do.

Here are the necessary components you must have in your job description:

Job Title: The position you’re looking to fill. For example - Content Marketing Specialist or Content Marketing Manager.

Roles & Responsibilities: An outline of the candidate’s day-to-day activities. From ideation to implementation and the impact on the organization, everything should be covered.

Skill Requirements: Skills and abilities a candidate must have to perform the job successfully.

Perks and Benefits: The compensation details, perks of the job, and any other benefits.

About the Company: Why should a candidate consider working with your company?

Content Marketer Job Description Template

Role

The job of a Content Marketer is to perform competitor research, create user persona, and write plagiarism-free content for blog articles, social media, and the company website. They need to stay updated on the latest SEO techniques.

Responsibilities

Develop, write and deliver persuasive copy for the website, email marketing campaigns, sales collateral, videos, and blogs
Build and manage an editorial calendar; coordinate with other content crafters to ensure standards
Measure impact and perform analysis to improve KPIs
Include and optimize all content for SEO
Contribute to the localization of processes and content to ensure consistency across regions
Review and implement process changes to drive operational excellence

Requirements

Proven content marketing, copywriting, or SEO experience
Working knowledge of content management systems like WordPress
A well-maintained portfolio of published articles, blogs, copy, etc
Proven experience of working under pressure to deliver high quality output in a short span of time
Proficiency in all Microsoft Office applications, Google Suite
Fluency in English or any other required language

Soft Skills

Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Excellent writing and editing skills
The ability to work in a fast-paced environment
The ability to handle multiple projects concurrently
Strong attention to detail and the ability to multi-task projects and deliverables

Step 4: Source Candidates

Once you have the tailored job description in hand, it’s now time to do the groundwork and source candidates. Create an attractive job post to promote your job across job boards and social channels.

Begin with what to expect from the role at your company?
Why should candidates apply for the position?
Highlight the growth opportunities
State the company vision and mission
Briefly describe the recruitment process

Prepare an impactful job post and also execute paid job ad campaigns if required. The next step would be promoting your jobs on various job boards and hiring platforms. You can leverage the following platforms for hiring Content Marketers:

LinkedIn
Indeed
Instahyre
ZipRecruiter
Monster
GlassDoor
CareerBuilder

Not to forget - almost 3/4th of the workforce includes passive candidates, so you cannot miss out on passive talent sourcing as well. Reach out to qualified candidates on communities, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Facebook to offer them suitable opportunities.

Step 5: Evaluate Candidates and Interview Shortlisted Ones

Once you have filtered candidates based on their experience and skills listed on their profile, it’s time to evaluate them deeply. Ask them to create a content strategy for your website, along with a value-adding content piece like a small blog. The topic of the article must fall within the scope of the strategy.

Interview the candidates whose profiles got shortlisted. Keep in mind the parameters covering skills, relevant experience, and personality traits of candidates.

Step 5: Make the Hire

Reach out to selected Content Marketers and communicate about the compensation.

Further, extend your offer letter to all the candidates who have been selected. In the case of passive sourcing, extend to only those who were aligned with you on the compensation and are willing to move forward.

Ensure having a deadline for the joining date and mention the necessary documents required by your recruiting team.

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Get the required documents and set up the offer agreements with candidates
Organize an orientation session for the onboarded candidates
Introduce them to the entire team and the marketing teams they will be working with
Guide the new candidates about your company management tools and communication channels
Provide candidates with forms for benefits and perks like Health Insurance.

Supercharge Your Hiring for Content Marketer with Nurturebox

Inbound candidate sourcing doesn’t work effectively anymore. Do you also find challenges in closing quality candidates through job posts even after spending on ads?

Don’t worry, passive candidate sourcing can be an optimal solution for hiring top content marketing candidates.

Nurturebox is a one-stop talent sourcing and engagement platform which is powered by automation. Here’s how you can source product managers from LinkedIn using Nurturebox:

Install the Nurturebox Chrome plugin and sign up.
On your LinkedIn profile, start sourcing Content Marketers with boolean searches stating the required experience from targeted locations and including other criteria
Add the qualified candidates to your sourcing campaign pipeline with just a click
Automate the candidate engagement through email, Whatsapp and LinkedIn direct messages for reaching out and nurturing candidates at scale.