How to Create an Inclusive Hiring Process
It’s no secret that diversity and inclusion are incredibly important to businesses. At Snagajob, it’s making sure that our employers have a diverse slate of candidates to choose from—and making sure that our workers have a list of inclusive employers to select from. We have to pay attention to these things. For us, this begins during the interview process.
Five steps to an inclusive interview process
The role: To ensure we’re creating the most inclusive experience possible, we start with understanding what exactly we want in a candidate. It’s easy to pull an old job description on file to post again, but this isn’t the best option. We want to make sure we’re thinking about what we actually need for the job. Do we need a degree? Do we need X amount of experience? What are the skills that are truly important for this versus what we can teach?
We’ve found this opens up our position to a much more diverse slate of candidates.
Advertising the position: Once the role description is finalized, we look into how we are advertising it. The way we talk about our available positions externally is incredibly important. We want to make sure we aren’t unintentionally using gendered language, sharp words or phrases that are discouraging people to apply. We want to make sure the descriptions aren’t too long. Another important factor is making sure we are very forthright in saying we welcome all identities and perspectives to apply.
Interview panel: When someone comes in for an interview, we want them to have the best possible experience. To create a truly inclusive interview, we focus on bringing in people from all across the organization. For example, if we’re interviewing a potential engineer, the candidate doesn’t just meet engineers. They’re meeting folks from product and marketing. We want potential employees to have a fully diverse perspective on the work we do and what it’s truly like to work here.
Selection process: When we’re making the selection process, we sit down with the team and go back to the job description to make sure we’re assessing candidates on the criteria that we’ve already settled on. We’ve documented everything and we’re asking candidates the same questions. This way, we have very clear information when we’re deciding and we aren’t being unintentionally biased.
Post interview: Once the interview process is complete and a candidate accepts an offer, we send a survey out to everyone that interviewed for the position, whether or not they were selected. We want feedback on how people felt when they came in for an interview with us. We use this feedback to improve our process for future candidates.
It’s time to ensure diversity and inclusion are at the forefront of the interview and hiring process. By putting intention into each step, you can work toward a truly inclusive and diverse workplace.