Employers are falling at the first step when it comes to diversity in the workplace. The biggest mistake that they’re making is their understanding of what diverse actually means. By limiting the definition of diversity to multiculturalism, employers are losing their ability to call themselves truly diverse.

On the surface, employers can look to be promoting equal opportunities and diversity, but in actual fact if these companies have small recruitment budgets or access to limited channels then a diverse and equal recruitment strategy is difficult to achieve.

When hiring, many employers target a single outlet, normally one of the big channels, the likes of LinkedIn, Indeed, Reed, etc. (there are many popular platforms), but it is exactly the popularity of these platforms that causes a downfall in a diverse recruitment strategy.

To be a true diverse employer you need a diverse recruitment strategy that matches.

Interestingly, conversations with many recruiters and employers who promote equal opportunities and diversity in the workplace, have actually revealed that they only use a single channel to recruit their workforce. This recruitment strategy is incredibly limiting – surely to achieve true diversity within the recruitment process, vacancies need to be amplified far and wide using a whole plethora of channels to promote rather than circulate in a single place.

It is safe to say that the numbers do most of the talking:

👉 30% of the UK working population doesn’t have a LinkedIn profile;
👉 75% of graduates don’t use LinkedIn;
👉 60% of LinkedIn users are male.

If it wasn’t already abundantly clear, not every individual who is in the workforce and searching for a job is on LinkedIn. This is especially true when thinking about recruiting women and young people.

True diversity within the recruitment process can’t be achieved by using a single job board or searching on LinkedIn alone. A good quality and diverse recruitment strategy include targeting multiple job advertisement boards and social medias in order to generate the biggest pool of potential employees.

It is perfectly possible to employ a diverse workforce through many different initiatives, one of the most popular being BAME schemes. But this doesn’t necessarily mean you are diverse at recruiting. Think about the hundreds, thousands and potentially even more workers that are missing your role opening simply because they don’t have the ability to access nor the knowledge to access these types of job boards.

By limiting yourself to a single channel to promote your upcoming roles is not a diverse recruitment strategy. It’s logical to say that you simply can’t have a successful diverse workplace when the immediate first step of even having the knowledge there is a job opening isn’t diverse or fair.

Stasia Seliverstova, People Director and DEI Lead at The Diversity Partnership stated that: “DEI should be at the forefront of everything we do, and to be diverse in recruiting, you need ask yourself – are your job descriptions and job ads inclusive? Are you advertising on a wide range of diverse platforms? Is your interview process fair and equitable? Could you be doing talks to give those in underrepresented communities insight and knowledge into your industry to help them get a job in the future?

All employers should be ensuring that they ask themselves these questions before making a hiring decision. Their recruitment strategy can immediately become more diverse and glowing in equality when these questions are being asked and answered. Further education within the recruitment community would certainly not go amiss in teaching recruiters to be more diverse.

It would be unfair to say that no progress has been made. To be fair, recruitment has come leaps and bounds to what it was once. However, there is still a long way to go to making all workplace hiring and job advertisement strategies diverse.

Henry Field, who specialises in Recruitment Management, Diversity and Inclusion as well as Wellbeing noted that for his company, “We use a number of job boards, as well as LinkedIn and other social media. We’re also in stages of setting up partnerships with external community groups and specialist support services for the exact reason mentioned above – not everyone has access to the means many would assume.

We, those who have had advantageous childhoods and ways of lives forget the simple fact that many still don’t have access to basics such as laptops or internet.

Henry’s final point is certainly one to be remembered:

“The day anyone says “were doing all we can” is the day they’ve lost – there’s always room for improvement. Diversity and Inclusion is continuous.”

There is still a long way to go when it comes to diversity in the workplace. Indeed, there has been some improvement with some great initiatives being put in place to help those from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds get an equal and fair chance in life. However, there is still so much to be done, and a lot of that stems from job advertisement.

Employers need to seek education and guidance from external groups and charities that can help them lower the hurdles in the first step towards landing a new career. By increasing the yield of viewers to your job advertisement by promoting and advertising on various channels including social media and other medias, you’re already taking positive steps towards equality.

Every 20 seconds an active job seeker reads a Guru job advert. Talk to us about the candidates you want to reach, and we’ll build you a high performing hiring campaign to drive engaged audiences (from an array of platforms) to your vacancy.

Specialist in-house teams ensure campaigns get big coverage and big responses (don’t worry we can filter) whilst saving you time and money compared to going direct.

By expanding the coverage of potential new hires through different media channels such as LinkedIn, social media and other bespoke content, Guru gives companies the steppingstone they need to be able to take a step in the right direction when it comes to being truly diverse.

Get in contact with Guru now to see how they can help you strategize your hiring process.