The 3% Conference: Disrupting Recruiting for the Modern World (Part 4)
In our final installment of our 3% Conference series, we examine how to blow up current recruiting practices to find quality talent that reflects our modern world. For more 3% Conference key learnings, check out our pieces on taking authentic action in the age of social justice, creating strong virtual connections and loneliness in the workplace.
In 2020, with major social justice movements taking place, companies are focused more than ever on recruiting and retaining diverse talent. They’re pushing recruiting teams to find more diverse candidates — but they aren’t examining the recruiting process itself to remove bias.
Linda Waste, senior director of talent acquisition at Electronic Arts, led a powerful session on disrupting the recruiting process to reduce our biases, with actionable tips that can help all of us build better teams. Some of Linda’s top tips to disrupt recruiting include:
· Treat hiring and recruiting like your day job. Recruiting and hiring should be a priority for everyone involved in the process, not just HR. If you’re lucky enough to be involved in the hiring process, take it seriously! Read the resumes, fill in the interview questions and do the work way before you walk into the interview. You can even make it a part of your development goals to keep yourself accountable.
· Brief your team appropriately. Just like any client project, you should start with a great brief to help everyone involved understand what we’re doing and what we want to achieve. The brief shouldn’t be a laundry list of boxes to be checked. Instead, think about the actual work that this candidate will need to do, and then identify what this person will need to be successful. Once you’ve got the brief, do a kickoff meeting and take the team through it.
· Don’t go easy on yourself. If you look at a resume and don’t like it, you need to ask yourself why. Our brains are wired to find familiarity and make connections with your past. But we need to stop using our guts to make hires and instead use data and discipline to make the process less subjective. If you ask yourself the tough questions, your biases are less likely to get in the way.
We need to show up differently if we want the makeup of our offices to change. If we keep ourselves honest and do the work, we can make an impact on our workforces.
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To learn more about the 3% conference, visit 3percentmovement.com.
