Many companies across most markets are talking about talent shortages and the struggle to attract and recruit the right people for their businesses.
The recruitment market is rapidly changing ! And, with new working landscapes, digital technology & social networks, companies need to engagewith broader and more diverse talent communities.
Companies have to reinvent the recruitment value chain, moving away from traditional recruitment models to more diversity-based approaches. This means lots of change and new challenges for hiring managers who, for many years, prefer to recruit professionals that resemble them, or fit into a certain mold ! While the overall objective is to recruit the very best people for each role, hiring “diverse talent” or diversifying the talent pool can destabilize hiring managers at selection and recruitment stages. The complexity arises, as hiring managers have fewer “traditional” benchmarks to facilitate the selection such as school reputation, the level of diploma, alumni networks, etc. Hiring managers, as well as other people in the workplace need sufficient training and tools to facilitate the meaning & value of cultural sensitivity, diversity, inclusion, equity within the company. Only then, can hiring managers move from the comfortable traditional recruitment model & mindset to a diversity-focused approach.
Diversity in Recruitment Matters
Additionally, all parties need to be part of why “diversity matters”, to create powerful REAL messages and benchmarks. For example, actively participate in questions and decisions on “who to hire” (target populations), for which positions/functions and why?, “who to promote” (demonstrating career advancement perspectives), and why? etc…
Example : For an international manufacturing group, diversity is a strategic priority, with an immediate urgency to diversify the very male oriented engineering activities (technical experts, managers & leadership roles). Before going to the external recruitment market, this group promotes internal career opportunities to encourage female applicants, but the historic masculine culture does not facilitate the challenge.
So, what should this group do internally to facilitate the challenge? First & foremost, prepare the terrain, create a diverse working group, including female & male employees with valuable experiences to outline, the “who to hire” (target populations), for which positions/functions and why?, “who to promote” (demonstrating career advancement perspectives), and why? etc… The priority is to optimize an inclusive approach with examples of career paths that help to create powerful messages to share externally.
To facilitate apparent talent shortages & embrace diversity, companies across all globe need to recruit diverse talent for their businesses. Diversity in recruitment will become the norm and companies need to constantly diversify recruitment strategy to stay ahead of the game.
For more than 20 years, we have been helping multisector customers attract, select & recruit diverse, talented international professionals for a multitude of functional disciplines. We have a proven ability to identify “potential”, work with « atypical » profiles, and we encourage diversity across all projects…
Here is an interesting link from McKinsey – Delivering through diversity :