Eliana Willis

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    Ageism in Recruitment: Why We Need to Change the Way We Think

    While both older and younger generations have suffered the effects of ageism in the workplace, those that sit within older age groups seem to have borne the brunt of this harmful way of thinking in recent years.
    The ageism trend has only been accelerated by the repercussions of Covid-19. After the pandemic, Baby Boomers and a significant portion of Gen X took early retirement, deciding against returning to full-time work due to the shortage of opportunities available to them.
    With individuals over 50 leaving work due to lack of support having been identified as the biggest cause for labour shortage across the UK, ageism has the potential to have a detrimental impact that extends far beyond the damage to individuals and businesses.
    The issues with recruitment in the UK
    Hiring managers’ bias towards employing older individuals has been known to be one of the main causes of ageism within recruitment, and with only 24% of HR leaders between the ages of 25 and 30 saying they felt motivated to recruit workers in the 55 to 75 age category, younger generations’ preconceptions seem to be one of the main problems.
    The new generations’ bias is causing them to miss out on the plethora of benefits that working hand-in-hand with people of different ages can have, but also contributing to existing issues within the recruitment industry.
    The recruitment crisis is still rampant in the UK, as the number of unfilled positions has risen to a new record of 1,300,000 between March and May 2022, up from 1.295,000 in the February and April quarter.
    And retention is a problem too, with figures revealing that around 994,000 individuals moved jobs between January and March 2022 in the UK. This shows that businesses are not putting enough effort into retaining their workforce, making them feel valued and presenting them with a path for future progression.
    Additionally, if we are only willing to offer employment to the younger generations, older age groups will naturally feel there are no longer any opportunities available to them, opting for early retirement instead, which is likely to cause the recruitment crisis to become worse in the next few years.
    Why are current recruitment practices not working?
    The implications of ageist hiring practices are multi-faceted, but their effects have undoubtedly been felt by many job seekers within older age groups.
    A research project investigating ageism in recruitment in the UK revealed that around 30% of individuals between the ages of 50 and 69 felt the application process itself put them at a disadvantage because of their age, while around 23% of those who participated said that it is the way that job adverts are written and marketed that is particularly problematic.
    These findings provide interesting food for thought for recruiters: biased screening processes and job descriptions could easily put off certain individuals from applying for a job, causing businesses to lose a potentially perfect candidate. For instance, hiring processes that are entirely digital or that require the use technology older individuals may not be familiar with would naturally penalise older applicants.
    Evaluating the efficacy of their recruitment practices should be the first step for hiring managers and talent acquisition teams, particularly establishing whether these include any elements or processes that would ostracise certain individuals.
    What’s the answer?
    If an organisation has built teams predominantly comprising younger individuals, they should consider asking themselves whether they have – consciously or subconsciously – avoided hiring those within older age groups, and why.
    While having three or four different generations within the workplace may potentially lead to some minor generational clashes, it also has the potential to be beneficial for all age groups, which is why businesses should empower individuals of different ages to work together.
    This should involve utilising behavioural science to identify key traits in individuals to establish whether they will be able to work well together, regardless of age. Knowing exactly how workers collaborate with other individuals, manage stress or react to change are all factors that can help hiring managers make the right decisions and avoid age bias.
    Hiring managers should first and foremost establish what individuals’ abilities are, how they behave in different situations and what sets them in motion. While there is no one answer for every business, our focus should be on making hiring practices as inclusive as possible, which starts with making decisions based on data and focusing on skills and qualities that truly matter.
    Ultimately, biased hiring practices are exacerbating the labour shortage and causing businesses to miss out on a huge portion of talented workers capable of really making a difference.
    By David Bernard, founder and CEO of behavioural assessment firm AssessFirst.
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    The Future Workforce: How to Attract Gen Z Talent

    By the year 2030, the number of Gen Z employees globally is expected to triple, meaning that those born between 1995 and 2015 will soon make up as much as 30 percent of the workforce worldwide.
    With increasing numbers of Gen Z joining the workforce, it is inevitable that they will play a vital role in shaping the world of work for decades to come. But the question remains around how this generation will change the fabric of workplaces – as this cohort will bring their own vision of what the new world of work should look like.
    LinkedIn data shows that those early in their careers are changing jobs nearly 40 percent more than last year, at more than double the rate of millennials. Just under three-quarters of these career starters attribute this to a career awakening, primarily brought about by the pandemic – with many reporting feeling bored, wanting a job that better aligns with their values, and craving a better work-life balance.
    This leaves employers and recruiters with a new challenge: how can they attract and retain this younger generation of workers in an increasingly competitive labor market?
    Gen Z wants flexibility, not necessarily remote
    It’s clear that to attract Gen Z talent, recruiters will need to understand what matters to them. The pandemic has clearly taught us that flexibility at work is not just a daydream – it’s an expectation. According to our data, Gen Z is the generation most likely to have left – or considered leaving – a job because their employer didn’t offer a feasible flexible work policy (72%), compared to 69% of millennials, 53% of Gen X, and 59% of boomers.
    But this doesn’t necessarily mean that career starters wish to be remote all of the time. Our research of 4,000 Gen Z (18–25-year-old) career starters in the UK, US, France, and Germany suggests that the vast majority (70%) want access to an office, preferring either a mix of office and remote working, or being in the office full-time, compared to just being fully remote.
    For recruiters, the key takeaway here is the importance of flexible working arrangements. That means recognizing the realities of people’s personal situations, including that they may not have an ideal set-up to work from home full-time. Offering flexibility isn’t just essential in attracting and retaining Gen Z talent, but it also represents a huge opportunity to make workplaces fairer, more inclusive, and more equitable. For example, our recent report found greater workplace flexibility could help open up new employment opportunities for 1.3 million people in the UK with disabilities, caring responsibilities, and those based in rural locations.
    Create a culture of continuous learning
    People aren’t just rethinking when, or where they work. But also why. Our recent Workplace Learning Report found that 76% of Gen Z employees cite learning as the key to a successful career. Our data also suggests that two-fifths would be willing to accept a pay cut of up to 5% of their salary for a role that offers better career growth.
    To attract Gen Z talent, companies can promote a culture of continuous learning and highlight the opportunities they’ll provide for career growth. Whether you’re facilitating mentorship opportunities or providing access to learning courses, all of these steps will go a long way to attracting and retaining those at the earliest stages of their careers.
    Remove the barriers of experience inflation
    Recruiters have a crucial role to play in helping their clients to advertise entry-level job roles appropriately. If you’re hiring at the entry-level, you need to ensure that your job postings are reflective of the level of experience career starters will have under their belt.
    Our data found that nearly a third of Gen Z job seekers say that the biggest hindrance they face is not knowing where to start. This is because more often than not, organizations label positions requiring three-plus years of experience as entry-level. This experience inflation is locking top talent out of applying for roles that they perceive themselves to be underqualified for. For example, based on our analysis of LinkedIn data from nearly 4 million jobs posted between December 2017 and August 2021, we found that employers required a minimum of three years of relevant work experience on 35% of their entry-level postings.
    It may seem advantageous to have experienced employees coming in at the entry-level, but companies could end up losing out on top talent in the long term. With Gen Z candidates becoming increasingly selective about the roles they apply for, it’s more important than ever for recruiters to be well-versed in an organization’s purpose, culture, and what makes it stand out. Job postings will not only need to reflect entry-level skills and organizational values, but they will also need to take a skills-based approach to ensure potential candidates aren’t being locked out of these opportunities.
    By Adam Hawkins, Head of Search and Staffing EMEA & LATAM, LinkedIn.
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    How to Ask Better Interview Questions

    If you want to hire the best people, you need to ask the best interview questions. Online CV builder resume.io gathered the most effective interview questions from successful business leaders and entrepreneurs. And it added some helpful tips and advice on how to incorporate them during your next big recruitment drive.
    Good interviews start with good questions. Those questions need to be open-ended and probing. Open-ended questions can’t be answered with a “yes” or “no” or a static response. They’re often phrased as a statement and are designed to get your candidates talking as much as possible.
    Common open-ended interview questions:

    Tell me about yourself.
    How would you describe yourself?
    How would your boss or co-workers describe you?
    What motivates you?
    What do you see as your strengths?
    What accomplishments are you proud of?

    The best open-ended questions
    Not all open-ended questions are created equal. “How would you describe yourself?” is vague and could lead the interview down an unfruitful path.
    Instead, the trick is to ask open-ended questions that reveal the candidates’ suitability for the role you’re trying to fill.
    Porter Braswell, CEO of diversity hiring startup Jopwell, asks his applicants, “What does success mean to you?”
    Shippo CEO Laura Behrens Wu asks something similar. She inquires, “What are some things outside of work that you’re irrationally passionate about?”
    Both questions appear unrelated to a specific role. However, they’re excellent tools for hiring managers who want to understand what drives and motivates their candidates.
    For example, if your candidate plays a competitive sport and is motivated by a high salary, bonuses, and awards, then there’s a good chance they’ll thrive in a fast-paced, high-pressure sales environment.
    Asking uncomfortable questions
    According to billionaire entrepreneur Tim Ferriss, your success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have.
    This is certainly the case for recruiters, who should never be afraid of asking really tough questions. After all, every candidate can look like a star if you keep pitching slow balls. Only an elite few can handle the fastballs and curveballs.
    But finding the right balance is crucial. You want the candidate to open up, not clam up.
    Former Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson uses this question to challenge anyone he interviews:
    “Tell me about a time you really screwed something up. How did you handle it, and how did you address the mistake?”
    It’s an excellent interview question. It assesses the candidates’ honesty and humility – would you really want to hire someone who claims they never make mistakes – and it’s an opportunity to tick off other essential competencies, including problem-solving and the ability to respond positively to feedback.
    Here are some more ‘uncomfortable’ questions from successful business leaders:

    “What would someone who doesn’t like you tell us about you?” – Luis Von Ahn, Duolingo CEO.
    “What’s one piece of critical feedback you received that was difficult to hear?” – Pema Lin-Moore, VP of People Operations.
    “Describe yourself in three words,” – Sara Blakely, Spanx CEO.
    “If you were in my shoes, what attributes would you look for in hiring for this role?” – Tim Chen, Co-found and CEO of NerdWallet.

    Get your candidates thinking
    Elon Musk drops this brain-teaser in during his interviews:
    “You’re standing on the surface of the earth. You walk one mile south, one mile east, and one mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?”
    It’s not a trick question; the answer is The North Pole.
    For Musk, the question tests a candidate’s cognitive ability – and that needs to be high if you’re designing rockets to Mars.
    But the question is helpful in other ways, too – even if the candidate doesn’t know the answer. In fact, how they respond to not knowing can be extremely revealing.
    Are they humble enough to say they don’t know? Curious enough to ask you to explain the answer? And if they try to wing or blag it, what else are they not being 100% honest about?
    Start trying these questions out in your next interviews. You’ll be surprised by how much they’ll help you find the right person for the job.

    Ashley Murphy graduated with a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Manchester. He works as a content writer for Resume.io, specializing in technology, higher education, and entrepreneurship.
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    What Does Your Recruitment Process Say About You?

    With the easing of lockdown kickstarting the economy and more employers seeking new staff, candidates have become far more selective about the jobs they decide to take. And where does a candidate gain their first impression of your business? During the recruitment process.
    If you still think your ideal recruit will jump through hoops for the chance of an interview, think again. Candidates have far greater expectations when it comes to recruitment in 2022, and there are around 36% fewer applicants across industries in the first place. So, you cannot afford to let the ideal candidate slip through your fingers.
    Where businesses go wrong with recruitment
    Two key reasons why candidates decline a position include:

    However, 52% of job seekers place lack of response from employers (or recruiters!) as the number one frustration during the job search — which explains why 89% of potential candidates drop out of the hiring process due to a drawn-out timeline.
    During this new age of remote and hybrid working, company culture is also more important than ever. Failure to display a progressive attitude to work-life balance could be the ultimate turn-off for a potential candidate. According to Glassdoor, 77% of people consider company culture before applying for a job — and even believe it is more important than salary when it comes to job satisfaction.
    What’s more, since the pandemic necessitated the widespread adoption of remote working, many people are reluctant to accept roles involving a long commute. Only one in seven workers expect to commute into their place of work five days a week — so, if your business cannot offer a flexible approach to work, your top candidates will likely seek it elsewhere.
    How to improve the recruitment process
    A candidate will gain their first impression of your business by checking it out online before even thinking about applying. So, if your online presence is inconsistent, incomplete, or out of date, people are unlikely to view your organization as a suitable match.
    Ensuring everything — from your website and social channels to the job ad itself — is well written, accurate, and demonstrates a positive company culture will go a long way to reassuring a potential employee that your business is a legitimate and appealing prospect.
    A business’ reputation also speaks volumes about its culture and values. Quality online reviews and feedback from current or past employees are crucial, so it is essential to build a positive working environment and reputation to prove how great your business is to work for.
    Clear communication and timeliness from the start are also critical elements of the recruitment process. It takes a lot of time and resources for HR departments to keep up with multiple ongoing applications; by embracing technology and integrating digital processes, you can automate responses and streamline applications.
    Once you have refined your software and remote onboarding processes, your pool of available candidates will expand significantly — especially since 43% of graduates have had to turn down interviews due to the cost of getting there. Plus, as the average cost of replacing an employee is 150% of their salary, it is well worth investing in the correct processes to get recruitment right the first time.
    By Julie Mott, Managing Director, Howett Thorpe.
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    A Step-By-Step Checklist To Inclusive Hiring in 2022

    Many HR departments are attempting to create a diverse workplace in today’s world, but you can’t have diversity without inclusion.
    To construct a diverse team and a modern and attractive workplace culture, HR staff must create an environment that welcomes all individuals and fosters equal engagement and representation.
    In recent years, there has been a significant effort in the UK to fight for equality, to the point that employers are instituting quotas based on gender, BAME, disability, and even sexual orientation.
    There are two significant types of diversity in today’s workplace:
    First, inherent diversity is concerned with qualities such as race, gender, and age. Education, experience, beliefs, skills, and knowledge are all aspects of acquired variety.
    Natural HR has set out to explore our top ideas for making a diverse and inclusive recruitment process a standard element of your people talent strategy in this article.
    What is the definition of workplace diversity?
    It is critical to remember that workplace diversity is defined as when a company understands, accepts, and values differences between people of different races, ethnicities, genders, ages, religions, disabilities, and sexual orientations, as well as differences in personalities, skill sets, experiences, and knowledge.
    What are the benefits of diversity and inclusivity recruitment?
    Having a functional diversity and inclusion strategy that is incorporated into your recruitment workflow will provide your company with various benefits, including:

    Hiring better talent.
    Being able to make more informed business decisions.
    Increasing the performance of your teams.
    Accelerating innovation by allowing different mindsets to collaborate.
    Gaining more decadent customer satisfaction due to high-quality staff.
    Improving company culture with improved employee satisfaction.

    The inclusive hiring in the workplace checklist
    The tutorial below will walk you through the whole recruitment process, from bringing on a new team member to crafting a job advertisement and interviewing qualified candidates. It will include critical considerations to ensure that diversity and inclusion are prioritized at each stage.
    1. Audit your job adverts to remove bias:
    When it comes to inclusive and diverse recruitment, you can’t look forward without looking back. As a result, the first step you must take is to assess your whole recruitment pipeline to identify faults and begin implementing improvements that will address diversity and inclusivity concerns.
    When reviewing historical job advertisements, you may find a propensity to employ more masculine or feminine language in job advertisements, which may discourage particular groups from applying for specific roles. Based on the findings of this analysis, you may then retroactively apply new conditions to the recruiting procedure to reduce biases in future recruitment drives.
    2. Target sources where diverse candidates are focused:
    It is now easier than ever to recruit applicants from a large skill pool with the Internet’s strength. To that end, sourcing individuals from several sources is a terrific method to diversify your recruitment pool.
    Rather than relying solely on traditional job boards or recruitment agencies, look for chances to diversify candidates through alternative sources such as educational institutions, government agencies, and even rehabilitation centers.
    You might also communicate directly with organizations that focus on specific areas; for example, for a technology post, you could interact directly with women in technology groups to connect with suitable female applicants.
    3. Encourage your employees to utilize their network:
    If you want to hire more of a specific group of under-represented people, reach out to some of your current team members who fall into that category.
    Creating an internal applicant recommendation program is one approach to accomplish this. You will be able to connect with similar candidates from varied backgrounds by utilizing your existing internal pool of diverse workers.
    4. Offer internships targeted at underrepresented groups:
    Offering internships to folks with specialized credentials is a terrific approach to foster up-and-coming talent in your sector. To accomplish this, you may form collaborations with education and community organizations in your area to provide an opportunity to groups that may struggle to take the first steps into the roles you’re recruiting for.
    5. Develop an employer brand that showcases your diversity:
    When developing a brand identity, don’t overlook the significance of diversity and inclusivity. You should encourage employees from various backgrounds to share their experiences with your organization, which you should then incorporate into your employer and recruiting branding.
    Having these stories in place and actively pushing them in your applicant sourcing is a terrific approach to ensure your diversity recruiting strategy is working properly.
    6. Utilize blind recruitment:
    Blind recruitment is one of the most popular trends in the industry. To reduce bias during the first recruitment stage, it takes steps to blackout essential information such as name, age, education, and candidate photos. The idea here is to avoid further discrimination in who you choose to interview.
    7. Rethink what factors you screen for when hiring:
    When determining what your ideal recruit looks like, it is vital to ensure that your possible candidates exhibit the characteristics that your firm values. Throughout the recruitment process, examine how you’re screening candidates and yourself to see whether you’re directing the outcomes towards specific types of people owing to potential bias.
    Chris Bourne is Head of Marketing at Natural HR. Natural HR is a cloud-based HR software for small businesses and organizations looking to improve staff management and pay. 
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    Why AI Recruiting is Key to Growth in 2022

    Business priorities in 2022 have all shifted to center around talent. Primarily, finding it. The Great Resignation, or the Great Reshuffle, or the Big Quit — whatever you want to call it — continues to dominate headlines and highlight the ongoing shortage of labor. But companies need to understand that the skewed supply and demand ratio for talent is here to stay. One study even predicts a global human talent shortage of 85 million workers by 2030.
    Despite this trend seeming to look like old news at this point, many organizations’ hiring programs were still completely caught off guard over the last year. In a report by Hiretual, 61% of recruiters said sourcing talent was their biggest challenge in 2021. At the end of 2020, when asked about their biggest anticipated concern, sourcing talent didn’t even make it to the top three.
    That same report found the second and third biggest challenges for recruiters surveyed went to candidate engagement and employer competition, respectively. Again, when recruiters were asked the same question the year before, neither of these obstacles was high on the list.
    What these responses signal is a shift in priority from inbound to outbound recruiting. That is, rather than relying on workers to go out and find jobs, companies are now having to sell available jobs to workers — and doing so at scale is proving difficult. While companies and recruiters may be beginning to understand this, the amount of LinkedIn posts we’re still seeing from leaders exclaiming, “We’re Hiring!” — expecting qualified prospects to go out of their way and click through to a boring careers page — shows not many have adapted to compete.
    As organizations around the world refine strategies for the future, now is the time to commit to growth, and adapt to achieve it. Companies that do will stand to benefit from a final post-pandemic jolt to productivity, setting themselves up for a more sustainable future. But with more jobs available than there are workers to do them, those that fail to change their recruiting strategy will see their workforce — and success — atrophy.
    Getting More Human With AI
    The pressure is on for talent acquisition, but changing priorities brought on by the pandemic will require recruiters to do more than fill jobs. Going forward, recruiters must offer opportunities that meet heightened needs from talent (such as more inclusive cultures and more flexible work schedules) and align with refined company objectives (like scaling skill sets and leading product innovation).
    To do that effectively, recruiters need to be able to spend more time doing the more human aspects of the job, to provide a better experience to candidates, and better qualify talent for the needs of the business — now and for the future.
    If 2021 investment data is any indication, talent acquisition tech stacks are getting reevaluated. In fact, 62% of companies increased their investment in talent acquisition technology last year, according to Aptitude Research. Because something has to give, more companies than ever before will look to AI recruitment technologies to give themselves a competitive advantage. Here are a few ways AI will help companies address key recruiting challenges in 2022.
    Revealing Blind Spots
    Not all talent is accessible in the same places, and many recruiters are looking for candidates with too narrow of a view into the available talent pool. Usually limited by a handful of disparate job boards, with limited search functionality or candidate profile visibility, talent acquisition pros end up missing access to a large share of qualified talent.
    AI recruiting tools will broaden the scope of available talent. By pulling candidate profile data from multiple talent pools, hiring teams can access significantly more of the total talent population and search from a single source. Some platforms are approaching access to almost a billion candidates. Companies that need to scale growth will have more options, and more opportunities to hire.
    In addition, AI will help recruiting teams remove limitations to how they find talent by mitigating unconscious bias from the process to make more equitable hiring decisions. This works by automatically matching candidates based on the skills relevancy of what a recruiter is looking for, rather than focusing on any other candidate’s features. For example, blind searches can be conducted to remove attributes like gender or race, or even education, to help remove bias and lack of diversity in the hiring process.
    By managing diversity in the outbound phase of the recruiting process — as opposed to scrubbing data in ATSs or CRMs — organizations can take a more proactive approach to make equitable hiring decisions.
    Meeting the Need for Speed
    To reach goals for scale, hiring teams need to shorten the time it takes to bring the right jobs to the right people. With AI, organizations will begin to automate more of the transactional and respective aspects of the hiring process. This will give recruiters more time to focus on building relationships by engaging prospective talent in meaningful ways.
    Without the right technology, recruiters will spend less time adding value to the process. Automation will free up the time it takes for recruiters to facilitate communication by removing manual tasks like bulk outreach, scheduling, and managing candidate pipeline data, so they can spend more time consulting with talent to place them in roles that best fit their interests, ambitions, and experience.
    Teams leveraging AI will encounter fewer obstacles with potential candidates in misaligned job expectations and broken feedback loops, resulting in faster time to hire and smoother onboarding experiences.
    Establishing a Foundation for Growth
    For many candidates, contact with a recruiter is the first moment of exposure they have with an organization. That first impression has the potential to create interest by offering the candidate valuable and relevant experience. It also has the potential to diminish the brand in the eye of prospects and their peers.
    With the help of AI, organizations will set up hiring teams to showcase their brand to candidates in the best light and build a workforce that better supports company objectives for the long run. By engaging talent with a more inclusive approach, increasing the speed and ease of the hiring process, and broadening the scope of talent they see and consider, only organizations leaning on AI will overcome today’s hiring challenges to build workforces that grow.
    Shannon Pritchett is Head of Community at both Hiretual and Evry1 (which she co-founded in 2021). 
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    How to Embed Diversity and Inclusion into Your Recruitment Policy

    The ‘S’ (social) in ESG campaigns is integral to any business, a lack of diversity can negatively impact growth and stifle creativity. Diverse teams generate almost 20% more revenue than those that are lacking in this area.
    Thinking carefully about the specific language used in job adverts, using blind CV assessments, and employing inclusive interviewing techniques can all help businesses embed diversity and inclusion into their recruitment policies.
    With almost one-third of jobseekers and employees have said they would not apply to a company where there is a lack of diversity among its workforce, it’s time that businesses start to scrutinize their recruitment policies.
    Think about the job advert
    Pay attention to the nuances in recruitment communication to ensure what is written is inclusive and unbiased.
    Job adverts should avoid phrases such as “competitive nature” and “aggressively determined” in favor of truthful descriptions of competency, these phrases are also typically ‘male-coded’, so might deter female applicants from applying. Similarly, complex jargon and specialist terms can also overwhelm applicants. Adverts should be as simple and to the point as possible.
    The use of equality and diversity statements in job adverts can aid in creating an inclusive atmosphere from the very start of the recruitment process. One study found that job adverts with an empathetic diversity statement left 71% of potential applicants with a positive impression of the hypothetical employer.
    Similarly, awards such as ‘The Times Top 50 Employers of Women’ can be mentioned on job applicants to reassure minority applicants that they are welcome to apply.
    Blind CV assessment
    The Department for Work and Pensions sent out applications to 1,000 job vacancies with 2/3 containing names typically associated with a certain ethnic group. Results showed that ethnic minority applicants needed to send out 74% more applications in order to generate the same success rate as those with White sounding names.
    Removing names, ages, genders, and postcodes from CVs before they are assessed can remove opportunities for bias to enter the recruitment process. A number of top employers adopt this technique, including the UK’s Civil Service.
    Championing diversity and inclusion is not just about CV blind initiatives. It’s a complex and multifaceted agenda.
    Keeping an eye out for opportunities to learn more about diverse talent pools should be a priority. At Totum Partners, we host a series of successful diversity and inclusion webinars, such as: ‘How to create the most diverse firm in Britain’.
    Inclusive interviewing
    Once a candidate is at an interview, the best way to minimize bias is to combine a number of efforts, there is no magic bullet approach.
    Standardizing the interview questions in a structured manner will allow the employer to focus on the candidate’s skills that will determine their ability to perform the job. Unstructured interviews are difficult to compare, making it more likely that personal factors will infiltrate the hiring decision.
    Sometimes called a “mental shortcut”, affinity bias is common. This means we gravitate towards people who we feel are similar to ourselves. Training modules and workshops are a good way to generate self-awareness of your own biases.
    The importance of succession planning
    Employees should be able to see diversity all the way up an organization. Last month it was reported that 2 in 5 Black employees have left their job because of a lack of diversity.
    Initiatives that only focus on entry-level recruitment leave BME employees without anyone to look up to. Since 2018, among the Fortune 500 boards, of the 974 seats filled by new directors, 80% were by White directors, this is an example of bad succession planning.
    Organizations should consider lateral workplace diversity when looking at how to progress talent internally. Firms that ignore this form of conscious inclusion, will soon be left behind, especially considering the escalating numbers of employees quitting their jobs in the UK in recent months.
    Accountability
    Having awareness of the benefits that diversity brings to the workplace is important, but actions speak louder than words.
    As a recruitment firm, Totum is committed to questioning candidate lists that show a lack of diversity. Feedback on a BME candidate that reads “something was not quite right” needs to be followed up for factual feedback. Too often this behavior goes unquestioned.
    This is embedded into the Race Fairness Commitment that Totum is a part of. The Commitment pledges all members to engage in activities to ensure equal access to opportunities for all candidates.
    Calls for diversity and inclusion will grow louder in 2022. Deloitte’s 2018 Millennial Survey demonstrated that diversity is integral to workplace loyalty, with candidates saying they are more likely to stay with an employer for over 5 years if there is diversity in the workplace.
    Employers must be aware of how to entrench diversity and inclusion into their recruitment policies, or both their business and colleagues will suffer. CV blind assessments, inclusive interviewing, and succession planning should be a staple in any recruitment process in 2022 if businesses want to take this agenda seriously.
    By Deborah Gray, Director at Totum Partners.
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    The 6 Core Values to Attract Applicants

    It’s no secret that UK firms across multiple sectors are struggling to find the right candidates. There are many reasons for this, including long-term skills shortages, but something that firms can do to stand out from their hiring competition is understand what motivates candidates and make sure their recruitment messages communicate what candidates want to know. What was important to employees previously is less so to many now. Our recent (November 2021) Monster Survey found that support and care for employees is the number one criterion for choosing and remaining with an employer in the UK, and we believe that the pandemic is at least partly responsible for this focus.
    Our study shows a positive and caring working environment is more important to candidates than higher pay to UK jobseekers. Quality applicants are discerning, assessing each company according to six core values. Businesses that can show they care and provide a stimulating environment have a competitive advantage in the battle for top talent. Those who fail to act, or communicate effectively, are at risk.
    The pandemic has changed priorities and fundamentally altered our relationship to work, according to the Monster survey. A healthy pay packet may have been the priority in the past, but today, organizational values are now most important to employees of any age. An incredible 60% of employees want to know what a business stands for before applying for a role.
    The accelerating economic recovery has intensified recruitment urgency, and employers must act. Our research suggests that what you say to potential candidates, how you say it, and when will significantly impact your success at attracting and retaining talent.
    In the post-pandemic world, a larger pay packet isn’t enough. Companies must learn to communicate effectively and authentically, creating a positive employer brand for their business that employees can believe in.
    Six core values to attract applicants
    Our study ranked the six workplace values that candidates use to judge current and future employers. These are the questions applicants want answers to before they take the first step.
    As an employer, ask yourself, are you doing enough?

    Care. Is it clear you care for your employees as well as your customers? Do your benefits and workplace culture show that you support your workforce and go above and beyond to make sure you have a healthy and vibrant workplace?
    Interest. Do you offer a stimulating, interesting work environment matched with innovative employment policies and procedures? How does what you do add value to society?
    Social. Does your employment atmosphere promote teamwork and camaraderie? Do people collaborate on cross-departmental projects? Does the company host social events and family days?
    Economic. Economic values are more than just salary. Is your business financially secure? Is your pay competitive? Do your benefits offer value?
    Development. Do you invest in upskilling your employees, recognize their achievements, and provide opportunities for career enhancement? Are there clear paths to promotion?
    Application. Can candidates use their skills and knowledge to contribute to the company beyond their job description? Are employees encouraged to bring ideas in an open forum? Is innovation rewarded?

    These values apply across generations, with care being the most important factor for Gen-Z, Millennials, and Gen-X. Boomers, approaching the end of their careers, are understandably motivated by money, but care comes a close second.
    Working environment, employee experience, and employer engagement are critical factors for workers of all generations in deciding whether to apply for a new job – or stay where they are.
    Be vocal about values
    In a market with over a million open UK vacancies candidates have a wider choice of roles than ever before, it’s too late for employers to leave discussion of essential issues until selection starts. In today’s economy, candidates are in the driving seat.
    Applicants want to know the attitude of potential employers to these criteria before they will even consider working for them, but employers are failing. Many aren’t living up to the values and practices employees want to see and are unable (or unwilling) to communicate what they are doing authentically and effectively.
    Our study has demonstrated that the problem isn’t necessarily with the business but the employer brand.
    Your company’s actions must embody your values, and your employer brand must express them. Monster research has found that 69% of job candidates say they would not take a job with a company with a bad reputation – even if they were unemployed.
    Employers must positively promote their culture and values. Communicating with them must become a core part of the recruitment process and a strategic priority. Why? Because job seekers are consumers. Faced with several businesses saying the same thing, they’ll seek our brands with shared values.
    The survey results establish that authenticity is key. A strong employer brand needs to be more than virtue signaling. In a world where businesses and brands are increasingly keen to take an active social stance, just 42% of staff felt employers should share a public viewpoint on an issue, with 58% preferring a neutral approach. Polarising topics such as Brexit have caused significant societal friction, and it’s perhaps understandable that employees prefer businesses to remain silent.
    Your employer brand can humanize your company. Stripping out the corporate messages and communicating your core values will make the difference.
    Putting it into practice
    Monsters Chief Human Resources office, Claire Barnes summarizes the key issues, what employers can do, and what steps Monster has taken.
    “The Pandemic has, of course, been hugely stressful with much uncertainty for many people. People have had very different work experiences. From frontline workers who worked the whole way through to those furloughed for months at a time. Many being able to work from home and, of course, those who lost jobs due to redundancies or businesses closing. It’s no surprise that people’s experience, how work made them feel, is shaping their attitudes. It is a valid question for candidates to ask of a company “how did you support your employees during the pandemic?”
    One of the vital lessons we must learn from the pandemic is that we can’t assume we know our employees’ feelings. Instead, we must recognize a gap between what we, as leaders, believe and what we know.
    We’ve faced the same challenges in engaging existing employees and attracting the best talent at Monster. So we’re putting wellbeing at the center of our human resources strategy and approach. In practical terms, we’re offering employees the freedom and flexibility to work how they want. We’ve changed our benefits and policies to support the shift and focused on the importance of self-care for everyone.
    We’re a business and brand that lives its values, but we’re always searching for ways to improve what we do and how we do it. In the battle for the best talent, we’ve reviewed, refreshed, and refined our brand to appeal to jobseekers – and we recommend other companies should consider doing the same.
    By Rod McMillan, Marketing Manager, Monster UK
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