door Israpil Nalgiev | okt 12, 2021
A more innovative and creative workforce. Sounds good, right? It happens when your workforce becomes more diverse. And it’s probably one of the reasons why you have set yourself ambitious diversity and inclusion goals. But it requires some effort to reach these goals. You’ll need an effective diversity recruitment strategy. It helps you build a workforce that resembles society. You’ll hire a diverse range of people. Diverse in terms of their backgrounds, gender, race, religion and age. But it also concerns diversity of skills, education, experience, values and knowledge.
So how do you implement an effective diversity recruitment strategy? We’ll tell you all about it here.
How to implement an effective diversity recruitment strategy
1. Audit your job ads
Start with looking through the job ads you posted in the past. Do they appeal to a wide range of candidates? Or do they use language that excludes certain groups of people? They might, unintentionally, discourage older people from applying. Or discourage women because you use a more male tone of voice. Adjust those job ads using inclusive language. That way, they will appeal to a spacious range of candidates. That is what diversity recruitment is all about.
2. Have your diverse employees refer you to their connections
You probably already have some diverse employees working for you. When you’re looking for new talent, you can use their network to become even more diverse. Chances are that the people in their networks have similar backgrounds. So, you should:
- ask them to share your job ads in their network.
- give them the tools to promote your company for you.
It’s an easy and effective way to boost your diversity recruitment strategy.
3. Build an employer brand that showcases your diversity
Diversity recruitment can’t do without an employer brand that is known for valuing diversity. To build one, your employees need to talk about how diverse you are. Use their stories and experiences to show how diverse your workforce is. Diverse candidates try to find out how diverse a company is. Organically building an employer brand is the only way to really appeal to them.
Textmetrics and your diversity recruitment strategy
The Textmetrics platform can improve your company’s diversity recruitment strategy. Using algorithms based on artificial intelligence, it reads and analyzes your content. You’ll then receive real-time suggestions for improvements. To develop the right employer brand. One that showcases your diversity. And it helps you write jobs ads using more inclusive language that appeals to a broader range of candidates. And don’t exclude anyone. You’ll end up with job ads with the right tone of voice for everyone in your target group.
Curious to know what Textemetrcis can do for your company’s diversity recruitment strategy? We’d love to tell you all about it.
door Israpil Nalgiev | sep 16, 2021
Publishing inclusive content is a must if you want to appeal to a large group of people. People who differ in age, gender, religion and background. Do you fail to use inclusive language? Then some people may feel excluded. And what if these people belong to your target group? Then you significantly limit your recruiting process.
On top of that, using inclusive language is an important step toward being a diverse and inclusive organization. You need it to reach your diversity and inclusion goals. It must be part of all the content you publish—especially your job descriptions. This is where a more diverse and inclusive workforce begins.
The importance of inclusive content
Do you want to reach almost every single person in your target group? And be an inclusive company? Then you need to publish inclusive content. It’s as simple as that. Using inclusive language means you acknowledge that your target group consists of different kinds of people. People of different ages, genders, religions and backgrounds. Do you successfully do so? Then no-one will feel excluded by the content you have written for your target audience.
For inclusive language, the following rules are very important:
- Write in a human-centered, gender-neutral way, rather than using only he/she.
- Address the reader directly, using “you”.
- Do not distinguish based on age.
- Avoid stereotypical words and/or associations. You use these more often than you think. Pink for women, blue for men.
- Apply the WCAG guidelines.
Textmetrics – the augmented writing platform for inclusive content
An augmented writing platform is a technology that serves as a writing coach. This is also what the Textmetrics platform is. It is available in 12 different languages, and it gives you suggestions on the language used while you’re writing.
The rules for inclusive language are quite a list to remember. The Textmetrics augmented writing platform, but can implement these rules for you through the suggestions you receive. You use the D&I module for this. This is just one of the different modules the Textmetrics augmented writing platform offers. It gives suggestions on inclusion and gender bias for example. Leaving you with inclusive content that will appeal to everyone in your target group. Perfect for your D&I goals!
door Israpil Nalgiev | sep 1, 2021
A workforce doesn’t just happen to be diverse. You’ll need to reach a diverse group of people when recruiting. Your recruitment strategy needs to put people first. It should focus on their talents. Not on their age, race or gender.
What is diversity recruitment?
Diversity recruitment is about having your workforce look like society. Your workforce should be diverse in terms of age and gender. And in terms of race, sexual orientation and religion. We call this inherent diversity. It’s about characteristics that define who someone is as a person. People can also be diverse when it comes to their skills, education, experience, values and knowledge. This is called acquired diversity, and it’s about things that can evolve and develop over time.
To achieve diversity in the workforce, you’ll need a hiring process free from biases. All applicants need to have an equal chance at consideration for the job. Regardless of their age, gender, race and more. For more diversity in the workforce, a successful diversity recruitment strategy is key.
Why is diversity recruitment so important?
Diversity recruitment is the only way to achieve a more diverse workforce. And a diverse workforce is important for a number of reasons. Including those we’ve already mentioned above. People who are part of a diverse workforce are more productive and creative. They also perform better. And are better at solving problems. This results in them making better decisions, leading to better results.
A more diverse workforce means there is:
- a broader range of skills and experiences present in the company.
- more language and cultural awareness.
- a larger candidate pool to hire from.
This makes it easier to find the talented people you’re looking for. The ones who can really contribute to the success of your company.
It’s clear why diversity recruitment is so important. If you want to keep up or stay ahead of the competition, you can’t do without a diverse workforce. Maybe your company already has ambitious diversity and inclusion goals. Then diversity recruitment is the best way to reach them. In times like these, when society is screaming out for more diversity and inclusion, you can’t risk falling behind.
The role Textmetrics can play in diversity recruitment
For diversity recruitment, you’ll need a hiring process that is free of biases. Often, unintentionally, job descriptions are biased. With age and gender being the most common. Older people are often discouraged from applying. And the same goes for women. This has to do with the language used. Most of the time this isn’t inclusive.
The Textmetrics platform can help you write job descriptions. And using more inclusive language. This means that your writing will be free of biases. To achieve this, the platform uses algorithms based on artificial intelligence to read and analyze your content. You’ll then receive real-time suggestions for improvements. This will help you to prevent age bias. And of course gender bias as well.
door Israpil Nalgiev | jul 29, 2021
Has your company set ambitious diversity and inclusion goals? Then you’ll need a successful diversity recruitment strategy to reach them. You want to hire a diverse range of people. Diverse when it comes to age, gender, race, sexual orientation and religion. And diverse in terms of skills, education, experience, values and knowledge. That is what diversity recruitment is all about.
The more diverse your company is, the more productive and innovative it is. And there are more benefits to a successful diversity recruitment strategy. It also leads to better performance and a wider range of skills and experience in the workforce. During recruitment, it means you’ll have a larger candidate pool to hire talented candidates from.
The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of diversity recruitment are clear. Up next, we’ll tell you all about the ‘how’.
How to improve diversity recruitment?
There are several ways to improve your company’s diversity recruitment strategy. We have listed the 5 most important ways below.
1. Develop an employer brand that showcases your diversity
Do you want a diverse group to apply for your jobs? Then you’ll need to appeal to all of them. To do so, you’ll need an employer brand known for valuing diversity. Your employees play an important role here. You can use their stories and experiences to show how diverse your workforce is.
2. Use AI/technologies
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a great technology to increase the diversity in your recruitment strategy. One thing it can help you with is removing bias when recruiters screen candidates’ resumes. An AI-driven platform can scan the resumes for you, eliminating the need for recruiters to make the first selection.
3. SEO optimization/optimize for Google for jobs
Do you want as many people as possible to get to see your job descriptions? Then you’ll need to optimize your job descriptions for SEO and Google for Jobs. That’s important because the more people you reach, the greater the diversity of the candidates who apply.
4. Use inclusive language
When you use inclusive language, you minimize the group that feels excluded. Job descriptions often contain more masculine words (gender bias). Or exclude older people (age bias). These forms or bias can be removed with inclusive writing.
5. Attract diverse talent pool
Use social media and job boards known for their diversity to advertise your job descriptions. A diverse talent pool is within your reach.
How Textmetrics can help with your diversity recruitment strategy
The Textmetrics platform can help you with a diversity recruitment strategy. With the focus on the improvement of this strategy. For this, it uses algorithms based on artificial intelligence to read and analyze your content. You’ll then receive real-time suggestions for improvements that will help you:
- develop the right employer brand (one that showcases your diversity);
- optimize your job descriptions for SEO and Google for Jobs;
- use more inclusive language (free from biases); and
- find the right tone of voice for everyone in your target group.
Curious about the platform? And how you can work on a diversity recruitment strategy? Let us know. We’d love to tell you all about it.
door Israpil Nalgiev | jun 18, 2021
Ambitious diversity and inclusion goals leave recruiters with quite the challenge. Because a more diverse and inclusive workforce starts with hiring candidates with different backgrounds, ages and genders. To do so, you’ll need to write inclusive job descriptions that a diverse group of candidates can understand and that can persuade them to apply. But that’s not as easy as it may sound. Often, job descriptions unintentionally have a more masculine tone of voice and are aimed at younger candidates. An augmented writing platform is what you’ll need here.
What role can an augmented writing platform play in recruitment? And how can it help you reach your D&I goals?
Inclusive writing
To reach a diverse group of candidates, you’ll need to write inclusive job descriptions. What do we mean by that? Basically, it comes down to writing job descriptions that appeal to everyone in your target group, regardless of their age, gender or background. What you’ll need to do is:
- Clearly write down the requirements of the role.
- Identify the correct pull factors—or in other words, identify what will persuade the applicant to apply.
- Make sure that there is always a correct diversity statement in the job description.
- Avoid age discrimination by using age-neutral words and phrases.
- Make sure your job descriptions are understandable and not too complex.
- Apply the rules outlined in the WCAG.
- Don’t use forbidden words.
- Use professional terms that apply to both sexes, such as nurse and teacher.
- Speak directly to the reader.
- Avoid stereotypes and combinations or associations. Using pink for women and blue for men is a good example of this.
Why do you need an augmented writing platform here? Because it’s not that easy to implement all the rules above every time you write a job description. And it’s not as easy as it seems to do it right.
An augmented writing platform in recruitment
An augmented writing platform can best be described as a technology that serves as a writing coach. So instead of having to implement the rules for inclusive writing yourself, an augmented writing platform can do this for you. Perhaps you’re excluding older people without even knowing it, or you’re using a more masculine tone of voice in your job descriptions. An augmented writing platform will point these things out to you and give you suggestions for a more inclusive tone of voice.
The Textmetrics augmented writing platform helps you create more diverse and inclusive job descriptions. Our platform uses algorithms based on artificial intelligence to read and analyze your content and provides you with real-time suggestions for improvements. It doesn’t replace you as a writer, but it does help you write more inclusive job descriptions that help you reach your company’s D&I goals.
