Past v. Potential: What’s More Important in Hiring #TheProjectTakeover

Posted on by
3

I’m on vacation this week so my friends are taking over the Project! Enjoy their content, connect with them, and share the content with new people! Some amazing voices coming to you this week! 

Enjoy this post by Micole Garatti

6 seconds. You spend 6 seconds reading a resume. In those 6 seconds, what do you learn? You’ll likely find out what your candidates have done in the past. But, what about all the things a candidate could do? Or would love to do?

The truth is 82% of Fortune 500 executives don’t believe their companies recruit highly talented people. So perhaps our approach to hiring is all wrong?

With that said, what can we do to hire the best – highly talented – people?

Strategic Hiring Planning: Know Who You Are Looking For

The first part of hiring great people is strategic planning. When you’re reviewing resumes, how do you know what you’re looking for if you don’t know who you’re looking for? Doing the research and having the conversations required to understand what job you need done, who you need to do it, what skills your team already has, and what skills you need to add is critical.

Once you understand who you’re looking for, you can start doing the work to find them.

Our Focus on our Candidates’ Past

Prior to the 1980s, hiring was focused on finding people who could learn and grow with the organization. Since then, organizations have designed hiring processes based on what candidates have done in the past and not who they are as a person or what they can do. That past-focused is highly visible in outdated resume and interview processes.

You might think that you’ll get a glimpse of potential in interviews. Believe it or not, however, research shows that interviews are pretty useless. Psychologist Ron Friedman suggests that interviews don’t help organizations hire great people because “80% of people lie during interviews.” Further, interviews include a lot of subjective and incorrect judgments like that leadership abilities, trustworthiness, and credibility are based on dumb things like attractiveness, height, and pitch of voice.

This subjective, judgemental, and past-focused approach has led to bad hires, toxic cultures, as well as a lack of growth, employee disengagement, and turnover. Again, the past only talks about what someone has already done – not what they can or want to do.

Moving Forward & Candidate Potential

With the basic understanding that our past-focused hiring approach hasn’t been working, here are some solutions that may help us become more future-oriented. To understand someone’s potential, things like “job auditions” and pre-hire assessments can help.

Assessments offer what many experts call an alternative to a job interview, what they call a job “audition.” These auditions put people in job preview scenarios and observe the behaviors and competencies. For example, if you need web developers, you can set up a coding test to test a candidate’s coding skills in certain languages. Or, if you’re looking for great customer success folks, finding out how a person can handle difficult or upset customers can be telling.

Now you might be thinking, “well what’s stopping candidates from just Googling all the answers or making stuff up about their personality?” Many assessment solutions, like Talview, offer cheat-detecting and preventing features that secure a candidate’s browser, prevent copying and pasting, and even watermark tests so people don’t take pictures of questions and float them online. Even more, the system can tell when someone else comes into the frame, talks to the candidate, and sends a detailed report to your recruiting team to review.

Assessment technology aside, if we want to hire better people, we need a better way to assess the skills, motivations, desires, and capabilities of our candidates. Maybe a new approach – one focused on not the past, but potential – can help.

Bio

Micole Garatti is the Marketing Manager at Talview, Author of “The Most Inclusive HR Influencer List,” and Host of the #HRforAll Twitter chat. She is passionate about improving HR and talent acquisition through diversifying voices of influence within the profession and technology. She’s appeared or been featured as an HR and marketing expert on ERE, DriveThruHR, Workology, Carnival of HR, #HRSocialHour, the SHRM blog, and more. Find her on Twitter at @socialmicole or at www.socialmicole.com.

Do’s and Don’ts for Social Media Engagement! #TheProjectTakeover

Posted on by
2

I’m on vacation this week so my friends are taking over the Project! Enjoy their content, connect with them, and share the content with new people! Some amazing voices coming to you this week! 

Enjoy this post by Lex Kremer! 

When I helped market recruiting events that centered around HR tech vendors I noticed a trend: vendors aren’t great at marketing themselves or their resources on social media. 

Sure, there are a select few that take the time to share their content but mostly they just pump out resources and hope people will find them. I see it all the time. Companies with anywhere from 5 to 500 employees on LinkedIn – but not one of them is sharing the content. 

Imagine, a company of 200 people where even a third of those people took a few minutes every day to share a post and type one sentence about why their audience should check it out!

Why has a resource center if you’re not even sharing your resources? Why appear on a webinar if you don’t tell anyone about it? Why blast your email list if you’re not actively following up with people and connecting with them? What’s the point of a blog post if you only post about it one time? 

Seems pointless, right? So, my goal is to make it easy for companies and their employees to share their content across their social networks so they can grow their audience and attract buyers. It’s about that bottom line, baby!

I’ve compiled some DO’S and DON’TS with examples you can steal and use as templates to make life easier. You don’t have to be in marketing to get people to notice content. It’s not rocket surgery. People notice engagement – and that’s what social media is all about.

DO’S and DON’TS for sharing company content on social media:

DO’S:

  • Like the post. 👍 
  • Share the post [Just make sure you do more than click share or retweet. If you can include a call to action or give a reason as to why the information is valuable it’ll carry more weight.] 

“Check out our @YouTube channel – we’re going to be posting free tips on upping your social media game so you can learn how to add value to sharing your company’s content.”

“Have you seen the newest blog on our site? It talks about [insert topic] and is sure to give you some great insights.”

“Our company is a leader in [fill in the blank]. Learn how we help by [fill in the blank].”

“We pride ourselves in providing [fill in the blank] so here is an article I recommend.”

  • Shout out your co-workers. If you’re not retweeting or sharing an existing post then be sure to include a link so people know what you’re so excited about.

“Great post from @name about [insert subject line]. Check it out.” [link]

“Our newest blog from @name covers [subject] and it’s well worth the read.” [link]

  • Share a post without a link. Direct people to your company’s site without a link so they have to take the venture themselves. It’ll help with organic search stats.

“If you haven’t had a chance to see all of our resources surrounding #diversity head over to our website and get your learn on.” @companyname #diversitymatters

“Did you know that our resource center has blogs AND video tips on how to improve your company’s D&I initiatives?” @companyname #diversity #inclusion

  • Use relevant hashtags. If you’re sharing a post about diversity then hashtag it! If you’re not sure what to hashtag search it first. LinkedIn and Twitter will formulate options for you in the search bar that way you have a few to pick from and know what other people have been using or searching as well.

DON’TS:

  • Just click share [see above in the DO’S] or JUST retweet. When you don’t provide content or a call to action then you’re not showing the value of the post. 
  • Share the post and retag the company. People will see the company name in the post you’re sharing. When you retag the company it’s redundant. The same goes for hashtags – sharing and hashtagging the company name isn’t helping reach or engagement. Remember, tag the company if you’re typing an original post but if you’re sharing something FROM the company, people will see it in the reshare.

It looks weird to share something from a company and retag them in the post:

  • Just post a link. If you aren’t providing context it’s like throwing a baseball into an empty field. [No one will catch it.] Always provide some context.

For more tips and examples check out this video with 5 tips for sharing company content.

If you feel like you don’t have time to work social into your daily routine there are free tools you can use to schedule your posts. Pull a few pieces from your company’s resource library and schedule them out for the week. Buffer is a great tool that’s free and really user friendly.

If you’re nervous that someone will say you’re not prioritizing your ‘real’ work because you’re spending time on social, remind them that sharing company content is creating VALUE. It helps with employer brand and outsiders that see current employees actively engaging in the content creates meaning.

Not everyone will be on board with using their personal accounts to share company content. I get it. But if a handful are willing to share – that could help attract top talent to apply at your company and attract buyers. Plus, it’ll make your marketing department a bunch of happy campers. They don’t spend time creating resources for people to not enjoy them. Remember the baseball analogy – they aren’t throwing out content for no one to catch it. That would be pointless. 

Lex Kremer is the CEO of Dashing Media Management, a small social media agency aimed at helping startups, small businesses, and HR tech vendors get their resources seen. From webinar marketing campaigns to Instagram stories – it’s full-time social media management without the associated full-time costs. Quality content management that won’t break the bank.

Connect with her on Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Pandemic Job Searching with @LRuettimann and @CamSackett

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been exceptionally fortunate in my career to find friends and mentors willing to give me their time and resources to help me succeed. One of those people who help support me when I first started writing is Laurie Ruettimann.

I tease her a lot and frequently call her HR’s Big Sister because she helps so many people! When you write, speak, have a successful podcast like she does you tend to get a lot of people reaching out for advice and Laurie finds time to help out so many folks.

Today, she’s helping out my son Cameron, who is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, and in the middle of his first ‘real’ job search. Enjoy their podcast together!

Resources from this episode:

Cameron on LinkedIn

HR Famous Podcast

Laurie on Instagram

Laurie on LinkedIn

Read more from Laurie

Work with Laurie

 

How important is that first job for your career ladder? #HRFamous

Posted on by
Reply

In episode 24 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee are back to discuss the escalation of career expectations for college students (as well as the musical Hamilton and Glassdoor/Indeed changes).

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

1:30 – KD is now a user of a standing desk. How do you like yours?

2:00 – Hamilton time! Tim convinced the rest of the crew to watch Hamilton on Disney+ and Jlee says she respects it but is not the biggest fan of musicals or history.

4:20 – Tim asks KD and Jlee who they think each of the HR Famous crew is in the Hamilton cast. Tim and Jlee both think they’re Alexander Hamilton. KD doesn’t think that Hamilton is charismatic enough to be Tim. KD wins by being compared to George Washington and King George by his friends.

11:00 – First topic of the day: Indeed and Glassdoor are merging services. Tim thinks that this is bad news for Glassdoor and worries that Indeed will sell out the mission of Glassdoor for $$$.

14:45 – Second topic of the day: new grads! We welcome Tim’s middle son, Cameron, who is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan to discuss his latest experience in the job market. Cam is looking for a job in the entertainment industry in marketing/social media and he spends a lot of his time applying for jobs and reaching out to UMich alums to network.

18:15 – KD asks Cam about the alumni network at the University of Michigan and how he tries to leverage that connection. He talks about the different types of responses he gets and the steep cost of being a member of the U of M Alumni Association.

22:00 – KD and Jlee talk about network fatigue that is occurring right now due to the many people who are currently looking for a job and how this will make it harder for anyone to make new connections.

23:30 – The HR Famous crew wants to see Cam out in the news space talking about his experience. If you want to interview a new grad on his job search or are interested in Cam for your company, find him on LinkedIn!

24:30 – Tim talks about his perspective as a parent of a new grad and an HR professional and how he’s had to watch the struggles of his son enter a bad job market.

26:15 – Tim asks Cam about candidate experience and what kind of response rate he’s getting from companies. Tim talks about how he thinks the data from this year about candidate experience is going to be really poor.

29:00 – KD discusses his worries about post-grad jobs in a COVID and post-COVID world. He thinks we’re setting difficult expectations for high performing college students who are entering the job force. Jlee worries that colleges are just using student’s successes and expectations to get the best crop of incoming students.

32:45 – Tim talks about his blog post he wrote about Cam’s college admissions experience and how the college admission system is screwed up. KD is a big fan of the comments on the blog post and still subscribes to them 4 years later.

35:30 – KD asks Cam about how he remembers his college admissions experience and the frustrations he felt during this time.

37:30 – KD asks Jlee about her experience going through college as a child of immigrant parents. She discusses the high expectations that her parents had for her and how she’s going to change and adapt those expectations for her children.

40:00 – Jlee discusses her rebellious streak as a young adult and how she did well enough to get by and still rise to the top of her field.

41:30 – HR Famous thinks the cream always rises to the top!

44:00 – KD posted a blog post on the HR Capitalist this week about a woman who reached out to him that had worked at the same call center for four years. He thinks that regardless of where anyone starts, the best will always rise and reach where they want to be.

47:00 – Cam talks about what he thinks about taking a call center and his hesitations. He says that he would be more willing to take a customer service entry-level position if he’s joining a company that has great upward mobility and career mentoring.

48:45 – The HR Famous crew gives their last words of advice to Cam on the job search.

COVID Career Pivots – The One Thing You Need to Know!

Posted on by
1

On a daily basis, I get messages from folks who are ready to make a pivot in their career, and with so many folks losing their job because of COVID the amount looking to pivot seems to be increasing. Career pivots aren’t a new thing. On average people change jobs like 358 times during their career or something like that.

Here’s how that conversation normally goes when I have a conversation with a friend who’s deciding on a pivot:

Friend of the Project: Tim! So, I lost my job (or I hate my job) and I’ve always wanted to be a Professional Puppy Petter!

Me: OMG! Me Too! I love puppies! So awesome!

FOP: Okay, so I’m currently making low six figures, like $127,350. And while I know I won’t make that same amount in my pivot profession, I still need to make $127,300. What advice do you have for me to become a Professional Puppy Petter?

Me: Don’t.

FOP: Haha! No seriously, petty puppies are my passion! I’ll do whatever it takes!

Me: You have to be prepared to take a pay cut of at least 99% (in reality, for most career pivots, it’s probably 30-40%).

The reality is, most of the actual examples are people asking me how to get into HR. They are usually coming from a sales job or management job where they are making $65-85K. Some even have an HR degree, but little or no experience.

That’s awesome. I love HR! But, you have to be ready and prepared for an offer around $40-45K for your first HR job, depending on the market. That means you need to adjust your lifestyle to make that career pivot. I find about 1 out of 25 people are willing to make that adjustment.

When I first jumped from agency recruiting to HR I took a 65% cut in pay to move into straight corporate HR. I actually lied about how much I was making because it was probably double what my new corporate boss was making. They never would have hired me knowing they were making me an offer so low from I was currently at. But, I truly wanted to make that pivot!

Career pivots take major sacrifice, but often they are worth it if you find a career doing something you truly care about. It’s easier to pivot at the beginning or end of your career. You have less to lose. When you are mid-career with a house payment and kids and a dog, career pivots are almost impossible, without major adjustments to lifestyle.

The one thing you need to know…

Career pivots have less to do with your ability to do the new job and everything to do with your willingness to take a major step back in life comforts.

Good luck out there my friends!

Do you need more Diversity Representation at your organization? (free resource)

Posted on by
Reply

First, let me start by saying, I am not, nor do I try and portray myself as a D&I expert. I am an expert in finding talent. Do you need a black female .Net developer with a computer science degree? I can find that, but you better be ready to pay a lot, because 10,000 other organizations are also looking for that smart lady!

I get asked frequently how can we hire more diverse candidates so I created an eBook that lays out some strategy around acquiring diverse talent for your organization. You can download it for free here:

Free eBook on 5 Strategies to Strengthen Your Organization’s Diversity Representation

What I find is most organizations want an easy button. “Oh, isn’t there a website that will just allow us to post our jobs and it’s full of diverse candidates!?” No. Someone will tell you there is, but they are lying.

I also find a ton of staffing and recruiting firms who claim they “specialize” in diversity recruiting. Again, this is mostly a lie. Now, they might only take on positions where the client only wants a diverse candidate, but this isn’t a specialization, that’s just market segmentation. Either you can find talent, and specific talent, or you can’t.

Increasing your diversity representation takes good old fashion recruiting. It takes work. Why hasn’t Facebook changed its diversity representation in five years? They didn’t want to do the work. They didn’t want to hold folks accountable for doing that work. This isn’t magic. It’s solid sourcing and recruiting. It’s calling out those hiring managers who refuse to hire a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Enjoy the free eBook!

Do Recruiters Still Need to Make Phone Calls?

Posted on by
3

Recently, I was on a webinar, and in my presentation, I harped on the talent acquisition pros and leaders on the webcast on why 100% of us are not using texting as a primary first form of contact with candidates. The data is in. Texting works! It works better than email by a mile, but still, less than 50% in the room are texting candidates.

After I was done a great TA pro contacted me and said, “Tim, shouldn’t recruiters being calling candidates!” I feel in love! Why, yes, fine, sir they should always be calling candidates! But, let’s not forsake other tools that are working at a high level. We know people, in general, respond to texts at a much higher rate than email and phone calls.

You see a text and within seconds you read it, and you respond to it at more than double the rate of email or voicemail. In talent acquisition, we are in LOVE with email, even when it doesn’t work.

In 2011, I wrote this post below – funny enough, it’s still relevant today (except now I think we need to add in more texting with those phone calls!)

Do we (recruiters) still need to make telephone calls?

I mean really it’s 2011 – we have text messaging, emails, Facebook, Twitter, etc. – hasn’t the telephone just become obsolete?  Does anyone actually use their cell phones to make actual phone calls anymore?

The New York Times had an article: Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You, in which they delve into this concept of whether the act of making a phone call has jumped the shark or not.  From the article:

“I remember when I was growing up, the rule was, ‘Don’t call anyone after 10 p.m.,’ ” Mr. Adler said. “Now the rule is, ‘Don’t call anyone. Ever.’ ”

Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward. “Thank you for noticing something that millions of people have failed to notice since the invention of the telephone until just now,” Judith Martin, a k a Miss Manners, said by way of opening our phone conversation. “I’ve been hammering away at this for decades. The telephone has a very rude propensity to interrupt people…

Even at work, where people once managed to look busy by wearing a headset or constantly parrying calls back and forth via a harried assistant, the offices are silent. The reasons are multifold. Nobody has assistants anymore to handle telecommunications. And in today’s nearly door-free workplaces, unless everyone is on the phone, calls are disruptive and, in a tight warren of cubicles, distressingly public. Does anyone want to hear me detail to the dentist the havoc six-year molars have wreaked on my daughter?

“When I walk around the office, nobody is on the phone,” said Jonathan Burnham, senior vice president, and publisher at HarperCollins. The nature of the rare business call has also changed. “Phone calls used to be everything: serious, light, heavy, funny,” Mr. Burnham said. “But now they tend to be things that are very focused. And almost everyone e-mails first and asks, ‘Is it O.K. if I call?’ ”

Sound Familiar?

Now I could easily turn this into a generational issue because for one it’s easy to do, but this isn’t a GenX vs. GenY issue.  This is a basic communication issue.  An understanding of what we do in our industry issue.  Whether your third party or corporate recruitment, we do the same thing, we search and find talent.  There are two basic ways to screen potential talent for fit for your organization: 1. Meet them in Person (no one would argue that this is the best way, but boy it’s expensive if you are using it as your first-line screen); 2. Meet them over the phone (done in some form or another by 99.9% of recruiters).

There really isn’t any way around this issue, we recruit, we make telephone calls.  If you don’t like to make telephone calls, if you believe what the New York Times article believes, you shouldn’t recruit.  It’s not an indictment on you, this just isn’t your gig.

Recruiters like to talk to people, to question people, to find out more about people, not a career, best done by email and text messaging. We need to talk live to others. That’s how we go to work. Doesn’t matter if you’re 21 or 6. It’s how to deliver great talent to our hiring managers.

So, here’s a tip, if you’re in recruitment and you don’t like making phone calls get, out of recruitment, you will not be successful.  If your first choice of contacting someone isn’t picking up the phone and calling them, instead of sending them an email, when you have their phone number, get out of recruitment. If you’re thinking you want to recruit, and you don’t like making phone calls take another path.

Recruiters make phone calls, that’s what we do.

E23 – The HR Famous Podcast: Are you using TikTok on your work phone!?

Posted on by
Reply

In episode 23 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee are back to discuss Jlee’s recent vacation, Tim’s new favorite shorts, different proposed plans for return to work bonuses, and privacy concerns about TikTok and other apps on company-owned devices.

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player below) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

1:20 – Jlee is back from vacay! Jlee went on a working vacation to the beach and returned with a nice tan.

3:45 – Do you turn on an out of office reply on your email when you go on vacation? The HR Famous crew has rarely if never turned on their out of office reply.

6:00 – Tim comes through with the much-needed fashion advice. He says to check out Fair Harbor shorts! (Also, we’re open to a sponsorship!)

7:00 – First topic of the episode: return to work bonuses. Republican lawmakers are calling to an end to the unemployment benefits coming from the federal stimulus package and replace them with a return to work bonus. Tim says that he’s hearing from many companies that they cannot find workers right now.

9:30 – KD lists off a few of the proposed return to work bonus plans that are being considered. Jlee brings up the fact that many states have waived work search requirements for those receiving unemployment benefits.

12:00 – KD praises the government for moving fast at the beginning of the pandemic to get money to those who really needed it, although there may be problems with the policies.

14:00 – Idaho implemented a version of a return to work hiring bonus but the funds are first come, first serve. Tim worries that some people will return just to get the bonus and then quit and go back on unemployment.

16:20 – Tim discusses a company that he is currently working with and how it is harder to recruit positions for that company in places where Amazon warehouses exist.

18:00 – A big factor for many people to return to work depends on decisions schools make to go virtual or return to in-person instruction. KD brings up some counties in the Atlanta area who have decided to do virtual learning for the upcoming school year. Tim talks about how he would want to recruit other families to do virtual learning together.

21:45 – Next topic of the episode: TikTok and employer’s rights! Last Friday, Amazon emailed employees to delete TikTok from their phones. Later in the day, they issued a statement that the email was a mistake and their employees didn’t need to delete TikTok. Wells Fargo also directed their employees to delete TikTok from company-owned devices.

24:00 – Tim brings up the bitcoin hack on Twitter and privacy/security concerns on there as well. Although TikTok is a Chinese owned company, there is still risk coming from American owned companies like Twitter.

25:50 – KD discusses the differences in security issues on different kinds of devices or software. Tim brings up how many tech companies have allowed their employees to work on whatever operating system they’re most comfortable with and how there may be IT concerns surrounding that.

28:00 – KD asks Jlee if she thinks that people will delete TikTok from their personal mobile devices even though most people have other privacy-sensitive information on their devices. Jlee thinks it’s not going to happen and says the only way employers could have complete control over the employee’s devices would have to be somewhat similar to government agencies that work with national security concerns.

30:00 – Tim discusses concerns over TikTok being a Chinese company and therefore, somewhat state-controlled. He thinks a solution may be getting a US-owned TikTok alternative to replace the platform. Jlee is very sad about the potential outlawing of TikTok.

32:00 – Tim thinks that people should be allowed to have multiple logins on a phone as you can have on a laptop or a computer. KD thinks that companies should just pay for their employees to have their own company device to solve any security concerns.

33:30 – The HR Famous podcast promotes wearing a mask! Mask up!

34:00 – Is your family stocking up on new devices for back to school? Jlee’s family is spending a lot of money on back to school and Tim may need to buy his son a new laptop.

35:00 – KD is working on bringing a manager training series online at Kinetix. Look out for that coming soon!

36:00 – Check out friend of the podcast, Stacy Zapar, for recruiter training.

Do you pay a larger employee referral bonus for Black Engineers?

Posted on by
1

I know a ton of HR Pros right now who have been charged by their organizations to go out and “Diversify” their workforce.  By “Diversify”, I’m not talking about diversity of thought, but to recruit a more diverse workforce in terms of ethnic, gender, and racial diversity.

Clearly, by bringing in more individuals from underrepresented groups in your workforce, you’ll expand the “thought diversification”, but for those HR Pros in the trenches and sitting in conference rooms with executives behind closed doors, diversification of thought isn’t the issue being discussed.

So, I have some assumptions I want to put forth before I go any further:

1. Referred employees make the best hires. (Workforce studies frequently list employee referrals as the highest quality hires across all industries and positions)

2. ERPs (Employee Referral Programs) are the major tool used to get employee referrals by HR Pros.

3. A diverse workforce will perform better in most circumstances, then I homogeneous workforce will.

4. Diversity departments, if you’re lucky enough, or big enough, to have one in your organization, traditionally tend to do a weak job at “recruiting” diversity candidates (there more concerned about getting the Cinco De Mayo Taco Bar scheduled, etc.)

Now, keeping in mind the above assumptions, what do you think is the best way to recruit diverse candidates to your organization?

I’ve yet to find a company willing to go as far as to “Pay More” for a black engineer referral vs. a white engineer referral. Can you imagine how that would play out in your organization!?  But behind the scenes in the HR Departments across the world, this exact thing is happening in a number of ways.

First, what is your cost of hire for diverse candidates versus non-diverse candidates? Do you even measure that? Why not?  I’ll tell you why, is very hard to justify why you are paying two, three, and even four times more for a diversity candidate, with the same skill sets, versus a non-diverse candidate in most technical and medical recruiting environments.  Second, how many diversity recruitment events do you go to versus non-specific diversity recruitment events?  In organizations that are really pushing diversification of the workforce, I find that this figure is usually 2 to 1.

So, you will easily spend more resources of your organization to become more diversified, but you won’t reward your employees for helping you to reach your goals?  I find this somewhat ironic. You will pay Joe, one of your best engineers, $2000 for any referral, but you are unwilling to pay him $4000 for referring his black engineer friends from his former company.

Yet, you’ll go out and spend $50,000 attending diversity recruiting job fairs and events all over the country trying to get the same person.  When you know the best investment of your resources would be to put up a poster in your hallways saying “Wanted Black Engineers $4000 Reward!”.

Here’s why you don’t do this.

Most organizations do a terrible job at communicating the importance of having a diverse workforce, and that to get to an ideal state, sometimes it means the organization might have to hire a female, or an Asian, or an African American, or a Hispanic, over a similarly qualified white male to ensure the organization is reaching their highest potential.

Workgroup performance by diversity is easily measured and reported to employees, to demonstrate diversity successes, but we rarely do it, to help us explain why we do what we are doing in talent selection.  What do we need to do? Stop treating our employees like they won’t get it, start educating them beyond the politically correct version of Diversity and start educating them on the performance increases we get with diversity.  Then it might not seem so unheard of to pay more to an employee for referring a diverse candidate!

So, you take pride in your diversity hiring efforts, but you’re just unwilling to properly reward for it…