3 questions you should ask yourself to attract more diverse candidates

Hiring ideal diverse candidates is not easy. Especially when you want a wider, more diverse pipeline to choose from. In a previous blogpost we already told you why it is so important to create diversity within your workforce. Of course there are a lot of benefits why you should focus on a diverse workforce. But reaching candidates with a different background, filling your pipeline and eventually hiring diverse candidates is not easy at all. In this blogpost we will focus more on how you can improve your job posting to attract a diverse candidate pool and why you should ask yourself the next three questions.

Even though you have a pipeline filled with potential candidates with great certifications, in the end it is all about the fit. When you want to create diversity within your organization whether it is on gender, age or nationality the company fit is really important. Do not underestimate the influence of a paragraph about the company in your job description. What do you as a company think is important? What do you hope to accomplish? Why is it so great to work for you company? Why do you love your job? Of course do not forget to mention why diversity within your organization is an important subject. Just be honest and clear about this fact this can only be beneficial. A great example of be honest and clear is the diversity section on the Apple website where they put a personal statement of Tim Cook (CEO Apple) on the website and some interesting stats about the diversity rates within the company.

Diversity attracts diversity. When you already have a team with diversity, just show it! You can do this for example by posting team photos or videos on social media or on your career site. Showing that you already put a lot of effort in creating a team with diversity will show other potential candidates that you pay attention to this subject. This can attract candidates with a diverse background. In my opinion most of the time companies only focus on the job description rather than the environment like the colleagues, workplace and the client base.

The more diverse your client base is, how bigger the chance is that you are able to reach diverse candidates. When you only focus for example on agencies within the fashion industry it is more likely that you attract more women. When your client base consists of several industries it is easier to attract diverse candidates. Not only on gender but also on other characteristics like nationality when you have a very international client base. Important of course is to show your potential candidates the brands you work for and for whom they can work eventually. When you have the permission you can put the company logos on your website or much better to mention this brands in the job description. When we take a further look into the importance of the job description we noticed that women only apply with a 100% fit and men with 60%.

Candidates also want to see who they will be working with. So put some effort in interviewing some colleagues and asked them why they love to work for the company and also about themselves like past work, hobbies, etc. An easy and fun way to express your diverse workforce. A great example is this video of Booking.com where they promote their diverse international IT team and also our great capital Amsterdam.

In the previous points I already told you more about why it is important to think about what you want to tell and how you want to tell potential candidates about your company. But also very important is the where if you want to attract a diverse talent pool. Reaching is about how you present your vacancies online to reach your ideal candidate. In other words, how do you brand your organization and jobs online and where do you advertise? To market your jobs and create online visibility you are able to reach the right target audience and create brand awareness. There are a thousands of options to advertise online. You can post your job on social media, job boards, niche sites, etc. But do you really know how you can attract a diverse workforce? And how you can influence for example the applications by only choose a job board especially for women?

Recently our Dutch emancipation minister launched the job board ‘Navigate to the top’ to get more women into top jobs in the Netherlands. If you want to attract more international diverse candidates you can post your jobs on Diversity Jobsite for example. When I look into social media, there are also a lot of options but make sure that you are on the right channel. In the Netherlands LinkedIn is a successful professional social media channel with a lot of interesting advertising options but in Germany for example potential candidates are more on the online network Xing. With these examples I want to show you how important it is to think about where you can find the right target audience. Especially when cross-border recruitment is an important issue within your organization.

Wanna know more about how you can reach your ideal target audience worldwide? Sign up for our free Job Marketing Platform and discover which relevant recruitment media channels you can use for your job postings.

Happy recruiting!