What I learnt about hiring diverse teams from conducting a fully-anonymous recruitment process - Bethan Vicent

If we want to truly encourage diversity in our industry, we are going to have to listen and respond to feedback from under-represented groups that challenges our assumptions.

In 2015, my previous employer Bytemark built a fully-anonymous recruitment process in order to help address issues of hiring bias and to try and attract a diverse range of candidates.

You might think problem solved.... but no! Despite introducing a supposedly better process, we still weren't receiving applications from a wide range of candidates.

We realised that in order to diagnose the issue, we would need to conduct user research. Through speaking to these candidates, successful and unsuccessful, alongside undertaking research at conferences and with peers, we found that some aspects of our "ideal" process were actually put off certain candidates, especially women, from applying.

I present some of our learnings from this research and offer examples of how they can be applied to any hiring process. I will also argue that in order to be a truly inclusive industry, we need to start gathering and really listening to feedback that makes us uncomfortable with the status quo.

Transcript

1. What I learnt about hiring diverse teams from conducting a fully-anonymous recruitment process
2. Hi, I’m Bethan Marketing Director at Netsells Formerly Marketing at Bytemark
3. Once upon a time...
8. We ≠ Applicants
10. What did we learn?
11. 1. People want to showcase “soft” skills alongside “technical” ones
12. 2. Jobseekers want human connection (+ they want the lowdown on what it’s really like to work with you)
13. 3. Lengthy tests and at home exercises are not inclusive
14. 4. Your job listing is just as important as the application process
15. 5. If we really care about diversity and inclusion, we need to listen
16. ✅ Give applicants the opportunity to showcase their entire skill set ✅ Consider holding company open days and offering points of contact within your organisation ✅ Provide as much detail as possible in the job description ✅ Ask for applicant feedback on your process and iterate A few things you can do:
17. @bethanvincent / @netsells bethan@bethanvincent.com netsells.co.uk bethanvincent.com