The Competitive Advantage of Diversity Recruiting

If there's one thing business has learned since the economic meltdown of 2008, it's this: In a tough market, the key to success is innovation. Businesses who do nothing but imitate competitors not only don't get ahead, but start falling further and further behind.

And guess what? Having a diverse workforce is no exception. For many companies, diversity recruiting programs have taken a back seat in the past couple of years. That's a mistake, and here's why:

1. Diversity innovators have a huge opportunity right now
In a sluggish employment market, companies that take the initiative in diversity recruiting have a better chance of standing out from the competition. Not only can they attract the best and brightest of a diverse talent pool, but they can reap other benefits, like an improved employment brand and better media opportunities.

In other words, a little bit of effort can go a long way in the current market.

2. The market may be slow, but it hasn't stopped
The talent pool may be a little less competitive than it was 3 or 4 years ago, but there are still all kinds of roles and industries which are suffering from chronic talent shortages. Diverse talent pools are still the best 'untapped' source of talent for many of these hard-to-fill roles. Ignoring diversity recruiting strategies now will increase your time-to-hire, cost-per-hire and quality of hire in the next 12 months.

3. You're letting your competitors gain the advantage
When your competitors are tapping into the full talent pool - including diverse candidates - they're giving themselves the best opportunity to get the A-list candidates before you do.

What's more, your competitors are setting themselves up for long-term success: When the market improves (and it always does), they'll already be well-established in the diversity talent market, while you're still playing catch-up.

Don't think of diversity recruiting as a 'mandate' that you have to adhere to. Think of it as an opportunity to get ahead of the competition - and set yourself up for success in the long term.

Your Recruitment Brand is Undermining Your Consumer Brand

Your sales and marketing department is working overtime to reach a diverse target market: They're creating advertising in different languages, making sure a wide variety of cultures and lifestyles are reflected in your marketing initiatives, and doing their best to make sure your consumer brand is appealing to a diverse community.

So how come your recruitment efforts aren't reflecting the same commitment to diversity?

These days, the average consumer is more sophisticated than ever. When they see that your company wants to sell them something, but doesn't want to hire them, they notice.

Consumers like to buy brands with which they have relationships. Relationships are created when consumers feel that a brand is speaking to or connecting with them as an individual - it's not unusual for consumers to say they like a brand because it "understands" them. That's why marketing departments work so hard to create communications which speak to different diverse populations.

When your recruitment brand continues to focus solely on the 'mainstream' market, it undermines your consumer brand - and both end up suffering as a result.

The best way to get the most out of your marketing and recruitment dollars? Synchronize your efforts. Schedule a meeting with your sales and marketing team, and put your heads together:

• What diverse populations are most crucial for your business right now?
  
• How can you leverage consumer and candidate data to reach both groups?
  
• What channels can you use to communicate to both customers and candidates?
  
• What messages are most important to different diversity groups?
  

Remember, the more consistent your brand across all target groups and media, the better - and more cost-effective - the results for both recruiting and marketing.

Recruiting for Diversity : What the best in the business are doing

We've all heard about the list of Canada's Best Diversity Employers award, but have you ever asked yourself what makes a company a great diversity recruiter?

Here's a look at some of the winners of the 2011 Best Diversity Employers award, and what they're doing to excel at recruiting diverse candidates.

At BC Hydro, more than 16% of employees are visible minorities. Even better, more than 18% of managers are visible minorities. So what's their secret? Not only do they have recruitment strategies designed to increase representation of diverse groups, but they monitor their progress on a monthly basis to ensure those strategies are working. They also have a team dedicated to recruitment and retention of Aboriginal employees.

Of Bombardier Aerospace's 12,000 Canadian employees, almost one-quarter are visible minorities. Their strategy has been to develop in-house, specialized training for all recruiters to ensure a bias- and racism-free sourcing and screening process.

Corus Entertainment isn't a huge company, but 9% of their employees, and 11% of their managers, are visible minorities. A key pillar of their recruitment strategy is to ensure that all job vacancies are forwarded to organizations which represent diverse job-seekers, including the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and the Aboriginal Human Resources Development Council.

Loblaw Companies Ltd. has almost 100,000 full- and part-time employees in Canada, and 15% of them are visible minorities (14% are managers). Individual stores are encouraged to be active within their communities, participating in diversity-themed events and career fairs. They've also recently opened a 'reflection room' in their head office to meet the spiritual and religious needs of their diverse employees.

At Xerox Canada, 15% of employees are visible minorities. One of the ways they've fostered the recruitment of diverse candidates is to invest in a large Diversity Inclusiveness section on their website - it does a great job of welcoming diverse candidates, and sets the stage for long-term retention as well.

You may not be in a position to set up a 'reflection room' as Loblaw has done, of course. But take a look at your corporate careers section. Do you have a 'diversity' page, or are you just relying on the old-fashioned tagline "Women and minorities are encouraged to apply" at the end of your job posts?

5 Ways to Combat Hidden Bias in Recruiting

You know you need to do a better job of recruiting diversity candidates, but you're still falling short of your goals. The problem may lie in 'hidden' biases that you're not even aware of. Here's how to combat them.

Don't post the job ad in English only. If your role requires a lot of interaction with a population whose first language isn't English, why not post the job ad (or parts of it) in that language as well as English? You'll attract more diverse candidates - and you may end up with someone who'll be more successful with your customers.

Go easy on jargon and region-specific slang terms in the job ad. Sentences like "Create value by leveraging stakeholder enthusiasm for productivity," are difficult for native English speakers to understand. They're even harder for people whose first language isn't English - and may keep them from applying.

Remove names from resumes before you screen them. Studies show that 'ethnic' names can affect how people perceive resumes. So have an intern remove the names from resumes before you do the screening process. That way you'll know you're judging them on skills, experience and presentation - not on any subconscious preconceptions.

Ensure your recruiting/hiring team is diverse. Diversity candidates tend to perform better when they're screened/interviewed by diversity employees, even if they aren't from the same background.

Make sure every candidate gets the same interview. As the statistics above demonstrate, diverse candidates are often given short shrift in the interview room. By having a formalized interview plan - in which everyone is asked the same questions, provided with the same information, and given the same amount of time, you increase the chances that a diverse candidate will perform well in the interview setting.

Graph above from the workexposed blog

Do your employees really know what holidays you're celebrating?

Now that all the stores are featuring huge displays of Hallowe'en candy, I was reminded of an office Hallowe'en party I went to a few years ago, which was a wakeup call about the need for more diversity awareness.

We were all standing around the boardroom eating various pumpkin-shaped Rice Krispie treats, cupcakes with orange and black frosting, and of course there was lots and lots of candy.

One of our newer employees, who'd recently moved to Canada from Mumbai, remarked that she "always" enjoyed these Hallowe'en parties, because she loved candy.

"But," I said, "you weren't here for last Hallowe'en, were you?"

"Well, you know - whatever that last one was where we also had candy."

It took me a second, but then I realized she was referring to an Easter egg hunt we'd had the previous April - which, of course, was also heavy on the sweet treats.

To me, this was a good example of how often we just don't think about diversity in the workplace. It had never occurred to me that to some of our new Canadians, all these celebrations - our office tended to bring out the candy on Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving and even St. Patrick's Day, as well as Hallowe'en and Easter - were a bit bewildering. Sure, most new Canadians, regardless of religion or culture, were aware of Christmas, but 'holidays' like Hallowe'en are often new (and probably meaningless) to them.

More importantly, it made me realize that we weren't doing a good job of celebrating their big days.

Celebrations like the Diwali (Hindu), for example, feature lots of sweetmeats - perfect for an office which likes to bring out the cupcakes and candy for other events!

So this year, when you find yourself putting the company plastic-pumpkin-filled-with-candy in the lobby, you may want to approach one of your new Canadian employees and ask them about their favourite cultural holiday - and then make plans to celebrate it, as well.

Political Correctness vs Reality

When it comes to actually creating a diverse workforce I have often talked about how it is as simple as making sure that you are looking at everyone. Meanwhile I have written here before about how sometimes that isn't really enough. In the previous context it's because sometimes you need quotas to break the non-diverse culture of an organization.

But I have become more aware of another reason to implement quotas. To actually attract diverse candidates.

Now this isn't applicable to all of our affinity groups, but for some at least the existence of quotas, either formally or informally, actually encourages applicants. To be blunt telling an affinity group that a specific job is going to be filled by someone from their group can, in some cases, make a huge difference in attracting candidates to the role.

On the face of it this flies in the face of my statement that you simply need to look at everyone but I'm not sure that it really does. At the end of the day you can't see all candidates if they are not visible to you and this is really about just making sure that those candidates are visible to you, or in other words making sure that candidates from the different groups are actually applying to your job.

But doesn't encouraging one group to apply in this way actually discourage other groups. Quite possibly yes but again I think that to effect change in the reality of your workforce and hiring cultures you sometimes have to break existing patterns even if it seems somewhat counter-intuitive. I think it helps to take a step back and examine why candidates would be more likely to apply to a job that is being held out for a certain quota.

There is an obvious answer that it seems like less competition. If I as a candidate feel that the number of candidates will be restricted artificially it means a better chance for me to land the job even if I am not the most qualified. This is a point that while cynical has some truth to it but there is a second answer that has more of an impact. For some affinity groups the experience is that even when they are more qualified then other candidates they will be passed over for opportunities. I have talked before about the ways, both passive and active in which this happens but the fact is that either way it does happen. Just because we don't want this experience to be true for diverse candidates doesn't mean that many don't actually have this experience.

In any case though it's a tricky subject to navigate. Do you make it clear that certain roles will only be filled by diverse candidates or do you just rely on your employment brand as a diverse employer to make the difference? We'd all like it to be just the second but again the reality is that for some affinity groups this simply isn't enough.

I don't have an answer to the above questions, although to be honest I don't think that anyone really does. I do think though that if your goal is a truly diverse workplace I'm not sure organizations have any choice but to implement policies, at least in the short-term, like quotas in order to demonstrate to candidates that they are truly committed to a fully inclusive workplace.

Employee Groups : Community Building or Ghettoizing

I had a discussion recently with some HR team members at a large financial institution who have Canadian operations but are mainly in the U.S. and the issues surrounding employee groups for affinity groups came up. If you're not clear what I mean by that many organizations sponsor, support or promote "diversity groups" of their employees. So for example you might have an "African-American" employee group, or an "Aboriginal Employee Support Group" or a "LGBT in the workplace group".

Now again these sorts of groups or employee organizations do exist on both sides of the border although they tend to be more popular south of the border. Why is that? Well for one thing, at least in Canada, there are mixed views on the subject.

The two main schools of thought on this are that either it's a great idea that fosters a sense of community spirit and belonging within a group of employees or it's a terrible idea that creates "ghettos" of employee cliques arranged along lines of ethnicity, skin colour or other groups.

While I can see how, to a certain extent, groups that are by definition exclusive do seem to detract from the goal of inclusion I think that seeing these groups in a very negative light is to miss the point. Employee engagement has become such a "hot" topic, especially in light of the economically uncertain times of late when there is plenty to distract employees, and yet engagement of diverse employees is for many simply an afterthought.

The disconnect that employees can feel from their place of employment is magnified very much for many diverse individuals because, on top of the regular issues, they can feel like "outsiders" at their place of work. In this line anything that an employer can do to make their employees feel more at home in the workplace is going to lead to higher engagement and better productivity.

And at heart that's what these groups are about. Building communities, even smaller ones that may be in some ways exclusionary is an important step in making employees feel at home in an organization.

It's interesting to note that the companies who really "get it", those that engage with all diverse employment groups and not those just covered by legislation, are far more likely to have these groups and tend to do more work to encourage their creation. It speaks I think both to the reality of these groups as a vital part of an effective diversity strategy and the bottom-line fact that diversity inclusion has a positive effect on the success vector of a business.

The idea of embracing diversity in an inclusive way is important, and we should not lose sight of that. But encouraging groups to celebrate their differences with each other isn't harmful to that cause, in fact, in the end it brings us much closer to that goal.

Why Pride at Work is important to me

Last week an event was held at KPMG in Toronto to launch a new job board for Pride at Work Canada. This new board, powered by the TalentOyster Diversity Network, can be found at http://Careers.PrideAtWork.ca

As part of this event I had the pleasure of speaking for a few minutes and I'd like to share the content of part of my talk here. This isn't the full text because at the end I spoke to the various organizations who attended the event about some technical information on how this new site can interact with their existing career sites. Which if you are a programmer or hiring manager is exciting (maybe) but if you're not is a bit dry so we'll just leave that part out. I think the rest of the story is worth sharing though and here it is.

***

Good evening everyone. My name is Max Stocker and I am the Director of Technology for TalentOyster and I am here tonight to talk to you about the new Pride At Work Canada career site and my dad.

My dad is an immigrant, born in the UK, but raised and educated, including multiple universiy degrees here in Canada. My dad is also transgendered.

For many years she worked, in technology related fields for an enterprise level company. Then she worked as a contractor for several other large organizations but to conclude a long period of soul searching, about 5 years ago she went to Thailand and had a full sex change operation and hasn't had a real job since.

She still does work, on a volunteer basis for her church and for a local LGBT history organization but in terms of meaningful paid employment there is none.

To be honest there are many factors to why this is, but there is no doubt in my mind that the main reason that a highly educated, skilled and experienced person like my dad is not working is because of the way she looks.

At TalentOyster our diversity mandate covers many groups. Aboriginals, visible minorities, new immigrants, persons with disabilities and now, with Pride at Work Canada, LGBT. To us all of these groups, as different as they are all share a too common experience of bias and prejedice based ultimatley on who they are.

Defining terms like diversity or inclusion can be a navel gazing excercise but if I may define inclusion all the same I would say it is an environment in which nobody is being asked to, or forced to, leave part of their identity at home.

We don't ask people who have a different skin colour to leave that at home, or tell persons with disabilities that that's fine but leave it in the privacy of your own home. Things shouldn't be any different for LGBT.

I'd love to see, as Michael Bach was recently quoted as saying, our society move past tolerance in to acceptance but I don't think it will happen over night. What I do think though is that efforts by organizations like Pride at Work, and tonight specifically with this career site we can start to change these attitudes and encourage the formation of working environments, and, even a society that is truly inclusive of everyone. Including my dad.

We need to be doing so much more

A couple of weeks ago a study was released that revealed some shocking statistics on the potential for new immigrants to Canada and their descendents. In short what the study showed was that in spite of higher than average education levels, income and employment were both below average for second generation Canadians. That is Canadians, born, raised and educated in Canada but who are the sons and daughters of immigrants.

The difficulty of many immigrants in finding meaningful employment is well documented and is usually ascribed to such factors as language issues, difficulty in getting international education credentials recognized or just unfamiliarity with Canadian business culture. The darker and generally unspoken factors are items like ignorance or even outright bigotry and racism. We all want to believe that the latter is not true, that the first reasons, which are all somewhat pragmatic are the reasons immigrants struggle. The results of this study fairly clearly demonstrate that sadly this is not the real case.

We have long believed that building awareness of cultural barriers, the barriers that prevent true inclusiveness is a keystone to a successful diverse workforce strategy. This is in part because the recruiting and sourcing functions of any organization have far more cultural bias inherent in them and far more subjectivity in general then most of us want to ever acknowledge.

I've spoken before on the resume analogy but it remains a good one and so I'll recap it here. If you are a recruiter or screener and there is a position to fill, urgently as of course it almost always is, and you need to pull 10 resumes out of a stack of 100 which resumes and candidates end up being selected? Now we all know that those 100 aren't going to be great, not qualified, lacking experience or just a poorly written resume are all items that can, do and should put us off selecting a candidate. So for example let's say that reduces the list from 100 to 50, how do the final 10 make the cut from those? We can hope that it's for objective reasons but human experience, and the evidence shows that the process is highly subjective and relies foremost on the feeling of connection that you as the screener have for the person whose resume you are holding and cultural affinity, or the perception thereof plays a huge role in that.

The fact that this takes place should really in the end not be surprising, and to some degree at least the screeners and recruiters are not to blame. The process itself is to blame with an emphasis on metrics that do not encourage the treating of all candidates equally and the lack of recognition of the role that subjective analysis plays in the filling of roles. And lest you come away with the impression that it's only the screening process that's broken, it is not, each step in recruitment, candidate selection and hiring has these similar types of flaws, it just happens to be perhaps most blatant at the screening step.

So what can be done about this? I think three things.

Generate awareness. Diversity sensitivity training isn't just a nice thing to do, it really can have practical benefits. While affinity biases won't be eradicated over night sometimes just being aware of an issue, being aware of how an unknown bias is affecting their judgement can help people to re-evaluate some of their decisions in future.

Fix the process. A lot of time and money is spent by companies to metricize and evaluate their hiring and HR processes. It certainly can be said that fully objectifying the hiring process is one of the holy grails of the recruiting and HR worlds. Whether, practically speaking this can actually be accomplished is a matter of some debate but all the same it's worth noting that improvements to the process are going to help diverse candidates, perhaps more than anyone.

Diversify your recruiting, sourcing and HR teams. It almost shouldn't have to be said but one way to eliminate cultural bias towards any group is to include members of that group in the process making the decisions. Fixing the process and raising awareness are both good and noble ideas but can take time to implement and generate results. Making your “front line” hiring and HR functions more diverse will pay immediate dividends in removing these biases and prejudices from you process.

Let's always remember that a moral right or wrong isn't the reason to do any of this. We should feel a moral obligation to do something about the unfairness with a situation like that suggested by the study but that is not the reason to fix it. The reason that you must address the inequality is that until you do you simply aren't hiring all the best candidates. Because until the point that you are sure that you are actually looking at everyone you just won't know what you're missing.

Stop using the economy as an excuse

It seems that organizations fall into three main groups on the workforce diversity spectrum. Some see the value and are truly committed, a tiny minority just don't care at all and then there's the majority of companies who fall somewhere in between these two categories.

It is hard to know sometimes where individual members of this middle group actually sit even though I engage with many of them on a fairly regular basis in my role as a diversity evangelizer. Almost all of these organizations do have one common attribute, they claim that diversity is important to them. They do see the value. They do care. But...

It's always a but.

One of the reasons I hear right now goes something like "*mumble* recession *mumble* hiring-freeze *mumble* global economic credit issues". On the face of it this seems like a reasonable excuse but here's the reality, Canada is not the U.S! The Canadian economy is not in the same shambles as our neighbours to the south and in fact some areas of Canada continue to experience labour shortages. Second we all know that for enterprise size organizations a "hiring freeze" is only a concept and not a reality. No enterprise level organization goes two years without hiring anybody. Even if hiring for expansion is curtailed, there will still be critical existing roles that will open up and require filling during that time.

More than any of that though is the fact that any excuse is, well, an excuse and it is telling of where your priorities with diversity really are. If your diversity strategy is a plan that is thrown away at the first excuse it's just not much of a strategy at all.

This is the fundamental reason that the organizations that have success with diversity are the ones doing "it" right now. Because the companies who are doing it now are the ones whose strategy is founded on real commitment and that's reflected in their employment brand and the types of candidates available to them. Remember that at the end of the day your employment brand isn't a nice-looking poster or a hilarious viral video but a reflection of the way your organization actually deals with its employees.

Just think about it. If you were a diverse candidate would you want to work for a company that was known for its commitment to diversity? Or the company that had a reputation for being fickle on the issue?

So the next time you find yourself putting off your diversity initiatives because of the economy or any other reason really, ask yourself the questions above. Just know that a diverse candidate is going to answer them in the exact same way that you would.

Diversity and Pride

Back in May an interesting diversity in the workplace story broke and quickly slipped beneath the waves but it's relevant to pride week and so I thought I'd share my thoughts on it now.

The story was about Rick Welts, the CEO of the Phoenix Suns, a professional basketball team playing in the NBA who "came out" as gay in an interview with the New York Times.

It's an interesting story for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that, as is well known, and as I have personally experienced, team sports at a high competitive or professional level are environments have historically been quite hostile to LGBT persons both individually and collectively. Mr. Welts was quoted in the story saying that "This is one of the last industries where the subject is off limits. Nobody’s comfortable in engaging in a conversation.", and I think that's pretty true. So from simply the aspect of breaking down a barrier it's a pretty significant moment.

But I think there's a more significant aspect to this story then the sports angle and that's the executive angle.

One of the discussions I often have with employers around diversity is on the importance of mentoring programs and there's a good reason for this. You can give your current employees diversity training, you can make sure you are looking at including different groups in your sourcing strategy but if your diverse employees, whatever their affinity group, don't feel that there are roles and a place for them in your company you're simply not getting all that you could be from your diversity strategy.

Now the ideal is of course close mentorships or internships but both of those can require a major investment of time that you simply might not have. That's okay. Even providing example role models for candidates can be helpful. Having diverse individuals at every level of your organization sends a clear message to candidates and employees alike, "there is a place here for you". We're not talking about tokenism here, having two diverse VPs but no diverse people in middle management fools nobody, but when your organizational structure is inclusive all the way through it can inspire and motivate your diverse candidates and employees.

Now having said all that, how does LGBT fit into it? I had an interesting discussion a few months ago with Brent Chamberlain, Executive Director of Pride At Work Canada who made me more aware of how strong some of the stereotypes surrounding LGBT and work can be. For example, there are many young gay men who actually feel that careers as hairdressers, in fashion or as graphic designers are all the opportunities that are open to them. And while any of those careers can be fine it's sad if you think that on the basis of your sexuality you're restricted to them. So in this line one of the programs that Pride at Work talks about is, just like it is for other diversity affinity groups, mentoring. Letting affinity group members know that every opportunity is open to them is an important step.

So back to the story, I think that more than the sports part of it (which I think could be valuable as well), there is the part of being a CEO that I suspect may have more of an impact. The fact Mr. Welts is a CEO of a sports team is no doubt why the story was even covered but the fact he is a CEO may provide inspiration, hope and widening of potential opportunities for young LGBT people no matter what industry they are in.

Or so I would hope.

It's hard to say, or measure, the impact of stories like this on groups as a whole. Is it as impactful as someone working in the same organization as the diverse, or in this case LGBT, candidate? Almost certainly not. But I think it can have some positive impact and that's a start and in this case a good reminder of how far we have come and how far there is in fact to go when we all celebrate the pride events of this week.

Busy of late but a few updates

John and I haven't been doing as much blogging as of late, mainly because this has been a very busy spring (and early summer) for both of us. I know John has a new post he's been working on coming later this week but I thought I would share a few of the updates, features and changes we've been working on the last while since really the TalentOyster from January is already quite different from the TalentOyster of today.

Improved Usability

Over the past few months we've rolled out a number of usability updates for our job-seekers and especially our employers. Better paging of previously posted jobs, a simpler step-by-step wizard for resume searching are just a couple of the improvements we made for our employer users. Based on feedback these features are now easier to navigate and use by normal users than previously.

New Employers

We've added a number of really great, enterprise level employers from across Canada in the last few months including Trillium Health Center, the CBC, Georgian College and most recently Accenture.

TalentOyster Network

Along with the existing EpochJobs.ca (Chinese) white-label site, March saw the launch of our Spanish white label Correo Jobs. We are currently finishing development on two other white labels, one which will launch later this week, and another two are starting development soon. All in all, by the start of the fall we expect the TalentOyster white-label to make up at least 5 different sites and that's not including the sites and organizations who are using OCEAN, the TalentOyster API we launched in March. The TalentOyster Network is already Canada's largest, in real traffic terms, employment focused, network of diverse online diverse properties in Canada and we see continued growth on the horizon.

Addressing a diverse audience – clear communication is key

My colleagues and I often get asked if we have any quick and easy tips for getting more views and higher conversion rates for job posts delivered to a diverse candidate base. To a certain degree there isn't a magic answer that will increase candidate flow just like turning on a tap.

Real success, we know only happens as part of a long term, organic, process. Increasing the SEO visibility of your profile and your opportunities, developing an awareness of your employment brand and getting industry related recognition about your organization (especially in amongst target groups) are all keys to the performance of your posts. Successful sourcing strategies are a bit of a numbers game and the more traffic you have, the more qualified applicants you will also have, regardless of conversion rate.

Having said all that though there are some commonalities to success that improve your posts SEO and improve conversions to posts no matter how many views you are getting. The key here for diverse audiences is, funnily enough, the same as it is for non-diverse audiences. Communicate clearly.

Far too often I see job titles that contain nothing but acronyms and short forms. There is a time and place for SMS style language but the title of a job post isn't one of them. A point made worse when company culture specific acronyms or terminology is used. And these sorts of things don't show up only in the titles of job posts but in the job description detail as well.

For a traditional “mainstream” candidate audience using company specific terms and/or SMS shorthand can be at the least off-putting but imagine how discouraging it can be for diverse groups who are more likely to be able to interpret the language and meaning of such posts.

At the end of the day the job posts are advertisements, just like the B2C or B2B advertisements your organization already uses. The concept of employment branding is real, better candidates will be attracted by a better employment brand. For all the employment branding activity you may do nothing will have as much impact as the “front-line” advertising you do, it’s your first point of contact with the target audience and first impressions are lasting ones. That's why clearly written job posts are so very important.

A job title and description that are well, as in clearly, written are easy to understand and will attract more candidates. They are also a better reflection on your organization as an employment brand and that's the kind of value that will pay off when candidates are more invested in you as a potential employer, giving your opportunities a longer, better look and more likely to share your opportunities with their own network.

The personal touch and employee engagement

During my conversations with companies across Canada I have noticed that there is a commonality in diversity programs that work and it is a personal touch. It should really come as no big surprise that an effective diversity program goes beyond making a few diversity hires and some niceties in the employee handbook but makes sure there is real, personal engagement with all employees that focuses on that employees specific area of needs.

All companies want high levels of employee engagement, but such engagement is a two way street. Your employees will feel passionate about the success of your business when they feel that your business is equally passionate about them. And there's simply no better way to communicate that to employees than to communicate with them in a personal way.

So that's all nice but what exactly does that mean?

Well the execution specifics can vary but one of the diversity related programs that seems to have the greatest success are internships and mentoring programs.

I think these programs work so well for a number of reasons. For starters the program experience is founded on a one-on-one relationship and that's a good ratio to ensure that the intern or mentee feels that their success is important to the organization as a whole.

Even more though I think that one of the most valuable experiences these programs leave with their participants is being able to see first hand what success looks like. Too often starting in an organization, outside of a sales role, means working in a area where opportunities to move up are limited, or the gap between your work and bottom line success is hard to bridge. These sorts of disconnects can make it difficult for all new employees but the problem is compounded for new employees from diverse backgrounds who may feel even less like they fit in to the success of your company and its future.

When any employee, but especially a diverse one, gets first hand experience of what hard work and real engagement can bring they are far more likely to remain passionate about the organization.

And again none of this should really be rocket science but if you find yourself wondering why your diversity initiative isn't working remember it's time tested programs like mentoring that really do make the difference. Having good intentions is all well and good but having a personal touch with new employee engagement is what stands out most about companies who are successful with diversity.

LinkedIn : The future of recruiting?

There isn't much doubt that LinkedIn represents a very new and powerful way of using the web for sourcing and recruiting talent. It's the first popularly successful example of connecting social networking to business for recruiting purposes and certainly it represents a sea change in how organizations view and invest in their recruiting function.

But exactly how big of a change is it?

I have heard it suggested that LinkedIn is a death knell for the job board industry. That would of course be a significant change (as well as bad news for me) but is it true?

I don't think so.

Let's first remember that employment advertising and branding, just like all advertising and branding is designed to influence decision making at purchase time. That's a process that starts well in advance of the purchase and effective advertising seeks to get messaging about product top of mind with the purchaser so that at the correct time they are more likely to consider and/or buy your specific product.

When it comes to employment advertising the goals are the same. Yes, of course posted opportunities will get applicants who are currently looking for work and just happen to see your job and apply, but there is also a process of enticing passive candidates and top talent for your business that goes beyond the number of applicants for a position.

Top talent, when looking for work is going to start by identifying the companies and positions that they want to work for. The criteria by which specific organizations will depend on the individual but in the case of diversity specifically may include questions such as the inclusiveness of the organization, opportunities for career advancement and ... You want your organization to be included in this short list of potential employers and the only way to do that is through employment branding and advertising.

Job boards allow you extensive and non-replaceable opportunities for employment advertising in several ways including the amount of exposure available. This isn't just traffic we are talking about here but very targeted traffic of people who are either actively looking for employment or at least considering a new role. The brand message on a job board and subsequent SEO are undiluted by your B2C or B2B brand messages which is key to making sure your employment brand is being seen by the target audience at a time that they are open and receptive to it.

But can't I do the same thing on LinkedIn? Surely their audience is my target and receptive to my employment branding?

Yes but like any advertising you can't just throw up an ad in one place and call it a day. You don't limit your B2C advertising to TV or print or online or billboards, instead you choose as many options as you can so that your message is seen by the largest number of your target audience as possible. In the same way that I will tell you that because TalentOyster as a diversity niche job board (with a niche audience) means that you should be using mainstream sourcing boards (like Monster) as well as and not instead of TalentOyster the same applies for job boards vs. social networking recruiting tools like LinkedIn.

If tomorrow you took all your jobs off Monster and posted them all on LinkedIn instead would you see an impact?

There would be a short-term impact, although the exact drop-off in applications would vary based on your industry and overall brand but the more significant impact would be in the longer term (6 months or more). As time went on I believe you would experience a serious drop in applicants fro top talent coupled with a lack of interest in your positions from passive candidates. Being absent from job boards means you would no longer be top of mind for candidates when it comes to planning where they want to work.

There's also the matter of who exactly is on LinkedIn. Is it a "mainstream" social network representing the non-diverse audience? It certainly seems that way. As we already know making sure that your message is being seen by everyone requires a sourcing strategy that looks beyond the mainstream.

Don't get me wrong, LinkedIn is an excellent tool for your recruiting and sourcing "toolbox". But at the end of the day it is a tool, not a one-stop solution for all of your online recruiting needs.

What does diversity mean to you?

Seems like a simple question doesn't it? But I think the answer can tell a lot about where an organization is on the diversity scale.

It starts with the "big four" groups inherited from the legal/equity perspective, visible minorities, aboriginal, women and persons with disabilities but in most cases diversity in a company means more than that. Other groups that are often part of it may include new immigrants, LGBT and older workers. But there are even more than that.

I recently came across a definition of diversity that included occupation types! The general idea is that when we talk about “uniting in diversity” we need to be including all the different groups that make up our organization, including groups that are not obvious at first glance. And when you think about it, the concept of inclusion does mean that different business function areas in your company should be working together just as different ages, races or genders are inside each one.

So is diversity really just another word for teamwork?

Someone once said that diversity isn't about the differences between us but about the uniqueness we all share. Isn't that also a good definition of good teamwork?

Successful teamwork takes the unique skills and strengths of individual members and uses them to achieve shared objectives that wouldn't otherwise be reachable on their own. I think you can say the same for successful diversity workforce initiatives. As an organization we source from a number of alternate sources, tapping unique skills and experience in order to best achieve the goal of hiring the best possible candidate.

I have said it before and I'll say it again, diversity isn't about accommodation or promoting the inferior, it's about the best talent you can find. The only way you can have the best talent is if you can find and hire it, and you can't do that unless you are looking at everyone. So I guess you might say that for me, diversity, in the employment sense is as simple as this, "look at everyone". I'm not sure it needs to be any more complicated really.

The Chicken and the Egg

Last week I was doing some catch up reading on some back issues of HR Reporter when an article caught my eye and almost immediately it caused me to ask myself a question that I have been pondering since. The article was on the link between a good business culture and real business success. It reported that companies who were perceived, by outsiders to have the best culture were the most successful in Canada.

My question though was which of those come first? The article was at the very least trying to imply that culture comes first, that creating a positive, business culture is one of the things that leads to success. I think there is something to that but in reality I'm not sure that you can breed a positive culture without having success first.

We'd all like to think that while the culture of a business could be separated from the level of success, or lack thereof, that a business has, the reality is it cannot. When times are good employees are going to reflect this and so will the general business atmosphere and culture meanwhile when times are bad the inverse is equally true. Everybody would prefer to work for a “winner” and nobody wants to work in an environment where they are worried about the future, the viability of the company and their job security.

At the same time though it's important to recognize that cultures are not fixed forever. If your business is going through a downturn you are not “doomed” to a downward spiral of negative environment producing poor results. Every business will have its ups and downs and businesses do adapt and change all the time.

Now applying this to the diversity space, how does a company become diverse? Do you start by adding diverse candidates or do you need to incorporate diversity into your business culture first?

No real question here that you need diverse candidates, without making hires that reflect your commitment to diversity your plans are hollow but... if your business culture doesn't embrace diversity will top diverse talents stay with your organization?

Which all leads to the question of how you are supposed to incorporate diversity into a culture if you don't have any (or much) diversity yet. As my colleague John wrote earlier in the week organizations that are successful with diversity know that both a top-down and bottom-up strategy is needed and I think the same applies here. If you want a diverse culture you need to bring in diverse candidates of course, but you can't overlook making sure your culture reflects the diversity of where you really want to go.

Bottom up or top down?

Last week I was interested to read about a bit of a commotion in Germany regarding women in the workplace. It seems that women only make up 3.2% of the members of executive or advisory boards of Germany's top 200 companies. That's a bad number, what makes it even worse, and what the stories last week were about, is that it's a problem that German business has been trying to address for ten years.

Back in 2001 German companies introduced voluntary targets to raise the representation of women in executive or advisory roles. Chancellor Angela Merkel described the effect of these voluntary targets as "modest results" and said that more needs to be done. But really, if 3.2% represents "improvement" when a demographic number would suggest more in the range of 50% the situation really is quite bad.

An outcome of this is that the German Minister of Labour has threatened to impose mandatory quotas that businesses would have to achieve. The numbers being talked about are 30% by 2018, which would be a significant change. As expected, the threat to impose mandatory quotas is not without controversy of course, with companies who would be affected complaining about the possible interference in running strong businesses. In the end the government stated that businesses have 2 more years (till 2013) to triple the number of women in executive roles or the government would force business to address the issue.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, tripling the number in three years sounds very aggressive until you consider that's still only about 9.5%. It's also interesting to note the excuses and reasons given by these companies. As per usual they claim the results of their strategy simply aren't paying off yet, that they are integrating women into their corporate culture and promotion structure but it takes time to see the results of this at the very top.

No question, bottom up strategies have the largest potential benefit for all those involved. Companies get employees who are invested in the process and are well acclimated with the culture, needs and strategies of the business. But does it actually work?

Historically the conclusion would have to be no. Implementing diversity strategies with only a bottom-up approach seems to time and again to fail and there are good reasons for this.

In the German example we can see one of the reasons why, it takes so long to see results that it's difficult to know if it's working... or not. Now common sense would say that with only 3% it almost certainly is not working, but the businesses make the case that it's impossibly to tell yet and apparently in this case the government agrees that that might be true. True or not the point of difficulty in measuring success in intermediate terms is a problem here and when the success of a strategy is measured in decade cycles that's a real issue.

A second problem, but one I believe just as bad if not worse is that bottom-up strategies don't shock the culture into the change that is needed in order to make the strategy a success. When diverse employees (women or otherwise) look up the corporate ladder and only see white males in the top roles what sort of message do you think that sends to them? How motivational do you think that is? What kind of trust in your diversity strategy will employees who see this have?

Right about as much as you think. And the problem of leadership not reflecting your diversity goals extends to more than just if diverse employees believe you, it's also about the vision and direction of your organization as a whole. Executives in leadership roles are, well, leaders. A company can't really have an inclusive vision without inclusivity in its visionaries.

Don't get me wrong, as I said earlier bottom-up strategies do have long term benefits for companies, investing in top talent will in the long haul bring results. But a bottom-up strategy when it comes to making a company more diverse just doesn't work, on it's own. It's not a question of bottom-up or top-down, but recognizing that to have an effective strategy when it comes to diversity, you need a little bit of both.

LGBT - The forgotten diversity group

In some ways it seems like an odd thing to say that LGBT is the "forgotten" diversity group because, at least in Canada, alternative genders and lifestyles have become largely an accepted community (or at the very least a well known one) and yet I think when it comes to issues of employment there is an element of truth to it.

There are a couple of reasons for this, the first being that it's an example of the gap that can exist between "awareness" and "action" when it comes to any business culture changing initiatives, but of course specifically as we are most interested in, diversity ones. In short knowing that we should be doing something or aren't doing enough is better than not knowing, but it isn't the same as actually doing something.

Part of the issue here is that sometimes knowing that we should be doing something doesn't mean that we actually know what that something is. As a diversity group LGBT can fall into this category because for many organizations both knowing how to identify members of this group and what steps to take to make sure that they are incorporated as part of a diversity strategy are a bit tricky.

Like any successful corporate strategy it begins with clearly communicating objectives to all employees. Making sure that employees know what sorts of behaviour are acceptable and not acceptable when it comes to LGBT groups should be done just like any other diversity group. Even more fostering a culture of acceptance and inclusion starts with everyone understanding what the expectations are, and what the eventual goals are and those should be communicated clearly as well. When all the members of the team know what the goal is, that is having success by creating a diverse culture that is welcoming to the best candidates for all opportunities, you're more likely to reach that goal.

LGBT can also be difficult to address from the diversity standpoint because members of this group are more likely to be victims of quiet discrimination. The reality of the "old boys club" lives on and can exclude LGBT just like women, visible minorities and others. Sometimes members of diverse groups aren't being actively discriminated against but their opportunities for advancement in an organization are limited because they don't participate in the same social events or share the same interests that members of management might.

The second reason I think that LGBT can get overlooked has to do with cultural sensitivities and it's possibly even more of a problem. The fact is that there are many cultures and countries where LGBT personas are not seen as acceptable and/or wanted. Even in North America there are groups who would seek to persecute and discriminate against others on the basis of their sexual orientation and when it comes to opinions the world over this, sadly, counts as enlightened. It's a serious problem and its tentacles do extend into diversity initiatives here as well.

For example, with some cultural groups who historically and currently in their home countries suppress and/or discriminate against LGBT how can your organization be inclusive of both these groups? It almost seems impossible on the face of it, the existence of one group is offensive to another group so how can the two co-exist?

The fact of the matter is that while it does seem like a complication it is no different than the challenge of inclusion with any other diverse groups who might historically not get along. Ask yourself this question: how would you include both Arabs and Jews into your organization? What about Hindus and Muslims? You wouldn't think twice about encouraging groups to express themselves but at the same time setting clear boundaries on what sorts of behaviours are appropriate. The same standards should apply to LGBT.

It's not always about inclusion, it's often simply about making sure we're not allowing groups to be excluded and anyone who can be victimized on the basis of their race, religion, gender, background or sexual orientation deserves the same level of protection against exclusion.

The TalentOyster Network : a combined approach to diversity talent sourcing

Even though (or perhaps because of) we work in the field, we can tell you that driving diverse candidate traffic is not an easy thing. The short answer as to why is the amount of market fragmentation that exists. There are many, many, many diverse communities and markets in Canada but most of them are, relatively speaking, quite small. It's only in combining them that a candidate flow strategy can really make sense which is one of the reasons we call it Canada's Hidden Talent Pool.

The creation of TalentOyster was based on the principle of funnelling candidates from these fragmented markets into one collective pool from the perspective of companies looking to hire. TalentOyster is different because it is the only diversity related employment portal that was built around a traffic strategy first and the only one deeply connected to the existing multi-cultural media community in Canada.

In this line, right from the start TalentOyster has been connected to diverse cultural communities across Canada through the media partner network of our parent publishing company. This has given us a great start when it comes to candidate flow but as we have learned a strategy more proactive than advertisements and editorial content in newsmedia publications is required. We initially moved on this strategy by being leading edge in leveraging social media with programs like our Tweeting of Jobs and pushing updates to candidates via email, RSS and SMS. But we realized that these aren't always enough either so enter the TalentOyster Network.

The TalentOyster Network is a network of white-label sites built on the TalentOyster platform and sites using the TalentOyster API.

Our White-Label sites leverage the trust candidates have in an existing community/media brand by wrapping a custom branded job-board solution built on TalentOyster and featuring the opportunity and employment content of our site for some of the affinity groups and communities we work with. Without all the buzzwords what does that mean? Well check out EpochJobs.ca, a Chinese language website, managed by a community trusted newsmedia publisher (EpochTimes) that features TalentOyster content. It's just one example of how we are expanding the funnel concept through our white-label network and we're adding more trusted partners in more affinity groups all the time, including Hispanic, South Asian, Aboriginal and LGBT.

The second and even newer way we are being more proactive in increasing our candidate flow is via OCEAN, a REST API for TalentOyster. OCEAN lets anyone interested to embed job search functionality and content from TalentOyster right into their own website. Sites can execute searches for job on TalentOyster, get results and then format and display them, however they like, to their own visitors. In some ways you can think of it is as a White-Label "lite".

Either way we're excited about our new funnel concept. We think by remaining the only diversity job board with a candidate traffic first vision we will continue to improve upon what is already the best streams of diversity candidate flow in the country. Because the more great candidates are connected to great employers the more everyone gains.

Job boards and the problem of metrics

A well known technique of successful businesses is to constantly be collecting, measuring, analyzing and applying data and results. Metrics. They're great and I mean that. If you're not measuring some fundamentals about your business then how do you know what success actually looks like?

When it comes to job boards it's no different, the concept of using metrics to evaluate performance still applies, although over time what is being measured has in some cases changed. Originally it was only the number of applications that was counted and for some organizations this is still all that is measured. For other, highly metric focused organizations, this expanded to measuring number of "quality" or "qualified" candidates and some even further to encompassing "quality of hire". At the same time some organizations have gone the other way and are only counting the actual number of views per job as their job board measuring metric.

So who or what is right?

No doubt the idea behind measuring "quality of hire" is a good one but I don't fundamentally believe it's very fair because there are so many other, far more important factors that come into account. Let's look at the TalentOyster example. A company uses TalentOyster but discovers their rate of quality hires is less than they mainstream sourcing solution they already use. Is that difference really due to TalentOyster or something more? Is the culture of the organization actually diversity friendly? Is the organization actually making diversity hires in the first place? These are pretty vital factors that have nothing to do with the job board itself and yet are reflected in that metric.

Qualified applicants seems like a better measure, and it probably is in most cases although it still can be a victim of bias. And measuring all applications is simply too broad a number to be useful so what can you use?

I believe the answer, for multiple reasons is to use view as your only real job board measuring metric. I know, I know views are a measurement even more broad than applications, but really I believe the only metric that can be usefully measured. Really what job boards are about is advertising your employment brand and the kinds of jobs your organization has to the widest possible audience. The deeper your candidate pool is the more likely you will be able to hire the best candidates for your positions and so reaching the larges audience you can should be your goal. A job board isn't a replacement for your interview, resume screening and hiring processes; it's simply another medium for you expose your employment message on.

I think that's an important thing to keep in mind. Yes, we all want to measure ROI, but you don't measure the ROI of marketing or advertising campaigns on the basis of what happens today. It's about the brand knowledge and loyalty you build that will influence the customers decision process when it comes to making a purchase. Likewise with job boards you want to "plant the seeds" with prospective candidates, so that they think of what a career with your organization might be like, so that they think of you first when looking for something new and/or better or in the best case scenario so that working at your organization becomes internalized as a career ideal.

It turns out these ideas hold even truer for diversity groups, especially for some specific cultures. For example did you know that 1st and 2nd generation South Asians are 60% more likely to look at job boards at least once a week even when not actively looking for work? It's the kind of demographic that makes you rethink what the term passive candidate really means.

I am not saying don't use metrics. Obviously they help keep many companies on the success vector, but when it comes to job boards I do think you should be carefully evaluating what you are measuring and why.

Sourcing and hiring aren't about "quick fixes", they're about long term success strategies and they should be measured as such. How many more people know about your company as an employment brand and think positively about it? That's what you should be measuring when it comes to job boards. Even if it can be harder to measure than what you are currently it is after all a measurement that's more reflective of the longer term nature of your sourcing and hiring strategies.

B2B, Pan Am Games and Diversity

This past week the 2015 Pan Am Games (to be held in Toronto) organizers announced that bidders for contracts for the games (from construction to concessions and everything in between) will be required to demonstrate that they will involve businesses and employees from traditionally under-represented ethnic communities. Read more about the story in the Globe and Mail here.

This isn't actually a new idea, although extending such a plan to all bidders is new. Following on the trend of such international events requiring bidders and contracts to be awarded with marks for environmental sustainability (such as those for the Vancouver Olympics) the trend of supporting "minorities" or other diverse groups is growing. The London Olympics has a diversity strategy when it comes to supply chain and now the next logical step is being taken by Toronto's Pan Am Games organizers.

But is this a good thing? Will the imposition of "quotas" on contract bidders actually support diversity or simply support less capable vendors/companies?

Ian Troop, CEO of the Toronto Pan Am Games made some comments addressing this which I found striking. He said,

We’re not showing any favouritism to anybody. We’re saying to employers, "Recognize the reality of the marketplace and community we live in... This is a level playing field and a meritocracy. The cream will rise to the top."

Hey, that sounds kind of familiar to me! As I have said many times before, "You should only hire the best candidate. But make sure you are looking at everyone". I am glad to see I am not the only one who thinks this way.

Diversity strategies aren't about doing what is "right" or what is "politically correct", they are about doing what is actually best from a pure business standpoint. Quotas aren't about promoting inferior candidates or in the Pan Am Games example inferior companies, past their competency. Quotas or requirements are about making sure that diverse candidates or organizations aren't being cut out of the process due to inherent biases in it. If all contracts are awarded and hires are made simply on the basis of who has done it before, who is best connected with my network or who I feel I personally relate to the most, you will be leaving large groups of possible candidates and companies out in the cold. The result of that being that what you are ending up with right now is inferior to what you could have.

Companies who "get it" when it comes to diversity already know this. It's why they are committed to a diversity strategy that embraces the full process, from employment branding, to candidate sourcing, to hiring and onboarding. But this story is about an even more immediate reward for companies still on the fence, namely that by increasing the diversity of your organization you can win more business.

As someone as familiar with the sales process as I am I can tell you that any advantage you have over your competition when it comes to selling your company is a good thing. The inverse is also true; lacking an advantage a competitor has can put you at a severe disadvantage. The growing amount of RFPs and bidding outlines with diversity as an integral component of the process mean that if you don't have a diversity strategy for your organization you're being left behind.

Furthering the diversity business case

Yesterday the Globe and Mail ran a story titled Ethnic consumer the goal for new Loblaw president, that is interesting for multiple reasons. The article speaks to the issues, challenges and solutions that Loblaw, as a major retailer faces when it come to the "ethnic" or diversity market.

Loblaw is a TalentOyster employer and was recently named as one of Canada's best diversity employers and it is not a coincidence that a retail organization would be so interested in diversity. In what is perhaps most succinct business case for adding diversity at any level to any organization the article says:

"About 70 per cent of spending growth in the next decade will come from visible minority groups, according [to] CIBC World Markets."

That's a pretty stunning number when you stop and think about it. What are your sales growth projections for the next 10 years? Are you making efforts to reach a diverse audience? If not you can cut those projections right now by two-thirds and that's only if you're lucky! The fact is that diversity isn't just a "nice to have" any more for business, it's now a "must have to survive".

This is the other, I think, compelling reason for why your diversity employment strategy must be strong. (The first reason being actually hiring good candidates which sure does seem like the kind of thing a company looking to be successful would want to do...) A more diverse workforce gives you better access to more diverse markets.

Ironically it's many of the same causes that push diverse candidates aside; comfort with "hidden" cultural references, networks of like minded people and the trust that comes in doing business with "someone like me" that will keep your business from growing in diverse markets. If you don't have representatives from the communities you are trying to reach on your payroll how can you possibly expect to build the same level of branding, trust, communication and user experience with those communities? You simply can't.

"But, this is retail", you say "this won't actually my B2B based business".

Oh really?

Yes it is retail, but let's remember that when it comes to consumer trends, in retail you're either first or dead. In other words retail may be setting the trend but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be closely following. The fact is that the size of diverse markets are growing and as retail operations reflect that it will increase the expectations for everyone about what a company should "look like". A company with a diverse, integrated workforce is clearly, demonstrably reflective of it's interest and commitment to diversity.

Diverse companies are going to seek out and prefer other diverse companies, because they clearly share some core business priorities, values and strategies. You clearly don't want to be the non-diverse company in this landscape and if, as the article shows, major retailers are diving into the diversity space then you need to make sure you are or will be soon.

And that means a real diversity strategy. Not just slapping a picture of a new immigrant and a woman in wheelchair on your website. Not just printing up your brochures in Mandarin Chinese. A real strategy starts internally and it begins with your workforce.

Transparency, Diversity and your Employment Brand

Last week Paul Dodd from Head2Head (a TalentOyster partner) made a thoughtful blog post about trends in employment branding and one of them in particular stood out to me and got me thinking. It was when Paul talked about the need for transparency in a successful employment brand and here is what he had to say on the subject.

"Employment brands are all about trust and credibility, so it's important to be authentic, honest, and transparent. It's okay if you aren't perfect - but pretending you're perfect, or something that you're not, is a good way to turn off potential employees. "

It's good advice but it never is as true as it is when it comes to how you embrace diversity. Good candidates, the ones you want to hire, can tell the difference between a truthful employment brand and one that in the case of diversity is simply about tokenism.

I talked before about how sometimes you need quotas in order to increase the diversity in an organization but if you want your organization to move past tokenism and have an actually diverse workforce quotas aren't enough. Being transparent with your employment brand on where you are now as well as the future you'd like to see can help with this.

Good candidates aren't going to be fooled by a message that says it's about diversity when the organization obviously isn't. By being honest about where you are now you make the candidates believe in the sincerity of your diversity strategy and more likely to join your organization.

After all, in the end good candidates are what it's all about. The diversity advantage we all talk about only comes about when you're actually able to attract all candidates including the best ones.

That means being transparent about your workforce strategy just as you are about any other aspect of your employment brand.

What a Jeopardy Playing Computer means for the Future of Sourcing and Hiring

If you haven't already heard last night a computer program called "Watson" started a three night run as a contestant on Jeopardy. A "thinking" computer that takes just seconds to understand questions and come up with correct responses on a wide variety of topics, does this mean your sourcing department could be replaced by computers sometime in the near future?

The results of the show so far have been mixed but as a software developer myself what is more interesting than how well or poorly the computer does is the demonstration to the general public of the gap between human thought and the "thinking" a computer does. For the computer it's not having access to information that is the problem, it is understanding the question that is the challenge.

It's a problem space that anyone associated with computers and programming is well aware of and it manifests itself in many ways including, the focus of this blog, searching and sourcing candidates for specific roles. It's why in spite of the many promises made of "magic bullet" software solutions that can take over your screening and sourcing these systems have not, and if the amount of computing power behind Watson is any indication, can not deliver.

We all know that while there are many benefits to a large database of candidates in an applicant tracking system it can also be a drawback when it comes to actually identifying the best candidates for specific roles. From a computer science perspective it's a challenge, be able to understand and quantify what a resume says, be able to understand and quantify what kind of candidate you are looking for and then matching the two together.

From the perspective of a user trying to search the system it's an excercise in frustration as we have to spend a lot of time being specific with what we are looking for while still getting mixed results. Mixed meaning that we either aren't finding all the candidates who might be suitable or we are finding too many candidates who aren't actually helpful to our needs. "Innovations" like "boolean searches" (which as an aside aren't really that innovative since they've always been a part of underlying database theory), have helped but there is still a lot of work required on your part to get actually usable search results.

So back to the headline does Watson mean that your ATS will soon be getting smarter then ever? Just drop in a job description and find the actually three best candidates in your system? No need for manual resume screening anymore?

Well. No.

If you have been following along you'll note that Watson took years of effort from multiple people, incredible amounts of hardware, is focused on one specific problem "domain" (aka playing jeopardy) and still is far from perfect. All of which would tend to show that the "holy grail" of fully automating the sourcing and screening process is still quite some time away.

It also seems worth mentioning at this point that all of even this relies solely on hard, quantifiable skills and experience. The realm of the job interview with it's appraisal of soft skills and analysis of how well (or not) a candidate will actually fit in to a role and organization isn't looking replacable for a very long time if ever.

At any rate it would seem that despite the advancements in AI that Watson represents the practical applications for it are still some time away and limited, at least to start, to certain types of problems. This technology or not it is still going to be very difficult for a computer to read and more importantly "understand" exactly what a job description or candidate CV says.

In many ways it's a reminder of how the valuations and assessments of people's skill sets, that we to a degree find easy, really are quite complex. Speaking from a diversity hiring angle it throws a light on the sort of hidden complexity we see all the time. We often talk about the need to make sure you are looking at everyone and it is exactly this sort of hidden complexity where subjective descisions, the kind that make you blind to some candidates, lie.

Some food for thought anyway.

Want to Hire? Focus on Fundamentals

The goal for any diversity recruitment initiative should be, of course, to actually hire more diverse people but it's not always easy to get there. Especially at a time when the internet has become such an everyday occurrence for everyone. It's not just diversity recruitment that has this issue but any recruiting, sourcing and hiring.

Why?

Well, as many companies have discovered the "real-time" nature of, and the creation of huge "social" networks through, the internet mean that among other factors, brand is more important than ever before. Employment branding has existed for a long time, but in a world where there are brand interactions happening in real time in front of an audience (hello Twitter) and literally millions of people can share opinions and experiences about an organization (hello Facebook) the importance of positive brand interaction with audiences has just exploded.

The increasing importance of employer branding, arguably even greater for niche sourcing like diversity, is why I am pleased that we have started working closely with Tamm Communications, an innovative leader in the field, to develop truly comprehensive offerings around diversity employment. We'll be talking more about this at the HRPA conference next week.

So that's all very good but I hear you saying "I need to find more/better candidates!" and "How do I leverage the Twitter/LinkedIn candidate cloud with my organizational employment culture!". Well maybe you don't entirely say the last one (hopefully nobody does really) but often times people come really close. Yes, you should be on Twitter, and yes your employment culture is important but it's not the place to start. I am huge fan of innovation and being on the cutting edge of whatever technology, ideas or systems there are. My interest in innovation is for example the reason why TalentOyster sends alerts about new jobs via SMS text alerts to candidates. Innovation is cool, but for many organizations it's a few steps ahead of where they need to be.

For many years, in high school and university, I played (and later coached) football. Football can be a complicated game, especially at the professional level you will see many intricacies in strategy and plays, but more than anything football is a team game.

I learned early and often that you can have the greatest play on paper but if your quarterback has bad footwork, if your linemen don't block, if your receivers don't run precise routes or if your back doesn't hold on to the ball none of it will matter. These are all fundamental parts of success for the various positions on a football team and if you don't have them you just cannot win.

I have been in the job board and recruiting industries for long enough to see that even though we all want to be cool and progressive sometimes there needs to be more of a focus on fundamentals here too.

So what are some of the fundamentals I am referring to exactly? Well for job posts they include things like:

• Have good job titles on your job posts. If every job was really the world's most exciting then coming up with alluring job post titles would be easy but of course life is not so easy. But you can at least make sure that your job titles are meaningful. Too often I will see job post titles like "Lvl 3 Clerk" or "Ast Mgr RG 2". What do those even mean?!? The basic question you should ask yourself if composing a job title is this, will anyone outside of our organization know what this means? If the honest answer is no then it's time to re-write it. People aren't going to even look at your opportunity if they can't decipher its title.


• Include as much detail as possible in your post. Saying your job is in "Toronto" or "Vancouver" doesn't really tell a potential candidate much. Imagine a candidate looking for a job that is accessible by public transit, what can you say about the location of the job for that candidate?


• Detail is good, too much boilerplate is bad. Often in a well intentioned but poorly executed effort to extol the benefits of working for an organization a company will include several paragraphs describing the company and why a candidate would want to work there. Now don't get me wrong, as I said the intention is good but there is a line between doing this well and appearing to be insincere as well as losing candidate interest. If you have an opening paragraph about your organization, and maybe even close with another one or two that's fine, but if every job in your organization from senior to junior starts with the same 5 paragraphs of "We're the best company EVER!" it has lost all meaning and impact. In fact our testing shows that when presented with these types of ads candidates are less likely to read the entire description and far less likely to apply for the position.

So having said all that I will say that there isn't one magic answer for how anyone's job posts should be structured. Varieties based on industry, type of job and just what works for your organization are certainly going to exist. My point today is that sometimes we can all get caught up in the "hype" of the latest recruiting or sourcing trend and we forget that this too is a "team" game. If you're looking for more and better candidates to hire before you ramp up the social networking and technical widget brigade maybe just take a moment to make sure that you have put enough focus on your fundamentals first.

Don't just talk "Diversity" - Do Something

If you happen to live in the GTA then you already know and see how visible minorities represent more and more of the population (you can almost call them visible majorities now) If you happen to sell a consumer product then I am certain your marketing department is already figuring out how to sell to diverse groups. That's good but what about hiring them?

You may be thinking it's time to look at hiring more of the diverse people that you see around every day. But how do you get started?

The secret in this process is going to be that you need to actually do something.

Okay, I know, that's not exactly Zen but you are going to need to take action. Many of the companies I see and speak to every day tell me they think diversity is a great idea but are either not ready or unsure of how to take the necessary steps to move forward. It's time to stop talking about what a great idea diversity is and actually experience it.

In the very near future your workforce is going to get more diverse, like it or not. Prepared or not. If you continue to source talent for your organization like you always have – you are putting yourself in a competitive disadvantage. You need to source talent in new and different ways using sourcing tools that are tapping into the growing pool of talent that is coming into the country at the rate of about 250,000 people every year. It's Canada's Hidden Talent Pool.

So keeping that in mind, when it comes to diversity you should already be connecting with this talent pool, and if you're not you need to get started now. An overall diversity strategy for your business will of course pay the most benefits and be the most successful but don't let the enormity sink you before you start. Set a small, reachable, goal for increasing the diversity of your workforce this year and get actioning on it. I know that every company with diversity strategies, even (or perhaps especially those) with successful ones have had learning experiences along the way. You should expect to encounter issues you hadn't thought of and you can expect to find opportunities that you hadn't previously discovered either.

Diversity in an organization isn't a switch that anyone can simply turn on (or off) but if you don't get the ball moving on your diversity strategy when exactly will you? So stop just talking about diversity and thinking that it's a "good idea", it's time to start actioning on it.

The Disingenuity of our Government on Immigration

I believe that the future of Canada is in immigration. And not just some sort of namby-pamby utopian future vision, but the reality of just sustaining our economy and the standard of living we currently enjoy in this country. One only has to look across the ocean at the continuing economic meltdown in Europe to see the price countries pay for not continuing to develop and expand their economies.

Even in Canada we are already seeing major problems in some industries and areas. Have you tried to find a GP in Ontario recently?

The reality in Canada is that soon, without a real increase in immigration we will have some real economic problems. So it's more than a bit disheartening when on top of the roadblocks thrown up in front of immigrants when they arrive in Canada (and find that their skills and experience are worth far less than they are told before coming) our Federal government seems to be doing all it can to discourage immigrants from coming.

The most recent example is the story of funding cuts to settlement agencies in Ontario and British Columbia that broke just days before Christmas. (A bit of background here, settlement agencies are organizations that help newcomers adjust to life in Canada. They provide help in a variety of areas including: finding places to live, language and skills assessments and training, how to enter the Canadian job market.)

Now let me state clearly, I know that there are areas in which some settlement agencies could surely be more efficient and there is likely to be a good case that there are too many smaller agencies that would better serve their constituents if they were almagamated into larger organizations.

So, especially with the current, somewhat fragile state of the economy the idea of some cuts to funding and budgets for any group, including settlement agencies is not without merit. Sadly this sort of thinking wasn't the major reason put forward by CIC for the funding cuts and several elements of the way it has been handled in whole are at the very least eyebrow-raising. The most disturbing parts of the story are:

1. Lack of notification and dialogue - The agencies who did have their funding cut and/or dropped were informed by letter. There was no opportunity for discussion of what sorts of cuts would be needed for budget purposes, nor any discussion about what the needs "on the ground" actually are. There have been some vague claims by CIC that choices were made based on "number of clients served" but the actual objectives measured is not clear. It's frankly just arrogant to make choices of this nature without meaningful consultation with the groups and organizations who are actually on the front lines providing services.
2. The PR Spin Nonsense - The main excuse peddled for the cuts by Minister is that Ontario receives less immigrants than it used to so this money is being redistributed. There are multiple problems with statements like this but the primary one being that, everyone, including the Minister would be fully aware that (outside of Quebec) the place that immigrants settle is not necessarily the place that they first arrive. Newcomers are going to migrate to where the jobs and opportunities actually are in the country and not where the government might like them to be.
3. The Timing - There is a reason that these cuts were made in mid to late December and it isn't because CIC wanted to be known as the grinch who stole Christmas. The reason that these cuts were made when they were made is that late December is a good time to bury bad news. It's the one time of year when for many people it's hard to feel much outrage about any topic because we think of our friends, families, good times in the past and to come. Newspapers are filled with stories about kindness and generosity and there simply isn't much stomach for discussion of policies and serious plans. The fact is that if this story had broken in June you could expect to hear about it all summer but being that it was end of December it's almost dead and buried already.
4. The Follow Up - There has been little follow up from the CIC on any of this. Is this money going to be re-allocated as was implied by the Minister or is this just a straight cut? And if it will be re-allocated will it be to something sensible, like settlement agencies in other places or something irrational like more weapons for our borders to "protect" us from starving refugees? In what can only be described as sadly typical the only follow up from CIC thus far was a ham-handed attempt to stifle any further discussion of the cuts. This later turned out to be a "mistake" but either way doesn't really offer much hope when it comes to meaningful dialogue.

Again, I am not averse to budget cuts anywhere, including services for new immigrants even though I personally believe that these are pretty vital. But there is a big difference between that and an agenda of destroying settlement agencies and given the lack of honesty, and the heavy PR spin and timing used here it's hard to understand what other possible agenda there could be. Our government should be consulting and working with these agencies to help remove the obstacles from the paths of new immigrants. Our government should be open with its plan for sustaining the economy of this country either with or without more immigration.

It's really hard to see what the plan is here, or believe that the government is actually interested in any discussion of their plans or ideas or that they think there is any value in the experiences of those actually working with immigrants with these moves. I personally hope that the CIC takes some lessons from this episode and tries to be more proactive in engagement with those in the front lines although I'm sort of doubtful that will happen. But this behaviour is just short-sighted when it comes to the future of this country, and it's a little shameful as well.