Advice for Employers and Recruiters
Want to hire and retain diverse college students and recent grads? Make your DEI goal explicit.
For years, talent acquisition leaders at our nation’s largest and most sophisticated employers have known that the more diverse their workforces, the more productive are those workforces.
This year, the largest employers of college students and recent graduates have significantly increased their prioritization of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in their recruitment and retention practices. Many have done some pretty amazing things and really transformed their organizations from just talking-the-talk to now also walking-the-walk. But almost none feel that they’re doing all they can to reach, engage, and recruit diverse college students and recent graduates AND retain them.
Vicky Oliver, author of 301 Smart Answers to Tough Interview Questions (Sourcebooks, 2005) and Bad Bosses, Crazy Coworkers & Other Office Idiots (Sourcebooks, 2008), recently shared five tips for how employers can better hire and retain diverse candidates by making their DEI goal explicit:
- Create a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) committee at the company. Have the committee help the Human Resources department review all candidates.
- Send representatives from both Human Resources and the DEI committee to job fairs and college campuses to recruit.
- Include the DEI committee mission as an important part of the company’s overall mission.
- Encourage candidates, through communications and ads, to mention their diverse backgrounds in their cover letters.
- If the internship program is successful, encourage all interns to recommend intern candidates for the next cycle.