Your struggle to hire diverse students for internships might be due to your toxic workplace

For decades, most of the largest employers of college students and recent graduates for part-time, seasonal, internship, and entry-level jobs claimed that they were committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workplace. Sometimes, they were being truthful.

Unfortunately, what we’re starting to understand is that many of these employers were committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) but their good faith efforts were misplaced. Instead of holding themselves accountable based on outcomes like percentage of women in the C-suite or black engineers, they measured their success against process. Did they attend a career fair targeting female executives? Did they recruit on-campus at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)? Whether those efforts led to any diverse hires was secondary. Even less important was whether any of those diverse hires stayed with the company long-term. Even less important was whether those who stayed long-term significantly improved the productivity of the organization.

Today, more and more of these organizations are discovering that process isn’t nearly as important as outcomes. If your good faith efforts don’t lead to the results you want, then wouldn’t it make more sense to allocate your resources differently? If you want to increase the number of women in your C-suite or the number of black engineers, then wouldn’t it be more appropriate to measure the number of women in your C-suite and the number of black engineers you employ and using those numbers to manage your efforts?

Organizations that want to hire more diverse students for internships and recent graduates for entry-level jobs are, understandably, re-examining their tactics and strategies. It is one thing to know there is room for improvement. It is another to know what to improve. Fortunately, Brian Martucci, finance editor of Money Crashers, shared a few ideas with us:

1. Purge toxicity from the workplace. This is important for reasons that have nothing to do with diversity, but it’s also undeniable that women, gender-nonconforming employees, and employees of color bear disproportionate burdens in toxic work environments. As you think about how to make your organization more attractive to diverse students and recent graduates, start here.

2. Diversify your geographic base. The urban-suburban-rural divide is increasingly stark. One of its most obvious manifestations is in the demographic composition of each zone: rural and exurban areas tend to be older and whiter; urban and suburban areas tend to be younger and more diverse. If you’re having trouble attracting diverse talent to your organization, your location could be part of the issue, and relocating closer to a major population center (or opening a satellite office there) could be a reasonable solution.

3. Recognize and address bias (and be frank about your shortcomings). We all have unconscious biases. Recognizing them is the first step to implementing lasting change — and creating a stronger, more diverse team. Devote your next retreat or team-building day to laying the groundwork for reducing and eventually eliminating these biases, starting with formal onsite bias training. (This is an important step in addressing other serious issues that impact hiring and retention, such as sexual harassment.) Tout the progress you’ve made publicly, including in recruiting materials, and in candidate interviews. And offer to connect candidates with individual staff members outside the hiring process to discuss their concerns