Process review

A good starting point is to review your recruitment and selection processes from advertising to appointment. You may wish to extend this to induction or onboarding as well, although those processes aren’t covered here.

Asking those directly involved to reflect on what has worked or not worked in the past is the first step. You should ask hiring managers, recent appointees and, where possible, unsuccessful applicants and candidates. In addition, you may wish to explore with internal advisory panels or diversity networks where applicable.

The following prompts can help:

• Have there been challenges in the past?
• Have there been any complaints?
• Have you seen improvements in application rates or quality of applicants following any changes?
• Where you collect diversity profiles for applicants and candidates, is there a noticeable trend around where individuals leave the process, for example: is it at the shortlisting stage or the interview stage?
• What has worked well for the recruiting organisation?
• How does your process reflect current thinking and best practice?
• What could make the process more inclusive?

In addition to reviewing your own processes and the experiences of applicants, candidates and appointees, you may wish to explore further:

• Is there anyone else you could speak with to gain more insight? For example, you could talk to people who haven’t applied in the past who belong to underrepresented groups. You could also engage with local community groups and existing partnerships and networks: for example, an external advisory panel.
• Are there other organisations that are doing this work well?
• Can you learn from projects within the sector specifically focused on diversifying the workforce?
• Are there other resources which include ideas of ways to improve?
• What do other sector bodies, trade unions or networks say about this work?
• What can we learn from other sectors?

This exploration can provide you with deeper insight into your processes and help you to identify where to invest time and effort to improve the inclusivity of your recruitment and selection. The following sections provide more detail and food for thought.