Recruiting with conscience when hiring diverse talent
there’s a mexican wave
sweeping through the creative industry
at the moment hitting every company
the thing with waves is it’s one of
those things where you see it heading in
your direction
and you know you need to respond to it
but the moment it
arrives to you there’s always a sort of
like awkwardness to the whole thing
especially if you’ve never taken part in
a mexican way before
now this wave is what i’d like to refer
to as the current
diversity hiring trend
companies are wanting to hire more
people of color
as well as gay trans and disabled people
and job ads these days are containing
sentences such as
bam people especially encouraged
to apply i’m a creative recruiter
and i’ve had an influx of requests
from companies that want me to help them
find a more
varied selection of people the wave has
hit them
and they’re responding accordingly and
in every diversity and inclusion manual
it mentions external recruiters like me
as one of the solutions
to help fill this talent gap you think
i’d be loving this
i’ve never been more popular by
companies as a supplier but i’ve got
something i’d like to say
and it is an urgent appeal
to every ceo and owner of a business
by all means please get swept up in the
wave
but i’d like you to consider your
direction
really carefully because there’s a
chance that
a non-carefully considered response
could be doing more harm than goods
and i’d like to explain why
because it just becomes this really
strange pick and mix recruitment game of
all
could we have a black gay
trans or disabled person human beings
being collected
like trophies like when you go into
reception and you sit there in an open
see an open plan office of people
strategically placed
looking at photos on the company website
as well with people
smiling look at us aren’t we diverse
but you can’t have the d of diversity
without the eye of inclusion
as someone who’s built their career on
creative recruitment with conscience
i’d be doing a disservice to anyone that
trusts me to find them
a career home if i’m taking part
in what essentially could be perceived
as tokenism
what do you think would happen if
someone from a marginalized background
joins a company
because they believe in their vision to
be more
diverse and inclusive this individual
needs a secure job
throws caution to the wind and they join
this organisation
but this company is full of things like
microaggressions
because the other members of staff
believe that this person was only hired
because of factors such as the colour of
their skin their sexual orientation or
their disability
this new hire would leave
because these situations can have such
an effect
on an individual’s self-esteem which can
take
months if not years to recover from
but not only that alone it’s also
expensive
the cost of loss to a company when
someone leaves
not only from a reputation point of view
but financials alone
can cost the company up to 200 percent
of that person’s salary in recruitment
and training fees
if you’re a ceo or an owner of a
business
i want you to ask yourself a set of free
really
serious questions one does your company
currently have an open
diverse and inclusive work culture two
how do you think your staff would
genuinely react
if you started hiring a variety of
people from diverse backgrounds
and three how willing are you
to proactively fix this one key reason
you might want to
is it affects your bottom line i mean
studies have suggested
that diverse teams can increase company
performances by up to
30 percent
and also millennials and gen zen
proactively seek diverse companies to
work for
so you’d also be missing out on top
talent for your company as well
and this isn’t when it’s just about
creative recruitment with conscience
this is when it becomes recruitment
with common sense and joyce parks
diversity advocate put it best
when she said diversity isn’t like
choking down
spoonfuls of oat bran because it’s
supposedly good for you
it’s literally like eating out a
wonderful new restaurant every
day but i just want you to imagine for a
second
how much better your company will be if
it’s full of
diverse motivated individuals
who are fully committed to pushing your
company forwards
because they wholeheartedly believe
you’re invested
in developing them and pushing them
forwards too
as a ceo of a company you have a
responsibility
to set the tone for your whole
organization
your employees look to you as their
leader so
your influence trickles down to the rest
of your company
but also in every organization there’s
key members of the team where if they’re
on board everyone else is on board
and this diversity and inclusion
training you’re trying to implement
won’t work if these key people are
rolling their eyes
and referring to it as a waste of time
everyone has to be on board with this
for it to work i work specifically
within the design and advertising
industry and we all know that
advertising
essentially reflects society back to
itself but advertising
fails as an industry if it doesn’t
contain people in boardrooms or design
teams
that reflect the rich tapestry of the
culture
that brands are trying to communicate
with because it’s full of individuals
that have the same
lived experiences of the people brands
are trying to talk to
as people we have so many different
identities
gender variant cisgender
working class middle class muslim
christian black white
gay straight an identity is just a part
of someone
but also our values
are what are really important and
shared values are essential
as well as integration within society
and an organization
when i run industry leaders talks which
is where i ask some of the biggest names
in
advertising and design what do you look
for
when recruiting for a creative for your
and team lot of them said to me well
along with grit resilience and
creativity
what we’re really looking for is that
person’s voice
because what makes a great creative is
every life experience
they’ve ever had been expressed into
their work
and if you want your agency to be
producing
groundbreaking progressive work that
moves society and the world forwards
it’s rich in culture narratives and
opinions
well you need to not only hire diverse
voices
but you need to really create a culture
where everyone feels empowered to
express their ideas
and to make sure that when anyone
talks that everyone is there to listen
and to truly hear their voices when they
speak
so as a ceo and an owner of a company
there are three things you can do
in regards to diversity and inclusion
within your company
one higher for potential
not just experience see when companies
come to me
and they say we would like to find you
to find us
a woman of color who has experience
working with some of the big sexy
clients and some of the big key accounts
and have proven experience there
this may not have happened so what you
need to do
is hire one to two levels down
and you need to be invested in their
growth you need to be their mentor and
they need to report directly
to you two
take a look around you who already works
in your organization
that’s already been overlooked
once you’ve identified talented
individuals
that already exist within your company
assign them a mentor
someone that is going to be that voice
that will speak up for them in the room
when they’re not there and be invested
in their growth as well
and three have an external
assessor come in and talk to your
employees
if you want people to feel they can
truly express themselves and their ideas
and their opinions on your company
and culture this person needs to be
external
don’t use hr because they work for you
and a huge part of their job
is on boarding people just bring someone
external
in get them to listen to your employees
and report that back to you and be
prepared to really listen to that
feedback
also educate yourself there’s so many
resources out there at the moment
and you’re gonna need to make sure you
learn
especially to be the right sort of
leader to take us into this
new world post pandemic the veil has
fallen
privilege has become openly
acknowledged we need to be allies
and we need to educate ourselves
2020 we all went through the same storm
but we navigated through it in different
boats
and realized that our mindsets are the
motor
and our future vision and dreams of the
lighthouse
to help us navigate the ways to bring us
safely
home i’d like to end
with a quote from the great poet amanda
gorman
for there’s always light if only we’re
brave enough
to see it if only we’re brave enough
to be it
you