Embracing Authenticity: How HR Tech Helps Teams Hire for Diversity

Improving Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) in hiring is an ongoing effort — not just a statement on a career site.

Organizations that truly honor their DE&I commitment craft thoughtful narratives and authentically put their initiatives into practice during the hiring process and beyond. By leveraging AI-driven technologies, HR departments can help ensure they’re maximizing with DE&I efforts across the organization.

Ellen Hughes, Customer Success Manager, and Lindsay Mareau, Director of Sales Engineering for Phenom, recently detailed how using an AI-powered platform can elevate DE&I throughout the talent lifecycle.

Catch all the highlights here, or watch the full episode below!

Understanding AI tech’s role in diversity and inclusion

“At its core, hiring is a human activity,” Hughes emphasized. AI will never replace that, nor can it “solve” DE&I challenges. But AI can be leveraged to help reduce natural human bias, and enhance efficiency and effectiveness.

“Phenom’s platform is powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning based on data that we’ve been collecting and refining for almost 10 years,” Mareau said. “This is the foundation that powers all of the Phenom experiences to serve up personalization, recommendations, search, insights, and intelligence.”

Once your organization determines its diversity goals, the Phenom Talent Experience Management (TXM) platform acts like a GPS — helping direct you to your destination faster and redirecting as it learns more efficient ways to get there.

How AI supports DE&I hiring goals

“DE&I is built on both transparency and awareness,” Mareu said. “AI can illuminate opportunities to hire for diversity once it understands your team’s unique goals.”

The TXM platform equips managers and recruiters with tools that help them better understand the diversity hiring landscape internally and in the marketplace. Dynamic dashboards in the CRM give recruiters a view of their progress, quick insights, and recommendations.

Managers can track diversity hiring progress on a more granular level in the talent analytics suite — including visibility into traffic and lead sources that support current goals. They can also guide recruiters to hone in on areas that need course correction, increase awareness of initiatives, and reinforce the team’s day-to-day TA process.

Easily deploy content that attracts and engages diverse candidates

To fill your pipeline with diverse candidates, it’s important to attract and engage them with your employer brand first. Take a look at your career site — are you showcasing your DE&I commitment and inviting candidates into the conversation?

With Phenom’s Content Management System (CMS), you can easily upload landing pages, testimonials, and videos that highlight diverse employees and share your company story with job seekers.

Because diversity and inclusion is about more than race and gender, the platform is optimized to help employers better reach all job seekers. Some features to accomplish this include:

• Military code search enables veterans to find job recommendations that match unique skills.
  
• A WCAG-compliant accessibility scanner to ensure job seekers with disabilities have equal access to your career site.
  
• AI-powered job description analysis helps identify opportunities to make job descriptions more inclusive and gender-neutral.
  
• Talent communities where recruiters can invite candidates to build a candidate profile and join through diversity- and culture-specific landing page forms, which helps recruiters build diverse segments in the CRM.

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Downloadable Resource: The Definitive Guide to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

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Enabling DE&I recruiting practices through a CRM

The CRM is your database of all job seekers and is equipped with tools to help discover and engage candidates — both one-on-one and at scale, Maraeu noted.

“Once we’ve identified these job seekers’ demographics and areas of interest, recruiters and talent marketers can engage with them in a much more meaningful way, via email or SMS campaigns, outreach, or even promotional hiring events.”

Through Phenom’s CRM, there are numerous features TA teams can take advantage of to create more inclusive and effective recruiting processes, including:

• Dynamic fit scores aimed at reducing bias. AI tools won’t eliminate bias, but they can be leveraged to significantly reduce it. As candidates are added to the CRM, Phenom’s AI evaluates and assigns a dynamic fit score – powered by an algorithm based on distance, job title, experience, and required skills. Since fit scores don’t take into account implied gender, race or age details, it naturally filters out human bias.

• Talent insights to help optimize DE&I efforts and offer transparency. Phenom AI acts like a flashlight for recruiters — showing them a faster, more effective way to reach sourcing and hiring goals. “Phenom AI will illuminate areas where your team can optimize their efforts. Recruiters can then promote jobs on diverse job boards and track the effectiveness throughout the entire hiring funnel,” Maraeu said.

• Automated workflows that give recruiters their time back. Using Phenom’s automations, recruiters can automate repetitive and tedious tasks, such as sending emails, screening resumes, and scheduling or rescheduling interviews. Freed from those time-consuming tasks, recruiters can focus on building relationships and more closely examining candidate profiles for a deeper understanding of nuanced qualifications and skills.

Pro tip: Get an inside look at how Phenom AI can support all your TA goals by streaming our AI Day event here!

Continuing the DE&I narrative throughout the employee experience

Retaining diverse employees is just as important as attracting them. Phenom Employee Experience (EX) helps organizations weave DE&I into the fabric of your organization’s internal culture in several ways.

• Create and promote Employee Resource Groups (ERGs): ERGs give like-minded employees a chance to connect and feel a sense of belonging. “ERGs are a great way to help your organization become a better ally by amplifying diverse voices,” Hughes said.
  
• Use the Internal Mobility platform: When used properly, this resource can help you connect diverse talent to internal opportunities, or continued learning and career development activities to help them progress further on their career path.
  
• Set up a referral program: Within the platform, organizations can set up an easy-to-use employee referral program where your TA team can seamlessly invite diverse talent to tap into their personal and professional networks. This way, they can directly participate in your pledge to diversify hiring.

Create phenomenal experiences for candidates and employees

When you partner with Phenom, you join us in our mission to help one billion people find the right job. Ensuring everyone has equal access to opportunities throughout hiring processes and beyond gets us closer to that goal every day.

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Looking for the right tech to help your team meet their DE&I goals? Request a demo today!