So often, “diversity” is used as a euphemism for race and disability.
“Diversity Bursaries from The National Archives
This year, The National Archives is offering two bursaries to individuals who are passionate about embarking on a career in the archives sector. The bursaries will support candidates in gaining a qualification by providing financial support and helping to address the socio-economic barrier that exists for some who are considering entering into the archives sector. We would particularly welcome applications from Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and disabled applicants.”
However:
“How Star Wars battled diversity head on (and other recruitment innovations) “
Includes some useful, practical examples:
- JJ Abrams’s production company, Bad Robot, requires agencies and movie studios around Hollywood to submit women and minority job candidates roughly equal to their representation in the United States population.
- GapJumpers: Blind Auditions – inspired by music talent show “The Voice”, GapJumpers provides software that enables tech companies to conduct blind auditions of job candidates and remove hiring bias from their recruitment processes.
- Buffer: Ensuring Job Titles Apply to Everyone – when placing a recruitment advert, a job title is the first thing most applicants, giving job hunters a strong idea of what the job involves and whether they’d be qualified to apply. But tech firm Buffer discovered that job titles are often riddled with submissive masculine terms which can prevent capable and highly-qualified women from applying. For example, the firm found that by including the word ‘hacker’ in many of their job titles, they were putting women off applying for those jobs: only 2% of applicants were women.
- Unitive: Inclusive Job Advert Descriptions – just as the language used for job titles can deter women and ethnic minority applicants, the job descriptions of the required candidate’s criteria can also defer responses from women and minority groups. Aiming to helps tech firms adopt recruitment practices that improve their diversity of candidates by focusing on removing unconscious bias in all aspects of the recruitment process, tech startup Unitive’s software identifies words with male bias in job adverts so that recruiters can change the language to be more inclusive. In the case of gender, research shows that while content laden with a masculine tone can ward off female applicants, more inclusive, feminine language, puts off neither men nor women from applying. Therefore, Unitive would change an advert requiring a masculine ‘driven, go-getting’ individual, to something softer and more neutral words like ‘excellent’ and ‘dedicated’.