Diversification is important in campus recruitment!

Diversification is important in campus recruitment!

Before we go into why workplace diversity is important, let us first look at what it means. Workplace diversity is an office or a business composed of employees with varying characteristics and behaviours. This may include, but not limited to, gender, ethnicity, educational background, socioeconomic background, geographic location and more.

With a sturdy increase in globalization and the shift in workforce demographics, workplace diversity is slowly becoming a business necessity. The only way a company can embrace change and difference is to bring about diversity at the office and that’s exactly what we’re going to emphasize on.  

Advantages of Diversification?

1. Building a better brand reputation: Diversity in the workplace helps in building a strong reputation for the company, which in turn can help increase the profitability of the business
2. Creates learning opportunities for workers: When a company encourages diversity, employees feel included. This also creates a platform for them to learn from their peers, increasing not only their individual skills but the overall skill set of the company.
3. Improves employee creativity by making them feel included: Candidates from different backgrounds tend to work harder in creating opportunities for themselves and the company. This has even been proven by a report published by Deloitte in 2013, which found that when employees ‘think their organisation is committed to and supportive of diversity, their ability to innovate increased by 83%.’
4. Better teamwork: Solving a problem becomes easier when you have people with varied expertise on a variety of subject matter and from different backgrounds working together.  A 2017 research published in Harvard Business Review stated that ‘Cognitively diverse teams solve problems faster than teams of cognitively similar people.’

Now that we have established the importance of diversity, the next big question is how does a company incorporate the same at their workplace. The Answer, by changing their recruitment procedure and principles. The only way a company can onboard resources is through recruitment drives. So, if a business wants to acquire a diverse workforce, they would have to make changes at the very beginning, which is fine-tuning their recruitment process in a way where it helps attract candidates from various walks of life and who have various skills and backgrounds.

How to bring about diversification:

1. Recruiting candidates from different backgrounds: You’ll risk shutting your company off from some great candidates if your search is too narrow. This is why it is important to be willing to meet and interview people from different educational, cast or regional backgrounds who you might not have previously considered when recruiting. This will help you onboard a diverse set of individuals, each bringing their own experience and unique skills to the table.
2. Reaching out to both in-station and outstation candidates. As a company, don’t just limit your recruitment drive to major cities. Expanding or extending your search to smaller or other cities is another way to pool in great talent. Recruiting candidates from the same city your organization is located in or major cities only can limit your opportunity to create a diverse workplace and reap the benefits that come with it. Candidates from smaller cities who have never left town before will automatically be more dedicated and will invariably work hard to ensure they excel at their job.
3. Choosing multiple colleges: Most companies limit their campus recruitment drive to only one or two colleges. Adopting this strategy will only put a cap on your diversification efforts. Expanding your campus recruitment drives to multiple colleges will not only give you better access to top talent from various colleges but will also help you obtain candidates with different backgrounds, characteristics and behaviours, who will bring different yet creative problem-solving skills to the table.
4. Choosing candidates with unique skill sets: When it comes to skills, avoid making a laundry list. Prioritize your skill set needed for the job but also look at applicants with different but equal experiences. This will help you onboard candidates who come with a different perspective, ones who can offer a different point of view in creating opportunities for your business.  
5. Disregard unnecessary criteria when recruiting: If you want to bring about diversity in your workplace, avoid making a strict list of criteria to meet. For example, defining a certain percentage or educational qualifications like graduation or post graduation. Opening position to a particular gender etc.  With criteria like this, you could be missing out on great candidates who were not able to bring great practical skills and thinking abilities to paper.

Bringing diversity into your workplace is not as simple as just applying these steps. Human psyche plays an importance in this process too. With human bias being a prominent part of our nature, how do you bring about diversity in your company? By automating and organizing your recruitment process with Pod.ai . Pod.ai can help automate your recruitment process by providing you with software and assistance to help your company make the perfect recruit. The Pod.ai HR software allows you to:

1. Blind screening applicants
2. Ignore demographic characteristics while screening continues and selecting candidates
3. Keeping the recruitment drive more organized
4. Managing time efficiently
5. Making remote recruitment possible
6. Allowing HRs to track the interview live.

Bringing diversity into your workplace will be easy when you have the backing of Pod.ai . So if you’re a company that is committed to cultivating, supporting and creating workplace diversity, talk to us by visiting https://pod.ai/employers