Despite a diverse workforce having moral and practical benefits, there remains considerable progress to be made before organizations can consider themselves truly diverse. A recent study from the University of Houston argues that homogenous hiring committees are a key barrier to progress.
This flies in the face of frequent statements from organizations that their lack of diversity is more due to the homogeneity of applicants rather than any faults on their part. The research found that when the head of the search committee was a woman, 23% more women apply for the job than when the committee was headed by a man. This is even starker when the committee is headed by an underrepresented minority (URM), in which case applications by URMs grow by over 100%.
Birds of a feather
Our affinity for those similar to us is often blamed for the lack of opportunities for minority groups in the workplace. The authors argue that homophily perhaps has an unfair reputation, however, and can actually be used to increase diversity.
“There is something that women and URM recruiters are doing differently than men and majority group members that encourages more women and URM applicants to apply for a job,” they say.
The researchers analyzed three years worth of recruitment data from a public research university to understand how recruitment leaders affect applicant pools. They found that women and URM recruitment committee members tend to disseminate job vacancies more widely, which is especially useful in attracting women and URM applicants.
Learning from personal experience
“Women and underrepresented minority recruiters have likely experienced the same structural barriers to entry and career progress that the potential applicants may face. Their own experiences of inequity may make them likely to have a soft spot for similar others facing similar issues. This might motivate women and minority recruiters to work harder to ensure that they do what they can to ensure that more women and URM are made aware of the job opening and are encouraged to apply,” the researchers explain.
The paper includes a number of recommendations to try and improve matters and ensure that applicant pools are more diverse. These include not only ensuring that women/URM are present on recruitment committees but that ads are targeted at these groups.
They also advocate using colleagues from historically underrepresented backgrounds to both actively recommend potential candidates and to promote vacancies across their networks. These approaches are likely to differ between different groups.
“We found preliminary evidence that women recruiters are more likely to use personal networks to identify and target women/URM applicants, whereas URM recruiters are more likely to use more formal strategies of increasing applicant pool diversity. For example, cooperating with the institution’s diversity and inclusion offices to develop a diverse list of candidates to contact and posting the job ad on women and minority-specific websites,” the researchers say.
“Women and URM continue to be underrepresented in workplaces. The diversification of applicant pools constitutes an important step for broadening the participation of women and URM in the workforce,” the researchers conclude. “This study provides evidence of practical steps that organizations can take to increase their applicant pool diversity.”
