Did you know that, according to LinkedIn, 38% of Talent professionals cited ‘finding diverse candidates to interview‘ as the biggest barrier to improving diversity? With many talent acquisition functions facing diversity hiring challenges, knowing how to source diverse talent is crucial.

The following insights and best practices are drawn from almost a decade of experience as the industry’s leading talent sourcing and RPO experts. Recognizing that recruiting teams, both small and large, may be having different experiences, we have developed a focused and proactive diversity sourcing strategy that can directly impact top-of-the-funnel diversity for any organization.

What is diversity sourcing?

Diversity sourcing is a proactive recruitment process aimed at actively seeking out and engaging with individuals who belong to underrepresented groups in the workplace. A formal diversity sourcing strategy may include talent research techniques, such as using emojis and hashtags, team outbound mandates and policies, leveraging relevant data and insights, and implementing effective talent branding strategies.

Why is diversity sourcing important?

Traditional sourcing channels and fast hiring practices may actually draw back diversity and inclusion efforts. Hiring deadlines, for instance, may sideline diverse pipeline efforts, while poorly thought-out recruitment marketing may discourage inbound applicants, and referrals can often lead to an imbalance in talent representation. To achieve optimal diversity hiring, it is crucial to start at the top of the talent funnel with diversity sourcing.

Employer Branding and Recruitment Marketing. 

According to Weber Shandwick, 47% of millennials actively look for Diversity and Inclusion programs in their job search. In 2020, Glassdoor found that 3 out of 4 applicants cited diverse workplaces as a top priority when searching for a new opportunity. Before getting started on diversity sourcing, it’s critical to ensure that representation is deeply rooted in your employment brand.

If you market towards a specific group, you are likely to attract that group. This directly impacts diversity sourcing, as cold outreach may often be a prospective candidate’s first touchpoint or encounter with your company. If your outreach leads a candidate down a path of a restrictive non inclusive talent brand, you may struggle with pipeline conversion. To improve this, consider tapping into your ERGs (Employee Resource Groups) or affinity groups to contribute to a more inclusive outlook. Make sure your social channels showcase a diverse and inclusive work environment. Research your competitors to benchmark and draw inspiration. Most importantly, your career site, social media presence, and overall brand should reflect your culture, core values, social initiatives, and work environment.

The key to maintaining consistent balanced pipelines is though proactive and deliberate sourcing effort. 

Recruiting is typically reactive, and hiring managers often seek to fill roles immediately, which can present challenges for building diverse talent pipelines. Various diversity hiring mandates, such as ‘Rooney Rules’ or ‘batch & hold’ oriented approaches, have been tried, but most still rely on reactive recruitment. By adopting a proactive approach to diversity sourcing, you can nurture relationships long before the need to fill a role arises.

Power hours are a great talent sourcing strategy.

At a talent sourcing level, power hours are an impactful outbound strategy that helps build consistent and proactive relationships. The idea is to block off time each week across your entire team to proactively source diverse talent, either based on candidate personas or specific requisitions. By dedicating a few required diversity sourcing hours from your team’s schedule each week, you maintain a sense of urgency to keep your diversity hiring goals front and center. Power hours can create valuable data sources, when output is successfully tracked, you can present those data points to stakeholders and executives for stronger strategic partnerships. You can also use these time blocks to invite members of your organization or guests to discuss experiences and trends.