How technology can help you hire a diverse workforce: an interview with Tom Beastall

Unconscious bias is the nemesis of workplace diversity and an issue close to the heart of all great HR or Recruitment Managers. Unfortunately, we are all programmed to make assumptions that often prevent us from hiring a truly diverse workforce. In light of this, using high-tech, unbiased software to profile candidate diversity seems a very attractive option – but how can an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) be used to inform about diversity? And why is it even important to interview a diverse selection of candidates?

We interviewed myRecruiter’s Project Director, Tom Beastall to find out more.

What are the benefits of using technology to assess and monitor diversity?

Using software to record candidate diversity is a great solution to equal opportunities challenges. myRecruiter records diversity profiles of huge volumes of applications with ease – allowing HR managers to do-away with bulky paper records and manual data entry. Most importantly, our technology means you can store a permanent, cloud-based record of this data which can be used to inform your future hiring procedures.

What insight can myRecruiter give you into the diversity of your recruitment?

myRecruiter has an in-built diversity profiling tool. Our software records key facts about an applicant’s age, gender, ethnicity, disability and religion to create a clear vision of the talent pool you are attracting. Managers can get a complete picture of candidate diversity or investigate a particular area by filtering by agency supplier, department, role, location or time. We also encourage clients to use our software to 'checkpoint’ the diversity profile of applicants at each stage of the hiring process, from application to offer.

How can this knowledge be used by HR managers to enforce hiring diversely?

Knowing your talent pool is the key to great recruitment. With the knowledge provided by myRecruiter, HR managers are able to highlight areas of their hiring process which need improvement with regards to diversity. Our insight can indicate any institutional problems and narrow these down to a particular departments or area of diversity. All this allows a HR manager to direct their attention to where it is needed most and implement measures, such as anonymising CVs, where necessary.

Isn’t this what HR software is for? Why is this important function for an ATS system?

HR software can tell you about your existing workforce, but it can’t inform you about candidates you don’t hire. Understanding the profiles of these candidates is pivotal when ensuring that you are hiring a representative sample of the talent pool. A good ATS can help you do this before your HR system gets involved so that you can strip out unconscious bias from your recruitment process, and therefore from your workforce.

To discover more about myRecruiter – please call 0161 601 3395 or email myrecruiter@rullion.co.uk today.