Tools and Tech for Increasing Diversity within Your Pipeline with Cory Kruse

Are your interview methodologies and processes consistent with your company's diversity hiring objectives? Are your hiring plans and tools optimized for the challenges that TA professionals face today? On this episode of Talent Acquisition Talks, get the inside scoop from Cory Kruse, President at Orion Talent as he walks us through his best practices and tips to boost diversity hiring and expand diversity awareness across your recruitment team and organization.

Watch the full video here or below right now:

Excerpt Transcript

Joe Matar:

So, could we kick things off with you giving us your take on why you think increasing diversity is so difficult for organizations?

Cory Kruse:

Yeah, absolutely. Most companies desire a workforce that reflects the labor market, the different talent groups, and then one that avoids excluding anyone, and challenges right now in this labor market are across the board. Not only challenges with targeting specific diverse groups, but sourcing as a whole. Just start with the total pool of available talent, against the demand, and continue with the math problem right now.

Cory Kruse:

That gets even more complex when we start talking about target diversity recruiting, and the inclusion effort. I think most have been trying to keep up with it, but many have not made the necessary investments, or adjustments to their recruitment strategy along the way. A lot of them are very focused on it right now. Again, it starts with a commitment across the organization. The challenge is right now is there's so much being thrown at the modern recruiter, the modern talent acquisition leader, in terms of what technology do I use? Where do I look? How do I manage my internal recruiting staff, or my external partners to make sure that we're looking in the right areas?

Cory Kruse:

We can get down in the weeds as far as some of the other big challenges here like adaptation. Is the whole enterprise adopting your diversity statement? There's not alignment there. Are people utilizing the right sourcing tools? The challenge is again coming back to hunting for the talent that you want, where that talent is. Incorporating flexibility. There's so many different challenges right now. It's great to see a lot of companies are starting to adapt. They're investing more. We still have a big gap to go, and hopefully with efforts like this, we can bring awareness to it, and serve up some tips and some things that folks can take away and go do right now.

Joe Matar:

Well, that's great. I think that that's what folks are looking for. It's those tips like, how can they apply it? After they listen to this amazing conversation that we're having today, how can they go back to their day job, which like you said, the demands on recruiters in this current environment are unimaginable, right? The supply isn't there. We're also talking for an organization to be successful, it really does need to reflect the broader workforce. That's why we're here today to talk about how we help organizations better do that. Let's maybe transition into some of the details. You high level mentioned some things that are challenges for recruiters, but if you had to give recruiters some things to keep top of mind for what is most important as they're again leaving and listening to our conversation here today going back to their day jobs. What should they be thinking about? What is most important for recruiters, to help them increase diversity?

Cory Kruse:

Yep. First and foremost, have a plan, and that plan, you need to be yoked with the rest of the organization on that plan. A total plan around number one, what is our statement on diversity and inclusion, and how do we reinforce that statement by the actions that we take on a daily basis? For the purposes of what we're discussing, how do we source? How do we attract? What does the experience look like for candidates? Specifically, how do we look in areas for diverse talent? Starting at the messaging piece, are we messaging to the market number one the right message that is unbiased? Number two, are we messaging in the right places? Number three, for that message that we send out, how are we handling the candidates when they come back into our environment? What does that experience look like?

Cory Kruse:

As a recruiter, I look at my sourcing strategies because each job should have a unique sourcing strategy regardless of where you're working, or what type of position it is. It requires a unique sourcing strategy. That sourcing strategy should include a total sourcing strategy which includes all available candidates, or all candidates within that ecosystem. Focusing on different talent pools. Taking the bias out, so focusing on the key outcomes and the must haves of the positions. Utilizing referral networks and expanding those referral networks to reflect the diverse makeup of the company. You can start with intern programs, you can have a diversity specific intern program. Incorporate flexibility into it, back to work programs, part time and contract.

Cory Kruse:

In what I'm talking about, you'll see a pattern here. That pattern is this can apply across multiple talent pools. This is Recruiting 101, however we're going to get more intrinsic when we talk about diversity. We'll talk about specific tools.