Page 46 - ASCO Cultural Competency Toolkit

Recruitment and Onboarding
Through targeted recruitment strategies, institutions can increase equity in the hiring process to address the lack of racial and gender diversity among their employees (Bhalla 2019). In academia, a thoughtful, well-supported, and explicit commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is strongly correlated with the successful hiring and retention of faculty with underrepresented backgrounds (Peek et al., 2013). For this reason, organizations, individual employees, and various departments (not only the Human Resources department) must establish a consensus on their motivation and commitment to DEI before the start of recruiting to decide how to advertise an open position, who will be involved in the hiring process, and who will help mentor and advocate for candidates during the review and promotion processes. To develop this consensus, facilitated workshops highlighting the adverse effects of bias and diversity in the workshop may be needed, as well as intentional behavioral changes from faculty, staff, and organizational leadership teams (Devine et al., 2012)
TIPS FOR IMPROVING EQUITY DURING HIRING PROCESSES
● Identify and achieve consensus on goals for increasing equity and diversity in hiring.
● Identify what the organization hopes to accomplish by hiring and retaining underrepresented
minorities.
● Decide if these goals best align with an individual or cluster hire.
● Identify equity advocates within the organization (those who will support the hiring and
retention of new hires from underrepresented groups).
● Develop a rubric to assess diversity statements early in the evaluation process.
● Determine how this rubric will be used during the review and promotion processes.
● Draft advertisement(s) for a position using the identified goals for improving equity.
● Job advertisements should accurately demonstrate an institution's commitment to DEI in its
hiring practices and should avoid biased and gendered wording in job descriptions (See Tips to
Write a Job description).
● Broaden search to maximize and diversify the applicant pool.
● Identify promising candidates at other institutions and personally contact them to encourage
them to apply for the position(s).
Adapted from Bhalla 2019
WRITING INCLUSIVE JOB DESCRIPTIONS
A well-written, inclusive job description should not only communicate an institution’s
commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion but should also convey how the values and
success of candidates from underrepresented groups will contribute to the organization’s
mission. For example, research has shown that when doing so, the number of faculty hires from
underrepresented groups has increased (
▪
Smith et al., 2004).
Common problems with job advertisements are that they can be alienating due to excessive and
unnecessary educational / experience qualifications and may include discriminatory or biased
language, which is often unintentional and/or a result of the writer’s implicit bias. As an example,
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