Month: February 2023

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are important considerations for businesses of all sizes, including large enterprises. With DEI becoming an important pillar of today’s workforce, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) plays a crucial role in improving DEI within organisations. It enhances the image of the organisation, provides inclusive job descriptions and advertising strategies, implements blind resume screening, builds diverse candidate pipelines, provides unconscious bias training, and provides DEI metrics and reporting.

Inclusive Job Descriptions and Advertising Strategies: RPO providers help organisations to develop inclusive job descriptions and advertising strategies that attract a diverse pool of candidates. By using inclusive language and highlighting the organisation’s commitment to DEI, RPO providers help to create a more welcoming and inclusive environment for a diverse set of candidates.

Blind Resume Screening: RPO providers can implement blind resume screening, where candidates’ names, gender, and other identifying information are removed from resumes, to reduce bias in the initial screening process. Minus human biases that might influence hiring, RPO providers can help to ensure that all candidates are considered on the basis of their qualifications, abilities, and experience.

Building Diverse Candidate Pipelines: RPO providers can help organisations to build diverse candidate pipelines by actively recruiting from underrepresented groups and communities. This can help to ensure that the organisation is able to consider a wide range of candidates irrespective of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, age, or socio-economic background and increase the chances of hiring diverse talent, based only on job fitment.

Unconscious Bias Training: RPO providers can provide unconscious bias training to sensitise recruiters and hiring managers and help them identify and overcome their own biases in the recruitment process. This can help to ensure that all candidates are considered fairly and that the organisation is able to attract and retain diverse talent.

DEI Metrics and Reporting: RPO providers provide organisations with metrics and reporting on the diversity of their candidate pools and hires to help them track their progress and identify areas for improvement. This can help organisations to understand where they are succeeding in terms of DEI, and where they need to focus more effort in order to improve their record.

In conclusion, RPO can play an important role in supporting HR and TA leaders in improving DEI within organisations. RPO partners can study an organisation’s present DEI status and gap areas, analyse the results and help to overcome the conflicts. With their access to a considerable database of diverse candidates, RPO providers can help organisations attract, place, and retain diverse talent, thereby creating a more inclusive and equitable workplace. It’s important for organisations to evaluate the RPO providers and choose the one that aligns with their DEI strategy and is committed to promoting DEI throughout the recruitment process.

Most organisations, barring the huge players in the market, need not invest in sophisticated technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to enhance the recruitment experience. This is because RPO providers are increasingly absorbing the cost by adopting these technologies to automate and streamline recruitment processes. In recent times, RPOs have almost completely assumed the responsibility for resume screening, culture fit screening, IQ & EQ testing, candidate matching, interview scheduling, candidate testing, and onboarding. This can help to improve efficiency and reduce the time it takes to fill open positions.

Video Interviews: More often than not, RPO providers are incorporating video interviews into their recruitment processes. Depending on the client and function, these can either be live interview sessions or pre-recorded ones. With job slots opening up in different, distant geographies, virtual interviews are here to stay. They are gaining popularity because they allow for more flexibility and efficiency, can help to reduce travel time and cost, and do not require the candidate to take too much time off from work for an interview. The time slots are fixed in advance and this works well for the recruiter as well as the candidate. Video interviews can also assess communication skills and comfort levels with new-age technologies. AI can be used to analyse a candidate’s facial expressions and body language to predict personality traits, honesty, and other intangible aspects of the recruitment process.

Mobile Recruiting: RPO providers are increasingly using mobile recruiting techniques to reach candidates, such as mobile-optimised career sites and text message recruiting. This allows for a more convenient, flexible, and efficient recruiting experience for candidates, and can help to attract top talent. Mobile as a recruitment platform works well because it can be managed from anywhere, without being dependent on a brick-and-mortar space. Tasks such as reaching out to a broader pool of resources, scheduling interviews, providing internal feedback, and communicating with the candidates can be managed remotely through handheld devices, even in the remotest of pin codes.

Employee Referral Programs: RPO providers are increasingly using employee referral programs as a way to identify and attract top talent, as referrals tend to be more reliable and have a higher retention rate. Enterprises are beginning to recognise that birds of the same feather tend to flock together, so candidates who have already been whetted by the company are likely to refer like-minded people, with the proper credentials to the organisation. These programs offer a two-pronged motivation – one being that a person who is familiar is joining the same company, and the other being the monetary incentive that the company gives the employee.

Talent communities: RPO providers are increasingly using talent communities to engage with and nurture potential candidates, giving them the opportunity to learn more about the company and stay engaged even if they are not actively seeking a job. These platforms share information about companies, their culture, their thought leadership, industry information, technology breakthroughs, etc. From engaging alumni to prospective candidates, talent communities fan the embers of interest even when there is no active recruitment in process.

Greater focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion: RPO providers are increasingly focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion in their recruitment processes, recognising that these elements help foster a more inclusive and innovative environment, while also promoting a better candidate experience. It is in acknowledging all the dimensions of nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, age, disability, sexual preferences, religious and political beliefs, or other ideologies; it is in the exploration of these differences and moving beyond simple tolerance, to embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of diversity contained within each individual, that organisations stand tall. Employees with different characteristics, skills, and experiences bring to any organisation a whole new set of perspectives that can result in better camaraderie, innovativeness, and all-round wellness.