24 Jun BAME, recruitment & job adverts – are you doing enough? Here’s how to do more.

“Any recruiter who claims there is a shortage of suitable candidates of colour…is not looking hard enough.”

Tevin Tobun is the CEO of food distribution company, Gate Ventures. Not only does Gate Ventures boast an impressive client list, including Iceland and Fortnum & Mason, but it boasts an impressive boardroom too: six directors, three of whom are BAME. It shouldn’t sound remarkable, but it is.

People of colour hold less than 7% of director positions across the FTSE 350, and of those positions, only 15 are chair or CEO. The Black Lives Matter protests have stirred a realisation that racial injustice is still rife in the UK and certainly isn’t restricted to board-level representation either.

But, the question on many people’s lips is: how do you, as a business owner, HR director or people manager, make a difference? It all starts with recruitment.

Recruitment and equality

You hear it, you experience it, you might even say it: there is a shortage of suitable BAME candidates applying for your vacancies.

No matter how fair and inclusive your recruitment practices are, a smaller proportion of BAME candidates leads to a smaller proportion of BAME employees, promotions and board representation. It’s simple math.

But Tevin Toban is right. A shortage of BAME candidates applying for your vacancies doesn’t mean there’s a shortage of suitable candidates of colour; it means you’re not looking hard enough. What can do you about it?

Our relationship director, Jason Sinclair, is speaking with senior leaders about how they pipeline talent and how they can ensure there are no barriers to attracting diverse candidates during recruitment. Specifically:

Job advertisements

A well-crafted job advertisement attracts the right calibre of candidates, irrespective of background. Yet, it’s where many businesses unintentionally stumble.

Only last year, NHSX (the digital transformation unit of the NHS) removed a live job advertisement because its essential requirements meant that less than eight otherwise qualified BME nurses could apply.

Job placement

Positioning your advertisements on the right job boards, forums and platforms increases your chances of reaching suitable candidates of all backgrounds.

However, many businesses find a vacancy board and stick to it, despite receiving the same candidates from the same backgrounds, time and time again.

Passive candidates

Finally, an active search for passive candidates will increase your candidate pool and the number of diverse and qualified candidates interested in your positions.

But, many resourcing functions don’t have the capacity or means to run both passive and active recruitment campaigns.

How are we helping?

We know that recruitment budgets have been hit hard this year, but that doesn’t prevent inclusive recruitment.

At Profile Resourcing, we offer cost-effective talent acquisition business partnerships for organisations of all sizes and sectors. We want to help businesses win the war for talent by attracting and recruiting the very best person for the job, irrespective of background.

If you’d like to learn more or want to speak with Jason about how you can remove your barriers to diversity, get in touch today.

About Profile Resourcing

Profile Resourcing is a Milton Keynes-based recruitment consultancy, helping businesses attract the very best talent to their vacancies. We offer a recruitment package model that takes the ambiguity and costs out of recruitment, leaving you with a tailor-made service and exceptional results.