5 Proven Strategies To Get a Diverse Applicant Pool From a Range of Countries

Introduction

Having a staff that reflects the global diversity in which we operate should be a goal for any business, especially those who want to expand into the global economy. Diversity within a workplace has countless benefits in terms of the employees' happiness and well-being and the business's overall success.

However, having a diverse workforce relies on the assumption that a diverse applicant pool is applying to jobs at your company, which may only sometimes be the case. Fortunately, there are several changes you can make in your hiring practices to ensure you're reaching a wide range of applicants.

Continue reading to learn about five proven strategies you can implement in your hiring practices to ensure you're getting a diverse applicant pool from various countries. Also, learn why having a diverse pool of applicants is essential and how Skuad can help you hire a globally diverse team today.

How To Get a Diverse Applicant Pool From Various Countries

Reaching a diverse group of applicants can be challenging when hiring for new positions. It can be challenging if you don't know which changes to make in your hiring practices to reach a wider group of applicants and avoid discrimination.

Consider implementing these proven strategies to get a diverse applicant pool from a broader range of countries:

1. Implement Inclusive Recruitment Strategies

Implementing inclusive recruitment strategies is one of the primary ways to appeal to a diverse candidate pool. Companies implementing the same recruiting strategy with each new hire will likely pull from the same candidate pool who are finding and accessing their job listings.

However, by implementing more inclusive recruitment strategies that reach and appeal to a broader range of candidates, employees will have a more diverse pool of applicants.

Consider the following changes to make your current recruiting strategies more inclusive:

• Utilize anonymous hiring practices. Anonymous hiring practices, also called blind hiring practices, focus solely on candidates' qualifications rather than their name, age, or other identifying information. This process involves recruiters evaluating potential candidates based on their resumes and cover letter, removing the possibility of outright discrimination or implicit bias affecting which applicants make it to the next phase of the hiring process.
• Prioritize the use of inclusive language in job listings. Avoid gender-specific, ableist, or otherwise targeted language that may dissuade certain applicants from applying. Ensure that your job listing specifies that your company does not discriminate based on race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, color, age, religion, or disability.
• Ask for referrals from current employees. Utilize your employee base to reach other potential candidates. If you're trying to grow internationally, existing employees in foreign countries may have people in their network who would be qualified to fill positions within your company.
• Hire from within. Encourage a recruitment strategy that promotes candidates for management and executive roles who begin in entry-level positions within the company. Often these candidates are the most valuable, as they understand the inner workings of multiple departments within your company.

2. Create a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policy

Companies committed to building a diverse workforce should create a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policy. This policy will provide structure for how your company will move forward equitably and inclusively and set specific diversity goals.

To ensure that your DEI policy benefits your entire company and honors the nature of DEI, consider creating an internal DEI committee to craft your company's policy. This committee should represent the diversity within your company and include individuals from broad positions within your company. In addition, it may be beneficial to hire a consultant as you craft your DEI policy.

Set attainable, quantifiable goals your company intends to meet and encourage a company culture that stands by these goals, identifying and weeding out intolerant behavior.

3. Utilize Equitable Interviewing Practices

Just as implementing inclusive recruitment strategies is essential to reaching a diverse range of applicants, utilizing equitable interviewing practices further ensures that these candidates make it through the next phase of the hiring process.

One of the easiest and most essential tools to creating a more equitable interviewing process is ensuring that your company has a diverse selection committee. By having a wide range of perspectives on the selection committee, your company can avoid implicit bias during the interviewing process, and diverse candidates will feel encouraged that your company offers a safe, inclusive workplace.

Do your best to ensure that all individuals are comfortable with the interviewing process. Ask candidates in which language they prefer their interview to be conducted and provide a translator when necessary. Also, set an interview time around a candidate’s busy work and home lives.

4. Offer Flexible Working Arrangements and Reasonable Accommodations

Offering flexible working arrangements is essential for employers looking to hire from a more diverse candidate pool because it allows individuals with unique requirements to apply for a job within your company. Similarly, reasonable accommodations ensure that candidates who may not function optimally in a traditional working environment can still perform essential job duties.

In the United States, anti-discriminatory laws in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) state that employers must make reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities to be hired and maintain their jobs.

Similar laws are in place in many other countries, and employers who prioritize and advertise reasonable accommodations in their job listings may appeal to more job-seekers with disabilities.

Additionally, by offering flexible working arrangements, employers can accommodate individuals with families, those living in alternate time zones, individuals who require more time to adjust to language barriers, and more to perform their job duties at a manageable pace.

The benefit of remote work is that a one size fits all approach is often unnecessary. Flexible working arrangements ensure that candidates from other countries can seamlessly work within your organization.

5. Encourage Applicants Who May Not Meet All of the Qualifications To Apply

Another way to appeal to a broader range of candidates is to encourage applicants to apply, regardless of whether or not they meet all of the qualifications you stipulate on your job listing. While this may mean that your internal human resources team will have more applications to look through, it's also essential to ensure you don't turn good potential candidates away.

Suppose your job listings focus less on requirements like formal education and more on qualifications that would make an individual well-suited for the position. In that case, you could reach a more diverse candidate pool.

According to a LinkedIn Gender Insights Report, men apply to roughly 20% more jobs than women. This is because women are more inclined only to apply for jobs for which they feel highly qualified. By including a statement encouraging all applicants who feel they could do well in the role to apply, you can avoid alienating potential applicants.

Why Having a Diverse Applicant Pool Is Important

Having a diverse applicant pool when you list new jobs is essential because it directly impacts the diversity of your workforce. While there are countless reasons why having a diverse workforce is beneficial, consider the following primary reasons that your company should be prioritizing diversity in your hiring practices today:

• A diverse team understands your customers' needs. By having diverse perspectives within your workforce, you can appeal to a broader range of consumers and have employees that can identify and connect with the needs of your clientele.
• Improved innovation. A workforce composed of people who share the same viewpoints and experiences will not be able to implicitly understand and cater to the needs of individuals with different experiences. By increasing the diversity of your team, you can ensure that far more perspectives are represented, improving your company's innovation and creativity.
• Lower levels of turnover. When a workforce is diverse, all team members feel valued and appreciated. When diverse groups are represented within a workplace, there are fewer instances of microaggressions, implicit bias, and other toxic side effects of a homogenous workforce; this leads to higher levels of employee satisfaction.‍
• A diverse team is essential to employees. A 2021 study by Glassdoor found that roughly 75% of applicants stated that the diversity of a company's workforce was important when considering which companies they wanted to work for.

How Skuad Can Help you Build and Manage Your Global Team

Skuad is a global employment and payroll platform in more than 160 countries, making it easier than ever for you to hire international employees with the click of a button. Even better, when utilizing our employer of record (EOR) services, you can scale your business globally by seamlessly hiring, onboarding, managing employee payroll, and ensuring compliance with employment laws in new countries in minutes.  

Request a demo to learn how Skuad can help you hire and manage your globally diverse team.