5 Steps for Diversity Recruitment You Can Take Right Now to Get Ahead of the Competition.
A step-by-step look at how we recommend our clients approach diverse searches.
“Diverse leadership” is one of the most discussed topics of the last several years in the recruiting space. In fact, a Google search for that exact term yields 1.4 billion results. Within the last year, the European Union adopted a new target of 40% of non-executive director seats on corporate boards to be held by the under-represented gender by June 2026, and we only expect these quotas to become more widespread.
We recently wrote an article about diversity at the board level, discussing why you should actively be instating diverse board members. In this newsletter, we will discuss how to do it step by step.
Step 1. Conduct benchmarking (internal and external)
Before charting a course for a diverse organization, you must understand where you are now. We recommend benchmarking to better understand areas for improvement and determine if you have any viable internal candidates for open or future leadership positions.
Step 2. Implement Flexible office requirements
Remote work has grown exponentially since the pandemic, with top leadership demanding the possibility to work from home. In fact, top female leadership all but demands it. In remote settings, gender bias is greatly reduced, and it grants your standout leaders the opportunity to continue to be excellent professionals without sacrificing family and personal time. Adapting a flexible schedule also helps broaden your talent pool as not all talent may be readily available during a strict, classic workday in your timezone.
Adapting a remote work model also greatly expands your talent pool, granting you access to the best talent available across all viable geographies.
Step 3. Embrace big data to create candidate profiles
Now that you have increased your reach substantially, you have to know how to find the right people outside of personal and regional networks. Create your ideal candidate profile, and utilize readily available information and digital channels to reach out to your targets.
Step 4. Stack diverse c-1 and c-2 talent
Assuming requirements for diversity at the board level will only accelerate over the long term, we cannot stress enough the importance of locking in diverse leadership from the VP level and up. These will be able to take the next step and fill board openings over the next 2 to 5 years. You will thank yourself for planning ahead.
Step 5. Get support from experts
Your company is only as good as the people leading it. Demand for top talent has spiked over the last several years and the market has become extremely competitive. If you have been unable to successfully recruit top diverse leadership, please know that it is a challenging task, and with an ever-changing hiring landscape, global economic volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, and the aforementioned increase in demand for diverse talent, it has only become more difficult over the past few years.
At TXT International, we live and breathe executive recruitment, and have been using big-data and proprietary search algorithms for nearly 20 years to help our clients identify, attract, and hire game-changing leadership. We pioneered the digital-first executive recruitment model as an alternative to the antiquated traditional retained-fee search firms. We are more agile, more efficient, and consistently deliver exceptional results.
Ideally, executive hiring should be entirely neutral. Gender, race, etc. have no direct impact on corporate leadership’s operational, cognitive, or interpersonal abilities. For that exact reason, the imbalance of directors and executives attests to an apparent failure to identify and appoint the most qualified candidates possible.
Please contact us if you would like to discuss your executive search needs, and determine if we are a good fit.