LinkedIn's Global Recruiting Trends analyzed that diversity and inclusion (D&I) is a key trend that has impacted the way organizations hire workforce today, especially post the pandemic. While 78% of organizations promote diversity to improve culture, 62% of companies prioritize it to boost their financial performance.

The report adds that 'companies making meaningful efforts towards diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as providing a sense of belonging, have invested in their people through supporting employee resource groups (ERGs) and having a strong backing from their leadership teams.'

Other studies show that almost 57% of recruiters think their talent acquisition strategies are designed to attract diverse candidates. But is it really so? What can organizations do to maintain D&I while hiring potential candidates?

• Awareness of unconscious bias — First and foremost, organizations and HR need to be aware that multiple unconscious and intentional biases do exist in the workplace. And that steps are required to mitigate the same. According to Associate Dean and Director of Office of Inclusion, Belonging, and Intergroup Dialogue at Stanford University, Mohammad Bilal, 'unconscious biases do not necessarily align with our conscious beliefs, which means unconscious biases are even more important to pay attention to.

• Provide fair opportunity — Organizations must provide a fair opportunity to every candidate who may have the skill sets to take the organization to new heights. Increase diversity and inclusive hiring by managing candidate sourcing well. A great way to ensure that your talent pool is full of diverse candidates is to source your candidates from various places.

• Develop D&I training programs for HR — This will help HR teams to understand how cultural differences can impact the way people work and interact. It could include working out of different time zones, altered communication styles, self-identity to their reactions and response in times of conflict.

• Increase your diversity hiring in candidate screening — The criteria for hiring usually include demographic and geographical information. To have D&I goals in the organizations' road map, it is essential to use tools and intelligent systems to hide those biases and promote hiring based on merit and skills.

• Invest in smart recruitment technology — Implement an application tracking system with built-in intelligence that helps reduce bias and assists objective decision-making. Functionalities could include video interviews, automated resume ranking, customized forms, pre-screening assessments, response tracking, among others.

This is precisely where EDGE Recruit comes in. Our AI-enabled product possesses the capability to parse through a gamut of profiles within few seconds. It then provides you with instant and accurate matches for a job description based on criteria like skillsets, diversity or location, while tackling unintentional and unconscious bias.

The system of intelligence is integrated with multiple applications and platforms that make the task of hiring simplified and effortless. The brain behind EDGE Recruit is our Smart AI EDGE GraphTM - an astute knowledge graph, which has analyzed over 10 million job descriptions and 35 million candidate profiles.

To know how EDGE Recruit can bring an extra edge to your hiring capabilities by breaking the barriers of a definable marketplace, helping you meet diversity and inclusion goals, book a DEMO today.