Early in my career, I sat through a terrible diversity training session mandated by my employer at the time. It focused on stereotypes and unsubstantiated reasons why affirmative action was the right thing to do. Since then, I have worked for two more employers that were federal contractors and have heard the gamut of ways to work around the system. The most prevalent work around in my experience has been the quota proposition.

When federal contractors create an affirmative action plan it is comprised of two primary pieces of data. The first piece of data is the availability of females and minorities in the region of the business. This data tells you what percentage of each group you should be able to recruit given the availability of each. The second piece of data is more specific to the current workforce makeup at your company. That is, it tells you where you have an underutilization in either of the groups or both and it is also expressed in a percentage. It is never ideal to have an underutilization in either of your groups, but there may be significant reasons why there is (e.g. lack of minorities and females in that industry or profession). The goal of the federal contractor is to bring underutilization numbers to zero-where possible. However, significant decreases to the numbers are just as well.

The way that a recruiter aids the company in getting these numbers down is by making regular, concerted efforts to recruit a diverse candidate pool. This means researching diverse associations, job boards, reaching out to diverse contacts and networks to make sure your jobs are getting out to the masses. There is usually some representation of females and/or minorities in an applicant pool, but you want to increase the numbers. If you know anything about probability, you know that increased numbers of qualified minority candidates in your applicant pool make it more likely that you could hire a minority or female.

Let’s revisit my initial story about the quota proposition. My travels in the federal contractor space have taught me that this process of hiring diverse candidates is not a quota system. There is a sentiment that once you hire one female and one minority that your job is done. If you look at what the affirmative action plan is trying to accomplish you would never come to this conclusion. Unfortunately, there are businesses that submit to this sentiment. As I explained, the goal is to get all job classifications down to zero. That said when you are finally at zero your job as a recruiter or company does not stop there. The key is to continue your good faith efforts. Continue your outreach and involvement in diverse organizations. Don’t see this as a quota system. If your availability numbers suggest that there are more females and minorities than what you are currently hiring that means you need to do more to attract a diverse talent pool.

The word quota suggests a scenario like this: you must hire four minorities and five females for the year. Quotas work such that you would be free and clear of having to hire anymore females or minorities, once you meet that number. That is a sales move. Quotas are for retail numbers and sales; they are not to be mistaken for a concerted effort towards having a more diverse workforce. Diversity is about making good faith efforts and taking calculated actions to hire, attract, select and ultimately retain diverse candidates. Be clear, the diverse candidate does not get by on gender, race or ethnicity alone; they must be qualified for the positions they are applying for.

Diversity recruitment and hiring compliance does not have to be a difficult process. Make sure you know what is possible, where you can find qualified diverse candidates and then make sure you have a presence wherever they are. Diverse workforces are brilliant workforces that are infused with different perspectives that are representative of more than one group of people.  The question companies have to ask themselves is, “would you rather capitalize on the business of one group, or the business of many groups?”

Janine N. Truitt (@CzarinaofHR) is an HR Professional based in Long Island, NY. Learn more of her expertise in Recruitment, HR Technology, Talent Management, Employee Relations, and HR Policy/Compliance on her blog, The Aristocracy of HR.SmartRecruiters is the free social hiring platform.

Recruitment in the federal contractor space is tricky. There are so many nuances and regulations that you need to abide by before you even get down to the actual recruitment. The government sees the federal contractor arrangement as a “privilege.” The privilege is that you – meaning the business – is privileged to do business with the government. In return for this great “privilege” there are expectations. The overarching expectation is that you will make every effort to hire women, minorities, veterans, and the differently-abled wherever possible. This doesn’t mean that for every position you must hire a woman, minority, veteran or differently-able person. It means you will make a good faith effort to make sure your hires are representative of the available pool. This means you need to make sure your applicant pool is diverse.

Please be clear this is not a quota system. It’s not about hiring one Asian, one African-American and one woman and patting yourself on the back. Your job isn’t done. In fact it is never done. The point of the OFCCP regulations as it pertains to federal contractors is it is a day-to-day guidance on hiring and recruitment efforts not a one-time effort. In this way, making sure your applicant pool is consistently diverse becomes a habit and not a numbers game. The guidance of the OFCCP is in place to eliminate inequity in hiring practices. While I’m no stranger to days of pulling my hair out trying to navigate this federal contractor space; I find the cause noble and quite simply the right thing to do.

Working in the federal contractor space doesn’t have to be grueling. If you look at it from an altruistic perspective, you will see benefits to the regulations. To ease the pain of your recruitment efforts, below are five tips on effective recruitment in the federal contractor space no matter what industry you are in:

 

1) Make sure your job description doesn’t overshoot requirements. This is important because you want to make sure that you are always hiring for the minimum knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to adequately perform the duties of the job. The duties of the position should have reasonable requirements attached to it. Asking for higher qualifications than the duties of the job requires could pose adverse impact.

2) Research and Post Job Openings Wisely. Do your due diligence by researching websites, associations, journals and other publications that cater to a diverse pool when looking for venues to post your positions (e.g. Society of Women Engineers). The more diverse the readership or subscribers are the more likely you are to attract diverse candidates. [Editor’s Note: SmartRecruiters is partnered with 100+ job boards and publications, and has aggregated data across 120,000+ jobs posted to predict the best performing job board for you.]

3) Get Up and Get Out There. Recruitment is more fun and best done out there in the world. Get out of the office and participate in diverse job fairs, university career center activities, join an association or local chapter of a national group. OFCCP is no longer interested in federal contractors posting to hundreds of diverse websites and calling this a good faith effort. They want recruiters and hiring professionals out there engaging with the industry professionals they seek. Involvement in these groups brings attention to your company and is yet another way of procuring a diverse applicant pool.

4) To the extent that it is possible – try to have a consistent hiring process. The OFCCP knows that the show must go on i.e.  your business must run. Every business is not made equal and has its own policies and procedures. However, they do take exception to inconsistent processes and procedures. Try to minimize the variability in your process to prevent unnecessary questions when audited.

5) Document Your Hiring. It is imperative that you document any and all good faith efforts made. It is equally important to document any deviations from your usual process so the what, when, who and why is answered when you are audited.

 

Janine N. Truitt (@CzarinaofHR) is an HR Professional based in Long Island, NY. Learn more of her expertise in Recruitment, HR Technology, Talent Management, Employee Relations, and HR Policy/Compliance on her blog, The Aristocracy of HR.

Social recruiting is step one of gathering talent. This means building your online brand through Facebook Fan Pages, Tweets, and your company’s LinkedIn profile. Think of your recruitment and candidate engagement strategy as more of a talent ocean.

The sea of qualified candidates is vast, but there are communities and colonies that exist within that talent ocean. These communities are where you can establish relationships and build a reputation. Just like the ocean, finding these small communities is hard and employment branding and relationship building becomes all the more important. People trust people just like engaged and productive employees work for managers who they know, like, and trust. Recruiting talent and building relationships within the ocean is the very same way.

A Talent Ocean v. A Talent Pool

Talent oceans are built on the foundations of establishing value, building relationships and having conversations. And that means understanding and knowing what your candidates want just as much as what your company and hiring managers do. Collaborative Hiring.

This value-based relationship should not be confused with talent warehousing. In this model, companies create vast storage containers, servers, and file cabinets filled with candidate data. They are graveyards. This data is warehoused and offers no engagement, conversation, or opportunity for the information gathered to be customized, altered, or updated by the job seeker actively looking for work. These warehouses (ahem, graveyards) store this data, advertise their mass candidate warehouses to eager employers looking to fill positions only to learn that 80% of the data is old and outdated.

Building a passionate and involved community within the sea of talent is not easy.  Many hours are spent giving back, having conversations, and proving your worth. The most effective and fastest way in which to build a talent ocean is through your already established relationships. Encouraging your current employee base, previous job applicants, your customers, and their pockets of community to join in your conversations is the best way to get your talent ocean off the ground. Using Twitter and engaging in Twitter chats geared toward the job seeker like #jobhuntchat and #hirefriday chat are another effective and fast method to build momentum and a brand with very little cost.

Bottom line is that building a talent ocean is not easy, but it’s an evolutionary phase of the social recruiting and online employment branding process. By starting now, your organization can begin to build and foster those lasting relationships online that will serve as a fantastic referral and job candidate resource for years to come.

Photo Credit Planet for Life