Inclusive Recruiting Made Simple: Just Add Forage

Hiring has never been easy. Recruiting the right candidates has become even more complex and confusing over the last few years thanks to the pandemic and the rise of AI and potentially biased algorithms in recruiting. It’s even harder to get right-fit candidates into the recruiting pipeline when your organization misses out on the full spectrum of available talent in the market. These blind spots are likely unintentional—and fortunately, easy to correct.

Key components of the recruiting process, such as the language in a job description or which job boards your recruiting team uses to share open roles, carry a bigger influence on inclusive recruiting than you may know. Adding a platform such as Forage can also stretch your organization’s reach to include a wider range of right-fit and engaged candidates. Forage job simulations provide an introduction to a day in the life of open roles at your company and can help the most motivated students cut through the cluttered job market to find their next role with your organization.

Here are four improvements that can help open your recruiting pipeline to candidates from all backgrounds. These changes can make a big impact on the quality of your talent pipeline and help simplify your search for best-fit candidates from all backgrounds.

The issue: The job description contains language that might exclude certain people and discourage them from applying.

Word choice matters when writing a job description. From language that is unintentionally coded to exclude women, such as “ambitious” or “competitive,” to a long list of must-have skills and experience, the words on the job description page can discourage top candidates from applying for an open role. The perfect candidate doesn’t exist, and a job description that’s written only for unicorns will sharply decrease your chances of finding the candidate who meets most of the requirements and is eager to be challenged and grow into the role.

The solution: Craft job descriptions that highlight success factors for the role.

Try to define the attributes that will help the candidate succeed in the role, such as transferable skills and equivalent experiences rather than hard requirements. Essential knowledge of specific platforms or programming languages could be included with wording like this: “You’re a great fit with experience with these strategies” and/or “The right-fit candidate has proficiency and familiarity with the following systems.”

Forage job simulations get to the point: allowing candidates to test their knowledge and ability to succeed in open roles with the companies and industries they choose, while showing their interest in the company. Removing bias from the system can help a company see a candidate’s holistic experience from college to career and provides a more complete picture of what the next generation of talent has to offer.

The issue: Lack of diversity in the organization could signal that inclusivity is not a priority in hiring.

Employer brand is made up of many different factors, including diversity and inclusion efforts. How these show up in your company’s branding influences every aspect of the business—including talent acquisition. Gen Z candidates especially value inclusion in the workplace, as we reported in our research paper, “Gen Z Decoded: New Data on How Your Youngest Employees Want to Experience Work.” In fact, 83 percent of Gen Z job seekers indicate their organization’s commitment to DEI is important, and candidates from this generation will turn down jobs at organizations without historically excluded talent in leadership roles.

Last year, 154 Fortune 500 companies released diversity disclosures, nearly double the 79 of the previous year. Even through the last 18 months of DEI backlash, companies are holding on to some aspects of diversity as a corporate value. Seramount’s report “Keeping DEI Strong in Volatile Times” found that 80 percent of companies are staying the course on DEI, and 10 percent are even doubling down on their programs.

Keep these values top of mind for candidates by making representation at your organization visible when they first meet your company. Spotlighting the accomplishments of your workforce and featuring resources and communities where historically excluded talent can thrive at your organization will help the right-fit person see they have a place at your organization.

The issue: Candidates can’t find open roles at your company.

It’s getting harder and harder to match right-fit talent to the roles they want. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported more than 7 million job openings at the end of July 2024. Job boards and websites such as LinkedIn can offer several thousand job listings at once, depending on the combination of keywords, location, and other variables. Candidates are inundated with choices when applying for roles—and yet, hiring still remains a struggle for many companies. Many recruiting teams can’t keep up with application volume and quality, with 250 (or more) applications coming in for each job listing and an estimated 46 percent of candidates using generative AI to search and apply for jobs.

The solution: Meet candidates where they are by investing in a variety of options.

Forage can help connect your organization to a wider range of best-fit talent through job simulations. Candidates from all backgrounds get a fair shot at proving they have the skills, commitment, and interest in your company and the role by completing one- to three-hour simulations on their own schedule. In the end, they’re better prepared to join your organization by experiencing a day in the life at the company, learning what they’ll do in the role, and also understanding company culture—even before they apply. When searching for talent from all backgrounds, it’s important to also diversify your approach for listing open roles and bringing candidates into the recruiting pipeline. Companies that use Forage reach more diverse students without adding specialized channels or programs:

87 percent of US historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) use Forage to connect students with companies searching for next-gen talent
Over 17,000 unique users from HBCUs and Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) are on the Forage platform today

Also consider how technology and media can help. Insight Global found that 84 percent of organizations recruited through social media, and 56 percent of recruiters say they found their best candidates on social media in 2023.

Making a few small changes to existing talent acquisition processes can include candidates from all backgrounds with very little added effort. Effective inclusive recruiting requires an open mind and a little risk tolerance as you find the right platforms and channels to engage the best-fit talent for your organization. A varied, omnichannel approach that includes Forage job simulations can help guide next-gen talent to your company and help them fit in faster when they are hired.

Visit our Forage Solutions webpage to see how job simulations can help connect your organization to a wider network of next-generation talent.