Recruitment processes were complex enough a decade ago. The volume that a talent manager receives requires finding tweaks that filter out certain profiles. The filtering based on technology products, skill sets, years of experience, and association with certain brands (internships and full-time) became tools to manage the volume.
The machine learning algorithms brought in their own sets of assumptions and biases based on historical data.
If you are part of team building through Recruitment or closely worked with the talent management team, here are a few interesting developments that you could suggest if you had a similar experience:
Flaws of Referrals
The flaw in referral is the topic of my Sample Darden MBA Inclusive IMPACT Essay (Revamping Recruitment), where the applicant, a manager who had success in finding talent that matched the skillset for the job description for the team, found a flaw in the referral process. The company culture prioritized referral through learned experience that filtering through job portals and going through the lengthy interview process was not conducive to the quick turnaround time for team building.
When the company started operations, the team had predominantly white candidates. With communities often segregated around racial lines and minorities finding comfort within their tribe, breaking the racial siloes became a challenge for the applicant.
Collaborating with a non-profit to expand the reach of the referral program is one way the applicant optimizes the referral program. Another strategy I had read was of a client who prioritized the referrals of minority candidates in the team to nudge a higher application volume from the community. Although controversial, such intervention was necessary for many job openings to make sure that the team reflected America’s diverse ethnicities.
Read: Sample Darden MBA Inclusive IMPACT Essay (Revamping Recruitment)
Degree Programs
Breaking stereotypes around degree programs and searching for talent outside the traditional application pool is a strategy that MBA programs pioneered decades ago. Startups in the Technology space also began tweaking the concept post-2000, when the industry was booming, to include profiles from all backgrounds. Now we have Bachelor of Science, Physics or Math majors working full-time with Computer majors.
A similar outreach happened post-2008 financial meltdown to find affordable talent from all backgrounds in the Investment Banking industry. Work ethics and a relentless attitude to crack the code on industry trends & deals became a higher criterion than knowledge of accounting or finance that most acquire with foundational quant skills.
If you have set a precedent on finding talent outside the norm in your team, include it in the Darden MBA Inclusive IMPACT – recruitment narrative.
Gender Stereotypes - Branding
I read an interesting essay where the non-profit the applicant worked as a branding consultant had positioned itself as a champion of women professionals. But it had a huge missing link – male allies.
Compared to the two competing funds – the % of male allies was shockingly low. In conducting a survey, the non-profit found that the perception of the non-profit as a female-only organization was the primary reason why volunteers hesitated to apply.
While the branding helped the non-profit that serves in the Master’s admission space attract high-achieving female applicants to the scholarship fund it was managing, the largest donor groups were males in the Investment Banking, VC, and Private Equity spaces. The donors had hesitation to be associated with any non-profit that had been only oriented with one group without any mention of building allies.
The applicant helped the non-profit re-brand and attract close to $500,000 in new funds from male allies, empowering the non-profit to expand their impact on the undergraduate admissions market as well.
Creating an Inclusive IMPACT narrative for Darden MBA could also be around re-calibrating the team composition so that it is not skewed to one extreme direction.
