How To Diversify Your Candidate Pool

By Danielle Wirsansky on April 21, 2017

The best way to get the best ideas in your workplace is to have many different minds working and melding together at once. The emphasis is on the different minds here.

While having people who are all very similar working together can be beneficial in some ways, like less conflict between workers and similar values and standards, it can also cripple a business. How can you know that an idea is the best idea if every employee has the same one? Having people from all walks of life look at the same problem can make sure the best and most well-rounded solution will be found that dots every i and crosses every t. People who all think the same way might all miss the same crack in an idea that someone with a different mindset could recognize.

So the next step is to make sure that you have a diverse staff in your workplace. But how do you ensure this? What is the best way to diversify your candidate pool, particularly when you are targeting student workers? A particularly great way to recruit student workers from myriad and varied backgrounds is to reach out to organizations that represent minority groups that you would most like to give a job opportunity to and to recruit.

These organizations often share job opportunities they learn about with their members and will help you get more of a response from potential candidates. Read on to learn about some of the kinds of organizations that are common on most campuses that you can reach out to in order to diversify your candidate pool!

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Hillel

What is Hillel, you may be wondering? Hillel is an organization whose mission is to “… [enrich] the lives of Jewish students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world.”

According to Hillel’s official page:

“Hillel’s network of dedicated student leaders, professionals, and volunteers have encouraged generations of young adults to celebrate Jewish learning and living, pursue social justice (tikkun olam and tzedek) and connect to their peers and the global Jewish people … Hillel engages with and inspires the leadership of more Jewish college students than all other endeavors combined. We know that 90 percent of Jews in the United States go to college, and with a rich and diverse Hillel network, we are proud to be serving them at more than 550 colleges and universities.”

Hillel also has hundreds of thousands of college students come to them each year in order to “… find community, create Jewish connections, and build leadership skills through their local Hillel.

This can be a great organization to contact in order to get more diverse employees!

Black Student Union

A Black Student Union’s purpose is to promote activities of common interest, as well as cultural and educational benefits, for the African American student body at a college. They strive to foster a sense of community for all students and provide opportunities for students to express their views concerning current events, academics, cultural arts, and campus life in order to be well-rounded students and human beings. Often, Black Student Union are more than just a club — they are communities.

Diverse Education explained why many still recognize the importance of having social networks and interactions with people — especially people of color.

“Despite integration, civil rights gains and living in an era of diversity and multiculturalism, people still seek to find others like themselves as a means of establishing their identity … The mission and philosophy of Black student union organizations should be to help students strive for academic excellence, promote positive images of African Americans, and help students become an integral part of a college community.”

You can help Black Student Unions achieve their goals by making sure that they and their members are aware of the job opportunities that you are offering.

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Women Student Union

Women’s Student Unions are also making footholds at more and more universities. Mainly, these organizations value the struggles of the past, want to assert the rights of its members in the present, and celebrate the aspirations of women for the future. They do so by fostering the growth of women personally, professionally, and politically.

They also “celebrate the power existing within every woman to promote self-autonomy, denounce all limitations, educate on systems of oppression and advocate inclusivity within a diverse community. [Women Student Unions facilitate] a network among organizations, departments, and services to embrace, engage, and empower.

Reaching out to an organization that will have a diverse pool of women can certainly help to get you more well-rounded candidates in your job pool. Especially as these organizations also have an emphasis on helping students professionally, you can be sure that they might provide you with just the kind of diverse candidate you knew you needed but did not know where to find.

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