Thread by @MattLlt

People like @_David_Lacey & @CrapRecruitment doing a grand job of highlighting third sector recruitment practices that could be so much better, for everyone.

We've been on this journey the last couple of years, and I want to share an encouraging story.
🧵

A couple of years back we worked with @diversematters1 😀 to help us with our recruitment practices.

We're a small company; we don't do a lot of recruitment and I'm not an HR professional. But I our experience has been really positive.

We changed a few things...

1/ Job Descriptions that really try and focus on the role and what it actually involves and requires. We don't have any educational requirements, for example.

2/ Why not? They don't tell us anything. We don't need anyone with a GCSE in English because we don't need any Romeo and Juliet essays. We may need someone who can write clearly and with empathy. If that's what we need, that's what we'll say.

3/ We recognise that experience transfers, and that it doesn't have to be professional. A moment's reflection about our own lives and experience tells us that.

4/ We acknowledged our own subconscious biases, our fast and slow brains 🧠🛼. And that the best way to deal with those is a) acknowledge them and b) remove information that may trigger our biases.

5/ So now we check our ads and JDs for gendered language – e.g. gender-decoder.katmatfield.com and you can go and read the research if you want. Don't worry, men aren't put off applying.

Really quick, really easy, to do.

6/ And the biggest change: no "apply with CV and covering letter".

Now, we ask applicants to answer 5 or 6 questions that are mostly task focused and (v simplified versions of) the sort of thing you might have to do in the role.

7/ When we review the applications (after the closing date – we can't even see applications until afterwards) they are completely anonymous.

So we remove a lot of the sources of information that our brains use to make shortcut decisions.

8/ No education history, no age / gender/ name etc. clues. Just the answers. We use the method from @beapplied (but not the product).

9/ THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER.

The scary bit: we get many fewer applications.

BUT THEY ARE GREAT! 👏👏

In the last two recruitment rounds we could have interviewed nearly everyone that applied.

10/ Feedback about the process from successful and unsuccessful applicants is really positive.

✅

11/ We started this to make our recruitment process fairer and more accessible. That's why we made the changes we did.

We've got more to do but it's definitely an improvement on this score.

But it's also a lot better for us

12/ We get great information at the outset about the actual requirements of the role.

We don't have to wade through dozens of 10 page CVs and covering letters, some of which are sent without apparently reading the JD.

We don't know who has GCSE English, and that doesn't matter

13/ We engage our slow brains by removing most of the information our 'fast brain' uses.

🐌🧠

We make better decisions.

14/ After shortlisting we contact successful applicants, and we do ask for CVs at that point. Interview over Zoom, trying to schedule to suit applicants as far as possible.

15/ So seriously if you're getting tweets from @CrapRecruitment, @NonGradsWelcome, @ShowTheSalary or @NoDriverWelcome, listen to them.

Change.

You'll thank yourself later.

That's our experience anyway:

- real focus on role in the JD & requirements
- check language
- role focused application
- slow-brain shortlisting

Better for applicants; better for us.

16/ Of course this is only one small aspect of better recruitment but our experience has been really, really positive – no downsides, only upsides, and not that difficult or expensive to do.

PS If the 🐌🧠 and🛼🧠 references don't mean anything to you, it's this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,…

Also PS looking forward to hearing more on the topic in @CharityHourUK #CharityHour tomorrow evening. And perhaps should have said @Lamplightdb is hiring atm, closing date a few more days.