United States | Exposing Our Recruitment Process: The Truth About Diversity

Rebecca Crick - 08.02.202320230208

Exposing Our Recruitment Process: The Truth About Diversity

United States | Exposing Our Recruitment Process: The Truth About Diversity

We continue to see the impact of the Great Reshuffle/War for Talent in both finding and retaining new talent to join, which is exacerbated by candidates having more choice than ever before. With more job openings than pre-COVID and the unemployment rate in Australia at a 50-year low, finding talent is not easy (I’ve talked about some of those impacts in my previous blog “Impacts of the Great Reshuffle: Upside or Challenge?“). But how can you combat that challenge? 

At Insentra, we believe in diverse hiring and we aim to hire a people with different skills, abilities, backgrounds and experiences.   

One thing the company and I (as Vibe Manager ) are passionate about is the experience of our crew – from the interview through the time they spend with us and the time after they leave. The candidate hiring experience is critical in the current climate – now, more than ever, candidates are judging their prospective employer as soon as they read the job description.  

We have consistency from the application process through to onboarding and we believe this enables us to ensure equal opportunity and diversity in the workplace. So far it seems to be working based on the feedback we have received from candidates! 

The Application Process

We have prioritised creating a simple application process. We advertise our roles on LinkedIn (and occasionally other platforms) with all applications coming through our website. We like to make this as streamlined as possible – asking only for a CV or resume, phone number and email address.  

In some roles we might ask for more short answer details as an optional question (for example, around their right to work or their years of experience with a specific skill set which might not be apparent in a CV) to help guide our conversations, not to rule out the candidate from the get-go (although this happens too).   

Whilst we love to let someone’s CV speak for itself, we acknowledge a CV is just a short snippet of a person’s professional career and only gives us an introductory insight. While a CV is a great asset, a conversation with an applicant tells us a lot more about the person.   

The Interview Process

There’s a lot of advice about keeping interviews short and succinct, but we believe there’s a balance. Hiring someone after speaking to them for 45 minutes works for some roles, but not for every role.  

For example, is the company and candidate really aligned on the role, skills required, expectations, working environment and culture? We have a few conversations with our candidates – first we talk about culture fit as this is the most critical, then we talk about technical skill sets. This has proven to be successful as it has enabled a few things to happen:   

  1. Additional time allows us to get to know a candidate better and lets us put the script down to have a conversation. This is particularly important as we hire diverse (including neuro-diverse) people and often find a ‘question/answer’ structure doesn’t allow everyone to shine and present their best selves.  
  1. We love to open up the conversation to the passions of our candidates and we find this is a great way to help them put their best foot forward. Generally, we find interviews which have less barriers and more focused on a conversation are more accessible to a wider range of candidates. We have found asking candidates the same, typical questions often disadvantages some candidates who might not respond well to that style of interviewing (but would otherwise do excellent in the role), so we dare to be different in this aspect.  
  1. While we want all our candidates to be aligned on our core values (Honesty, Integrity, Trust) we appreciate how different people articulate this differently.   
  1. We love our candidates to speak to different people in our organization so they can see consistency in the feedback they hear about our culture – we value it when our candidates ask us questions and asks different people. I have been asked lots of questions about my experience, what I enjoy best about working at Insentra etc. I always tell candidates to ask this question again at the next few rounds too, so they hear the perspective from other crew members (particularly helpful if the tech interview is done by peers)!   

We know we often have more interviews than many other companies and we like to manage expectations about the process.  We like to cap it at 3 interviews, but sometimes we find the need to seek an additional opinion or perhaps even think a candidate is more suitable for a different role if they are not successful for the one they’ve applied for. When these circumstances arise, we let the candidate know the plan and why we’ve changed and often find this is well received.   

Closing out the Application

In the event a candidate isn’t successful we of course let them know and we are always happy to offer feedback. We are a proud member of the Circle Back Initiative and make an effort to let every candidate know the outcome.

We make an effort to treat everyone who applies for a role as an individual, as it really helps see the whole person and the unique skillset and benefits they would bring to the role. We try to make our application and recruitment process accessible to everyone (including neurodiverse groups) by simplifying the process and focusing on getting to know the person, but it’s always a work in progress as we continue to develop our diversity hiring goals. Ultimately, we treat our crew as individuals and personalise their experience, so why not start with candidates?   

Unfortunately, that does bring us to the end of this blog. While you’re here, why don’t you check out the insights in a range of blog articles written by our talented crew? 

For any help, feedback or questions, please contact us.   

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUBMISSION!

United States | Exposing Our Recruitment Process: The Truth About Diversity

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United States | Exposing Our Recruitment Process: The Truth About Diversity

Insentra ISO 27001:2013 Certification

SYDNEY, WEDNESDAY 20TH APRIL 2022 – We are proud to announce that Insentra has achieved the  ISO 27001 Certification.