Creating an Inclusive Hiring Process

Inclusion isn’t a one-time initiative or a single program—it’s a continuous commitment that must be embedded across every stage of the employee lifecycle. By taking deliberate steps, organizations can create workplaces where all employees feel valued, respected, and empowered to succeed. Here’s how we can make a meaningful impact at each stage: 1. Attract Build inclusive employer branding and equitable hiring practices. Ensure job postings use inclusive language and focus on skills rather than unnecessary credentials. Broaden recruitment pipelines by partnering with diverse professional organizations, schools, and networks. Showcase your commitment to inclusion in external messaging with employee stories that reflect diversity. 2. Recruit Eliminate bias and promote fair candidate evaluation. Use structured interviews and standardized evaluation rubrics to reduce bias. Train recruiters and hiring managers on unconscious bias and inclusive hiring practices. Implement blind resume reviews or AI tools to focus on qualifications, not identifiers. 3. Onboard Create an inclusive onboarding experience. Design onboarding materials that reflect a diverse workplace culture. Pair new hires with mentors or buddies from Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) to foster belonging. Offer inclusion training early to set the tone for inclusivity from day one. 4. Develop Provide equitable opportunities for growth. Ensure leadership programs and career development resources are accessible to underrepresented employees. Regularly review training, mentorship, and promotion programs to address any disparities. Offer specific development opportunities, such as allyship training or workshops on cultural competency. 5. Engage Foster a culture of inclusion. Actively listen to employee feedback through pulse surveys, focus groups, and open forums. Support ERGs and create platforms for marginalized voices to influence organizational policies. Recognize and celebrate diverse perspectives, cultures, and contributions in the workplace. 6. Retain Address barriers to equity and belonging. Conduct pay equity audits and address discrepancies to ensure fairness. Create flexible policies that accommodate diverse needs, including caregiving responsibilities, religious practices, and accessibility. Provide regular inclusion updates to build trust and demonstrate progress. 7. Offboard Learn and grow from employee transitions. Use exit interviews to uncover potential inequities and areas for improvement. Analyze trends in attrition to identify and address any patterns of exclusion or bias. Maintain relationships with alumni and invite them to stay engaged through inclusive networks. Embedding inclusion across the employee lifecycle is not just the right thing to do—it’s a strategic imperative that drives innovation, engagement, and organizational success. By making these steps intentional, companies can create environments where everyone can thrive.

The International #Women Day is about so many things because inequalities come in so many shapes. Let me talk about one of them: women in tech, because that's where I work and where I can act.   It starts early, this idea that women are not made for tech (which only leads to tech not being made for them). Only 16% of technical roles in France are held by women. That’s how little they are taking part in what shapes increasingly our daily lives. It's the result of many inequal treatments and representations that hinder them, all in essence deep social #inequalities.   Acting against these inequalities is possible. At Orange Business, 26% of technical roles are held by women. Better, but still not enough. We’re pushing, with real programs and real results, but the work is far from being done yet.   So what do we actually do ? We’re focusing our recruitment to bring more women into technical and management roles. We follow up on gender diversity metrics every quarter at the executive management level—we #track, we #measure, and we #act. Inclusive leadership isn’t just a buzzword for us, it’s how we build our teams. We also run mentorship and empowerment programs like “WomenUp,” and I’m proud to say that 60% of participants have grown into broader responsibilities after just one year.   And the numbers show it’s working. Women now hold 30% of manager positions at Orange Business, with steady progress (+2 pts vs. last year). Women in our top management positions are at 37%, up 2 pts as well. But we’re not stopping here. Our ambition for 2026 is to raise the bar and reach a rate of women managers matching the rate of women in our overall headcount—managerial parity that truly reflects our workforce.   Why do I care? Because I want my daughter—and every girl—to see tech as her playground, not a closed club. The photo I’m sharing today is her, coding on Minecraft. She’s not waiting for permission. She’s just doing it. That’s what I want for every girl: curiosity, #confidence, and zero limits. I really hope that she won't need an International Women Day when she enters the job market. And I really hope she does not get flowers that day just because she's a woman and people think that’s what nice, sensitive women want—and that it’s all it takes to celebrate equality 🙄 (raise your hand if you’ve been there! 😅)   So, thank you to everyone, men and women, at Orange and beyond, who’s making progress real. Not with speeches or flowers, but with action.   Now, I’m off to the office—but I can’t wait to pick up our Minecraft adventure again tonight.

During today’s interview, I noticed that the candidate had impressive past work experience but initially struggled to explain themselves clearly in English. So I encouraged the candidate to share their experiences in a language they felt most comfortable with. This small adjustment made a significant difference. The candidate’s confidence visibly improved, and their passion and expertise shone through as they explained their experiences in detail. It became clear that their communication skills, when not hindered by a language barrier, are strong and aligned with the role’s requirements. This experience highlights the importance of creating an inclusive and supportive environment during interviews to allow candidates to showcase their true potential. I understand that not everyone is naturally skilled at “packaging” themselves or presenting their abilities during an interview. However, this does not necessarily reflect their true capabilities or potential to perform well in the role. It’s also important to recognize that hiring someone solely based on their ability to deliver an impressive presentation doesn’t always guarantee that they can excel in the actual work. A person’s ability to perform is often better demonstrated through their passion, experience, and adaptability, rather than just their presentation skills. This reinforces the importance of creating a balanced evaluation process that considers not just how well a candidate presents themselves, but also their real skills, experience, and attitude towards work.

Some folk think 'belonging' is a soft, indulgent, politically correct term. A distraction from focusing on what it takes to perform at the highest levels. It couldn't be further from the truth. I worked with two leaders. One showed interest in his team, asking questions, reaching out to everyone (not just the loudest), listening, and searching for each person's unique strengths. He invited contributions to create a shared sense of purpose. It was as if it were his quest. It was an everyday practice, not a one-off gesture. Team members felt like they could be themselves and wanted to contribute their best. Another talked too much, always in broadcast mode, issuing instructions, listening for confirmation that the team had heard what he said. He was interested in compliance and pledges of loyalty to his endeavour. Engagement was a series of transactions. Team members felt anxious, worried if they were doing the right thing - and, frankly, over time, weren't that bothered if they weren't. You see, creating a sense of belonging is a strategic endeavour. It starts with the right mindset. And it builds with choices, and actions, every day.

Belonging doesn’t happen by accident. You can have a friendly team, a solid project documentation doc, and still end up with a new hire who never quite finds their footing. Because feeling welcome isn’t the same as feeling like you belong. Belonging is about being seen, heard, and safe to show up fully. Belonging means the reciprocal trust of team members to spitball ideas, try things, and fully collaborate. Belonging means you won’t get called a “DEI hire” when you are the only women on the team or called lazy when you have to take your wife to chemo at 3pm. Belonging means you have healthy working relationships with your colleagues, and they give you the benefit of the doubt. If you’re a people leader - it’s your responsibility to create this environment. You set the tone for the culture of belonging on your team from the first day a new team member starts. Here are a few things I do to set the stage for belonging: 1. Make introductions personal. Not just names and roles—share interests, experience, and proud moments from their lives. 2. Share team norms explicitly. Onboarding a new hire is a great opportunity to verbally reinforce the cultural norms that are expected to to everyone. 3. Invite their voice early. Ask their opinion in meetings. Let them see their input matters before they feel “ready.” When people feel like they belong, they don’t just integrate faster—they contribute more confidently, collaborate more openly, and stick around longer. Your team is happier, is more likely to hit goals, and you; you earn the place of amazing leader that built the best team they ever worked on. ❤️

Please stop telling your recruitment partners that "it'd be great if you could find a woman for the team". ❌ Instead, start doing the following... ✅ Evaluate your sales culture. If it's feels like a "boys club", it is. Fix it. ✅ Analyse the language you are using. Gendered wording of job advertisements signals who belongs and who does not. "Masculine- worded ads reduced perceived belongingness [among women], which in turn lead to less job appeal, regardless of one’s perception of their personal skill to perform that job." - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, January 2011 - (🔗 Link in comments.) ✅ Provide workplace flexibility A 2023 study conducted by the University of Oxford’s Well-being Research Centre found that when it comes to fostering a positive working environment, reducing stress, and boosting employee resilience, flexibility is one of the most effective elements required to create a healthy work-life balance. The findings correlate with a separate study which found that post-pandemic, 72% of women are prioritising purpose and balance at work, and are looking for the flexibility that facilitates this. (🔗 Link in comments.) ✅ Build an infrastructure and culture of coaching and support. The opportunity to be coached by other women (both internal and external) goes a long way in not only developing existing staff members, but also in attracting new talent. (Bonus point: ensure your interview processes are as gender diverse as possible. You can't be what you can't see.) ✅ Implement gender-neutral and diversity-inclusive policies. Offer gender-neutral parental leave policies to prevent issues like absence visibility, project loss, and early return pressure. In my experience, the Nordics lead the way in gender-equitable parental leave policies, for example. ✅ Address any existing gender pay gaps. It's 2024... This shouldn't even have to be a point. I'm a recruitment & search professional. I'm not a DE&I specialist. But I really hope one day the conversation changes from "it'd be great if you could find us a woman" to "we have awesome diversity in our team because...". Women in sales & those of you in gender diverse businesses - what else would you add? LP ✌️ Pack GTM | SaaS Sales Recruitment in Germany #sales #hiring #careers #startups #recruitment 

𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝘂𝗲𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆: 𝗘𝗽𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝟭𝟯 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘂𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹? 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻. Before your next hiring round - especially if you’re using AI or automation - there’s one thing to check: 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱? Many tools score CVs based on career gaps, education history, or “typical” profiles from past hires. Sounds efficient. But it’s not neutral. It often means penalising women, carers, and anyone with a non-linear path - which can amount to 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 under the UK Equality Act. Under the new EU AI Act, tools like this are classed as 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵 𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸. That means mandatory transparency and human oversight. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗱𝗼? Ask your provider how the system scores candidates. Request a fairness audit. If they can’t answer clearly - that’s your answer. Let’s not automate the very barriers we’re trying to dismantle. #InclusiveHiring #GenderEquity

Too many interviewers take an adversarial stance in interviews... trying to knock candidates off balance. But how many companies want to build an "adversarial" culture? How many companies knock their employees off balance? I'd hope none! You get a lot more signal on how someone will actually perform at your company when your hiring process and your interviews are reflective of your culture. 1. Stop Making People Perform Unpaid Consulting Long take-home assignments are free work. Replace them with 30-minute exercises or pay them for their time. You'll see real skills without exploiting people's time. And yes, pay them for their time. It's literally work. 2. Run Work Sessions, Not Interrogations Your top performer probably bombed interviews at five other companies. Why? Because great workers aren't always great performers. They're too busy doing actual work to rehearse stories about "a time they showed leadership." Run actual work sessions instead. You'll catch brilliance that interview theater misses. 3. Tell Candidates Your Salary Range First Discovering you're 40% apart on comp after 3 interviews wastes everyone's time. Post the range in the JD. Say it in the recruiter screen. Stop asking "what are your expectations?" when you already have a budget. The power games around salary hurt your best candidates most - they're usually the ones too polite to negotiate hard. 4. Stop Ghosting Rejected Candidates You demanded references, portfolio samples, five hours of their time. Then you disappear. Send real feedback within 48 hours. One specific thing they could improve. The candidate you reject with respect today sends you their talented friend tomorrow. The one you ghost? They're writing your Glassdoor review. 5. Define Your Interview Process Upfront Tell candidates exactly what to expect: "One phone screen, one technical assessment, one culture interview." Share the timeline and format upfront. Then stick to it. No surprise additions except in rare circumstances. No "actually, we need you to meet three more people." Candidates are juggling multiple opportunities and using PTO. Respect their time by being transparent about yours. Your interview process is a preview of your culture. If you run adversarial interviews, you're selecting for people who thrive in toxic cultures. The evidence is clear: work samples beat behavioral questions every time. You're not running military selection. You're building a team. Interview like it.

Tech sales is 70–80% male. We need more females!  And I’m 100% dedicated to changing that. Walk into most leadership meetings in this industry, and you can count the women on one hand. Sometimes one finger. I've been one of those women my entire career. I get told by female candidates often what it's like to be the only female in the room. To have your ideas credited to someone else. To watch less qualified men get promoted because they "fit the culture". So when I get a brief that's exclusively female, like my client in France, where the law requires you to balance the team once you hit 70% male, I see it as my chance to create positive change. Finding senior female candidates in this space is hard. The pool's smaller, the competition's fierce. And every company in Europe wants the same people. That means you have to work and think differently. I look at consulting firms for women with enterprise client skills who've never considered the vendor side. I find technical women in delivery who are brilliant in front of customers but never got encouraged into pre-sales. I identify leaders in adjacent industries who've been overlooked because their CV isn't an exact match. The women I place aren't diversity hires. They're exceptional, and I've had to dig deeper to find them. What I've noticed is, the companies that take this seriously don't just get better gender balance but better retention, better culture, and better decision-making. Candidates who'd have never considered them before suddenly want to be part of what they're building. That's good business. And for me it's also something else... Every woman I help into a leadership role is one more person in the room who gets it. One more voice and one more example for the next generation coming through. That matters to me more than any fee.

It's not the pipeline, It's the System. June 23rd is celebrated as 'International Women in Engineering Day" #INWED Sadly the harsh reality, engineering colleges in India produce the highest number of women in STEM graduates/engineers and many of them actually do make it to the workforce. The real challenge is their retention and progression. With 2+ decades in tech and now consulting for tech companies on their Gender Equity Strategy, I’ve seen this challenge firsthand. The issue isn’t talent availability, it’s systemic. In most households, a woman’s career is still seen as optional. That mindset and bias bleeds into workplaces, shaping how women are hired, retained, and promoted. So what can organisations do, 1. Relook at org culture and design. Are your systems, policies, and leadership norms built equitably to support who stays, rises and how. 2. Representation matters, especially in especially in mid and senior levels, invest in retention and have hiring goals across grades. 3. Move from gendered to gender neutral policies. Eg. Maternity to Parental Leave Policy that supports all care-givers. Reframe workplace policies from “women-centric benefits” to equitable caregiving support that normalise shared responsibility and reduce bias. 4. Women in Tech Returnee programs - I've seen immense success in these programs, that offer companies experienced tech talent with a little investment. #Vapasi from Thoughtworks, #Spring from Publicis Sapient are two examples 5. Conduct Stay Interviews, Not Exit Interviews. Understand why women leave and what it takes for them to stay and grow and act on the inputs. 3. A Clear Career Progression Path with mentorship and sponsorship - Bias in growth opportunity for #WIT is real, if there is no intentional support to overcome these bias, talent walks away. 4. I Need to See More Like Me! There is a lack of role models. Accelerated Women in tech leadership programs, fast-tracking the leadership journey of high potential women are some ways to address this. 5. Collective Ownership. Gender Diversity in tech is not a HR, leadership or DEI responsibility. Make it the very fabric of the org. to drive shared accountability. 6. Data is not just diagnostic, it's directional. It guides us on investments to be made, unseen bias and where and what needs to change, it's your mirror don't ignore it. #Inclusion is a organisational capability and leaders are it's torch bearers. Their actions, direction and decisions every single day, signal what truly matters. The Women in tech, talent pool exists. The question is, are you ready to retain, grow, and lead with them? #WomenInTech #WIT #GenderEquity #DiversityInTech Diversity Simplified Image description: A newspaper article titled “It’s Not the Pipeline, It’s the System” from Times of India, Bangalore edition which highlights the gender gap in engineering.