July 11, 2023 • 48 mins
Are you confident that your hiring process is inclusive and accessible to diverse candidates? Have you considered how candidates from diverse backgrounds perceive your hiring process?
Join host Margaret Spence on this week's episode of Inclusion Unscripted as she discusses the DEI divide in talent acquisition with Melissa Dobbins, founder of Career.Place. In this thought-provoking episode, Margaret and Melissa delve into the challenges of sourcing and hiring diverse candidates and explore the blindspots and gaps in talent acquisition processes. Discover why talent acquisition often fails to address DEI and learn what you can do to bridge the DEI divide. Don't miss this insightful conversation on Inclusion Unscripted with Margaret Spence, live at 2 pm EST today on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.
Melissa Dobbins is many things; entrepreneur, engineer, analyst, product strategist, mother, Star Wars enthusiast, leader, avid writer, USC Trojan, wife, science fiction fan, speaker, artist, etc. While she has many facets, none can define her. Just like everyone else, Melissa is more than a description on a piece of paper. She founded Career. Place because she believes everyone deserves to be evaluated for their true potential, not by the biases triggered by a few words.
Career.Place’s mission is to remove bias and increase the equity, inclusion, and efficiency of hiring and beyond. Career.Place is also an anonymous candidate screening platform that helps organizations hire more effectively without bias.
Inclusion Unscripted, where we're not just talking about diversity and inclusion, we're living it. The Inclusion Unscripted Live Weekly Podcast, hosted by Margaret Spence, Founder of The Inclusion Learning Lab, is unapologetically honest about diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Tune in every week for a new episode. Inclusion Unscripted is a live-streamed broadcast every Friday at 2 pm EST on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Join us live or on iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcasts app.
Inclusion Unscripted with Host Margaret Spence. Sponsored by The Inclusion Learning Lab - https://inclusionlearninglab.com Intro Music Credit (Canva Pro) The Winner by Tape Machine Epidemic Sound
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
You're like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound.
And when a fall you tied a rope to me.
You've listen me every day I was down with an like a sparrow with broken wings, but now shine.
(00:26):
Will your reflection on me.
Hello everyone and welcome to Inclusion Unscripted.
We are back live today and we are unpacking and going under the microscope on talent acquisition and how it connects to D N I.
The issues that are embedded in talent acquisition are hard to avoid.
(00:51):
It's not the thing that we could say, oh, it doesn't exist.
I don't think that we unpack talent acquisition enough and that we don't talk about it enough in our talent process and in our diversity and inclusion script.
So we're going to unpack that today, and I am joined by fabulous guest.
(01:12):
Who's gonna unpack this with me? And so I'd like to introduce everyone to Melissa Dobbins.
Melissa, welcome to Inclusion, unscripted, and let me tell everybody about you and then I wanna hear all about you.
So when I said to Melissa, send me your bio, she sent me, Melissa, is many things.
(01:34):
Entrepreneur, engineer, analyst, product strategist.
Mother Star Wars.
Star Wars enthusiasts, leader, avid writer, uc, Trojan wife, science fiction, fan, speaker, artist.
Yay.
And then career play.
So I have to tell everybody how did Melissa and I meet? Thank goodness for LinkedIn, right? I just say LinkedIn is like the best connector ever in life.
(02:00):
We met just before the pandemic, I think.
Mm-hmm.
Just before the pandemic, so.
So Melissa, welcome to Inclusion unscripted, and thank you for joining us today to talk about talent acquisition and de and i and all things in between.
Tell me about you.
Thank you so much.
It's such a pleasure to be here.
I'm really looking forward to this.
So I started my career many years ago.
(02:24):
I actually studied to be an electrical engineer and what happens with many electrical engineers, one thing led to another and I ended up in high tech in the software space and I ran product management for hypergrowth tech companies that were looking for an exit.
So my specialty was to come in and help organizations look.
Larger than they were perhaps with a lot of potential, which was helping the process to get into that next exit.
(02:50):
And me and the rest of the executive team, the leadership team, we were really good at what we did.
And so I did this a few times over, but, but what I experienced as I was going through that process coming in and out of the job market, Going to the next opportunity, going to the next hyper-growth tech company was the further I climbed up the ladder, going from a director to a vp coming into the executive team, the more absurd the experience became.
(03:21):
And I got a lot of questions, a lot of interactions that were completely irrelevant if not inappropriate or illegal.
So I started getting questions about how I was able to focus.
If my kid got the sniffles and we need people who can focus here.
So is that something you can do? I've gotten questions like, can you fire people? Because you know that's emotionally difficult.
(03:47):
So it got so bad that I ended up walking out of or leaving more interviews than I completed, and I'd explain why.
Say that question is completely irrelevant.
What you should be asking me as a product strategist for Hypergrowth Tech company is this, this is what you need to know.
This is what you need to be able, what I need to be able to do for you.
(04:09):
What you should not be asking me is about my children.
That's illegal, and I finally got to this point where I had to decide, do I put up with this or do I try to solve it? And that is where I ended up today.
You know, that classic engineer personality, I can't put up with it.
So I better start trying to solve it.
(04:30):
Wow.
Wow.
You know, what you described is very interesting.
I think, you know, as I work with brands and I work with organizations across multiple sectors, the biggest challenge that I have beyond getting them to implement More proactive d n I strategies is to get them to unpack talent acquisition, right? Everyone will say when they call us up and you know, they'll dial up and say, fill out a form on our website.
(05:05):
Margaret, we wanna talk about how do we create more opportunities for diverse candidates? How do we get more diversity in our workforce? And I stopped asking the question of, tell me what you want.
I start asking the question of how do people of color survive your hiring process? How do women survive your hiring process? How do young, early careerists survive your hiring process? Are your recruiters and talent acquisition folks.
(05:40):
Functional or dysfunctional.
And so I either get, well, we gotta go think about those questions and we'll get back to you.
And then I never hear from them again.
Or I get, oh, we need to deal with it.
But then when you get into the meat and potatoes, they don't really wanna deal with it.
Mm-hmm.
Because two recruiter hires the same.
(06:01):
No two recruiters represents the brand the same.
No two recruiters recreate the experience for the person coming in.
So tell me what your experience is with that beyond what you've just described when you are working out there in the world.
Are you seeing the same thing? Yeah, absolutely.
(06:22):
There's a few things that are at play when it comes to equity and inclusion practices when it comes to driving diversity within talent acquisition, and then there's also retention.
Totally different conversation, but a very necessary one as well, because you don't wanna put all this effort into your talent acquisition process only to lose everything you've gained within six months through attrition.
(06:44):
But within talent acquisition, there's a few things.
One, Is moving beyond these concepts that we generally dub as awareness and into action.
We see a lot of activity talking about intention without action behind that intention, and the reality is humans don't just stop with their habits because they're told their habits are bad.
(07:06):
This is why we have the same new year's resolutions year after year after year.
It's not malicious.
It is just human nature that when we go into any zone where we are under pressure in which a lot of us are in our positions, we'll go back to what we know.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So we need to move past conversations, especially if they're only happening once a year, every six months, and move into action.
(07:29):
That's one piece.
A second piece is systemic equity.
It's not just the action of what we do once or what somebody cares about because it's a passion.
Or because they're trying to increase the representation of what they are themselves, which you see a lot of activity there.
What we want is systemic change, process change, so that just as you put it, no matter who that recruiter is, that hiring manager, that team, they've got a set of boundaries of processes that are.
(07:59):
Helping them navigate equity within that process.
Usually that includes in terms of how do you generate requirements and pressure, test those requirements to make sure they're equitable.
Training and evaluation and practice on job descriptions and marketing of jobs, of ads of your culture.
(08:20):
To allow for that attraction and how we treat all individuals independent of their demographics when they're going through the process with us, when they're candidates looking for jobs, because not only could they be our future employees, They might also be our future customers or members or patients or whatever you're working in.
They're your future brand ambassadors, even if they're not the ones who come on board.
(08:45):
So it matters what every one of those individuals experiences.
So what can we do systemically within our process to make sure that those are all positive and empowering experiences? So in general, it's about what are we doing to change to make a measurable out difference and going beyond just intent or beyond the conversation.
(09:09):
Right.
And that is where I think we are getting stuck, right? Mm-hmm.
There's no longer, and, and I, I try to be a disruptor on this Friday live.
We can no longer just train people.
I, I, I hear this.
Oh, we're gonna, we're gonna create a training program.
(09:29):
A training program does nothing.
If the next 364 days, things remain the same.
And so I'm almost at the, at the place where when, when individuals and organizations call me about training, I have to ask, what else are you doing? How is this sustainable? What is the reinforcement and the accountability that's gonna be created in this? But I tell you, I wanna just.
(09:53):
Share a little story about what happened to someone who is near and dear to me, right? And I am trying to figure out, I'm on a mission first to find this recruiter.
Number one, find their organization and share this experience with their higher up.
Okay? So a near and dear person to me was in the job market over the last couple weeks, and their software engineer.
(10:22):
And they're looking for a software engineering role, and they've been talking to this recruiter for months before the day that they call to say, Hey, I'm ready for this role.
I, I wanna try to get this job.
Now this individual recruits for one of the big brands.
One of the top five tech companies out there in the ethers, right? And I think if that brand knew that this individual was doing this to their brand, they would be in shock.
(10:52):
That's number one.
So I'm gonna go there.
So the person says, and you, you're in, you're in engineering.
Do the coding challenge for us.
Go into their system and write this code for this particular thing.
Write this code.
So he went in, did the code, wrote the code, people started commenting on the code.
(11:15):
This code is great.
This code is great.
Who is this person? We don't have a resume that matches this name.
We don't have anything about this individual Who is this person? Now the candidate is inside of their software and can see the notes that are being created on the software.
That that he's created and he could see that people are pulling the software and saying, damn, this is good code.
(11:35):
I wish who wrote this.
We need to find this person.
We need to hire this person.
So the individual went back to the recruiter and said, I uploaded the code.
And she said, you did.
Like she didn't expect him.
She gave him the cha, the coding challenge as a diverse person with no expectation that he was going to be able to meet the coding challenge.
(12:00):
But this is what I've been doing for 10 years.
So he called her up and said, I'm ready for the interview.
And she says, well, I didn't send your resume to them.
I didn't.
I wasn't, I wasn't sure you could do this.
And then proceeded, this is where it went off the rails.
(12:22):
Melissa then proceeded to try to dismantle his resume to make it seem that he wasn't qualified for the role.
Hmm.
Well, you made a mistake.
You gave me the challenge.
Assuming that I would never do the challenge, assuming that I wasn't capable of doing the challenge.
(12:45):
So you never connected.
Resume and challenge you just sent me.
Go do the challenge.
It's, he's never gonna do that.
That was what was going on in her mind.
So he passed a coding challenge but can't get hired because she's not submitted his resume and she is the gatekeeper into this organization.
Now imagine how many other black, Hispanic, and women candidates, Asian candidates, this individual has done that too, because the pattern that you show up with today is not a unknown process.
(13:21):
You've done this before.
You're sort of good at this because you've done it before.
It was so easy for you to say, oh, go do the challenge.
Call me if you ever get it done.
Yeah, and people spend so much time validating.
The biases or the choices they've already made, rather than learning from the data that's coming in.
(13:43):
This is what one of the challenges, the basic challenges of talent acquisition with resumes now.
Crude up place is anti resume.
So just putting out my bias there we are all about finding alternatives to resumes because there's so much bias and there's so many assumptions that are built into them.
So with that bias in mind, what we find.
(14:03):
Is that people like her, like that example, make a decision based on some pattern recognition on the resume, and then spend the rest of the time in whatever that process is validating that decision.
Very few people are really good at learning and changing their best, their opinions, their decisions, which is why it's so important.
(14:24):
That first impression is so important because it's really hard to rewrite it.
It's human nature.
So in this case, something on his resume, and it could have been his demographics, it could have been someplace he worked at that she's like, oh, they make horrible people there.
It could have been where he got educated, right? Whatever it was.
Something triggered in her that this is not a good ca candidate.
(14:45):
Everything else she's gonna do from now on, because she's really good at her job.
You know, as a recruiter, she's awesome at her job, which means she has to be right.
So she's going to find a way to be right.
Otherwise she was wrong and potentially biasing or discriminatory.
And that can't be right cuz that's not me.
And so therefore, but we see it all the time in talent acquisition, whether it's the recruiter, whether it's the hiring manager, it's not usually malicious, it can be, it's not usually malicious.
(15:13):
It's pattern recognition, it's comfort level.
It's, I don't wanna take a risk.
I need someone who's really good for this team.
And then the logic goes something like this.
I'm amazing.
This person's like me.
They must be amazing.
I'm gonna go ahead and hire them, which is why you tend to get so much homogeny in teams if you're not thinking through and deliberate about how you go through that decision making process.
(15:41):
So when, and I know about the work that you do at the career place, right? And one of the reasons why we're doing this together today and why we have continued to have conversations over the last three, almost four years now, is there has to be a point where talent acquisition makes a shift.
(16:02):
Okay.
And I do, I honestly don't think that organizations spend enough time on talent acquisition and the biases built in to the talent acquisition process.
Yes, I've worked with organizations that could not remove name and gender, so I would be doing data analysis on how people get hired.
(16:24):
Okay.
And what we try to do when we go into organizations is recreate the hiring funnel.
Okay? So how does, how what, what got the applicant into the funnel in the first place? Let me look at the ad.
Let me look at what was written.
Let me look at where you sourced that information.
Then I look at what was the initial review process.
(16:45):
Yes.
Who looked at that application? What was their biases? How many, and if you take it now down to the first review process, how many diverse candidates d get through the review process based on the reviewer? Sometimes we don't actually go down to the reviewer.
We say, well, you know, we had 400 candidates that made it to the end.
(17:07):
Okay, but how many started at the top? Was it 10,000 and only 400 made it to the end and you hired two? So I try to unpack the hiring process and I ask really critical questions when I'm unpacking it.
And what I often find is people are eliminated at various parts of the hiring process.
(17:27):
They're eliminated.
They're eliminated on mask.
And there's Nori, no rhyme or reason often for the elimination, but what is coming up right now that I have heard is I am matching the candidate to the hiring manager because the hiring manager doesn't like X, Y, or z.
(17:50):
Yes, yes, that definitely happens.
And there's also hitting or implied expectations that are communicated back and forth between the hiring manager and hiring team and the recruiter.
And depending on the organizations, a lot of times recruiters and talent acquisition are seen as execution.
Branches, I'm told what to do, I must do that.
(18:14):
Versus advisor or expertise areas where No, no, I know the rules of how to engage and legally and fairly evaluate talent.
And as an expert I can help you figure out what you actually need versus these assumptions.
So, and you were talking about how we need to do a transition.
(18:35):
We absolutely do.
First of all.
We need to transition our mindset of T A T A is not an organization that looks stuff up in a job board of choice.
They aren't just pushing out somebody else's content in the form of a job description or variations thereof.
We have to transition them just like we see in other branches of HR into that true business partner, because we need to have the expertise, not just from a legal and compliance standpoint, but from a impact standpoint of being able to attract great talent across all demographics, across all attributes of humanity.
(19:13):
So we truly get the best and not just repetition of what we already have.
But we also need them to help the hiring managers, to help the hiring teams truly understand and then find what they need.
And it's okay that a hiring manager is not an expert in that because it's not what they do every day.
Right.
It's only when they need somebody that they're even going through this process who goes through it every day, who can build up those skills and abilities That understanding that that strength is talent acquisition, but then we need to let them use that strength.
(19:47):
And then the third piece, and you brought it up so elegantly in that exp, in that experience of your friend, as we have to hold our tone acquisition professionals to a high quality standard.
We give them this power, we give them these expectations.
We give them the role of being the experts, the communicators with our talent, the ones who can attract, the ones who can engage, the ones who can evaluate.
(20:13):
They must be able to do these things.
They must be able to do them to the best of the ability for our organizations, which means equitably, which means impactfully and fairly.
It also means in order to find true, fantastic talent, that's gonna help our organizations get to that next level, not just achieve what we've already achieved before.
Right.
And that is it.
That is it right there.
(20:35):
But, but how do, okay, so organizations are struggling with this, and the only thing that they're thinking about is we've got requisitions sitting here.
TA's job is to fill those requisitions, move people through.
I feel like a cattle call almost.
You know, you're at a cattle call, you push all the cattle into the, into the thing.
(20:57):
Somebody up at the top says, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We got some blue, green, orange.
Oh, okay.
Ferret them through.
Decide which one's gonna make it through and which one gets put back on the truck.
That's it.
That's where we're, we are.
That's how we have viewed talent acquisition.
It is.
It can be.
There's 40 job requisitions to fill.
You need to fill those 40 job requisitions.
(21:19):
But the challenge that I see is we're not doing an effective job of training, talent acquisition to be champions for diverse candidates through the hiring process.
We're not giving them the power to challenge the leaders, the hiring managers that they are working with.
(21:41):
We're not giving them enough accountability for the process of getting a candidate from point A to point B, right? We're basically saying, candidate, the candidate's gonna make it through.
Everything's gonna be okay.
We're gonna say a prayer on the other end.
We're gonna get the right candidate.
We can't keep doing this.
(22:05):
Yeah, and what's really interesting is we have a parallel because an excuse that we hear all the time is that there's just too many, you know, you have to get through.
We have to do it fast.
We need that person in the seat right away.
First of all, Anyone who has managed people had to hire somebody that have been on a team knows that filling the seat is only the beginning.
(22:28):
If you cannot retain that individual, if you cannot have that individual provide value to the team, all you're doing is repeating that process every few months.
Which is very detrimental to the team, to the morale, to the output productivity.
So it's not just a matter of find someone and fill the seat quickly, it's find the right person, somebody who can add to the team, who can bring those skills and abilities that we need to thrive.
(22:51):
Right? So shifting that to that person is important.
It is a future employee.
It is not just a number of fill in the seats, but here's one of the things that's really interesting to me, is we have a parallel within our businesses that is very similar, high throughput.
We have to spend the time and energy to do it right, because the outcome is super important, and that's our sales process.
(23:16):
Yep.
So we spend so much time and effort in how we're gonna brand, how we market, how we advertise, how we cultivate from a beginning, potential lead through the prospect process, into the closing the sale, and then beyond to have a strong account so that we're able to continue that relationship and generate revenue.
(23:37):
So we know how to do this at high volumes.
We know how to do this deliberately.
We know how to do this intelligently at high volumes.
So if we're that good at handling our products and our services, shouldn't we be that good at handling the people who create and manage and sell those pro products and services? So it is possible that excuse that there's too many and we just have to figure something out.
(23:59):
We already deal with that in other aspects of our business.
It's taking that concept, taking those skills, and applying it.
And then you brought up another really good point, and circling right back to the beginning of the conversation.
Mm-hmm.
About training and how it can't just be training and then what are you gonna do, right? Because now you're waiting and that one day is not gonna impact anything.
Right? But to your point, if you have a process, you have a skill, then you can train and measure and practice.
(24:29):
So it's not training for training's sake.
This is not a check the box to say that you've done it.
This is not a raise the awareness in some monthly routine for whatever the flavor of the month is.
What this is, is real skills that have a place within existing processes or designed processes.
If you don't have them yet, and they can be practiced, the output can be measured, and it has real impact to the business, in this case, to the quality, quantity of your candidates, your future employees, and that demographic representation.
(25:03):
Right.
And that that is, that is it right there.
I mean, I don't know that.
We think in business.
I was in I was in Washington, DC a couple weeks ago and I said, you know, d and i needs to be run like a business.
When you think about diversity and inclusion, it needs to be run like business.
You need to know all your buyer personas.
(25:24):
You need to know all the things that affect your buyers.
You need to be able to know what's keeping them up at night.
You need to be able to connect in on a a microscopic level with a.
The outward stakeholders within the organization, you have to run de and I like a business.
It is not a process.
It is a business impact and it is a business imperative and it should be run like a business.
(25:48):
But somehow when we get to our individual department areas like talent acquisition, there is a complete disconnect between what we train, what we expect.
How we empower what we continue on repetition, right? Because the process repeats and repeats and repeats itself.
(26:12):
But if we have bad repetition, right? For example, if you were a swimmer and you were doing the forward stroke wrong or the backstroke wrong, you wouldn't, you would be stuck in the water, just treading water.
That is where we are with talent acquisition.
We're stuck in the water, we're treading water.
There's no duplication.
(26:33):
I personally, and I've done a lot of training with talent acquisition groups and teams, and what I hear is I don't have enough time.
All I have time for is directs.
I do a good job of getting diverse candidates through the system.
I do that.
Okay, but.
I, I, I'll give you the funny, funny, funny joke.
(26:54):
I was doing a program for TA and HR together and I had one leader on Zoom herself and say, I don't have time for diversity.
Set it out loud.
I don't have time for diversity inclusion.
I don't have time to do what you want me to do.
All I have time for is to fill my ranks and whoever comes to that door, that's who I'm filling it with.
(27:17):
I don't have time to do what you need me to do.
She said out loud what the other 29 people on that zoom wanted to say.
She was brave enough and I said, you know what? You're brave.
You're brave enough to unmute yourself and say this.
So Melissa, tell me, what should we be doing? I am the Chief HR officer of an organization.
(27:41):
What should I be doing to fix talent acquisition and put it under a microscope and connect this divide that we have between what we say and what we do? Yes, such a great question.
I would say it starts with the data, with understanding where you stand right now.
(28:01):
Because without data, it's all opinion, it's all feelings, and you end up with a lot of people who say, just like what you're saying, you know, I don't have the time, or I'm doing my best, or, Hey, there just aren't enough people of, name your demographic or attribute here who want this type of role.
So there's every excuse in the world to justify.
(28:23):
What is already here versus understanding the current state.
So know what your data is.
If you don't have it, that's okay.
That's your first step, is collecting that data, the demographics of your candidates as they come in.
Of course, there's rules around that, so know what the rules are for a collection, but you can do an opt out.
Or opt-in collection for collecting those demographics.
(28:46):
So that way you have a sense.
And then to your point, make sure you know what those are, so you have an ability to watch how those demographics change throughout the process.
So those who are hitting that applied button or responding to those emails are outreaches to those that are getting into the middle, where they're going into the, the interview stages to those that are being selected because you wanna see if those demographics are changing.
(29:07):
What that is gonna do is allow you to then focus your next step of how you can start fixing or improving your process.
Because if you don't have representation at the beginning, you're certainly not gonna get representation at the end.
So if that's the problem, Then taking a look at, well, where are you reaching out to find those candidates? How are you sourcing? Where are you sourcing? What are those demographic pools and are there other opportunities, other communities to tap into to get talent that is worthy talent? I'm not saying just to fill the, the numbers I'm saying that is true talent that has the requirements, that has what you're looking for, that you're just not tapping into.
(29:44):
And there's a lot of different variations of that, but spending the time in that sourcing piece.
The other piece is the attraction piece.
Look at those descriptions, your website, how you are representing your culture and your brand.
Do what you already probably do all the time on the marketing side for your products and services.
Do some focus groups and some tasks, see how those messages are or are not resonating with different communities.
(30:11):
You can have a fabulous job.
In a nicely representa representative, diverse community, but you are only attracting certain individuals because of something that's lurking in the language, in the presentation, in the imagery.
Mm-hmm.
So find it.
And then you can change what that is.
You can resonate, or you can create multiple brands.
(30:32):
I give an example going back into our parallel conversation of advertising.
Mm-hmm.
Of Nike shoes.
Most people are familiar, at least in the US with the Nike brand.
Mm-hmm.
If you think of a good mid-level shoe, They have with variations of colors and themes, basically a, a whole line of mid-level shoes, right? With a whole range of demographics that are customers to those mid-level shoes.
(30:59):
What do you think would happen if they advertise those shoes? I.
With a nice couple that's older, that's walking down a path and it's kind of the sun lit and it's spurred singing.
It's gonna be great to a certain audience.
Are you gonna get a lot of younger, urban customers with that commercial? Even if the shoe is basically the same.
(31:23):
No, that's not my shoe.
That's their shoe.
Right, right.
If you have a bunch of kids who are playing basketball in the middle of the city and laughing with their friends and racing down to catch their bus, are you gonna sell that shoe to the couple that's Bulls taking walks on Saturday afternoons because their kids are outta school and they don't have to worry about that anymore? No.
(31:45):
Cause that's not their shoe.
Even though the shoe is the same.
Right.
It's how we advertise is how we engage with our audience.
Mm-hmm.
So the job can be the same, but what we care about as various audiences as target markets, as we call 'em in the advertising world, mm-hmm.
Can be different.
It doesn't mean you're any less genuine.
(32:05):
That shoe is fantastic for walks.
That shoe is fantastic for having fun with your friends.
It's just telling a variety of stories to resonate with the audience.
So that's the attraction side.
If you are seeing that the demographics change over time.
So that you start with maybe a lot of representation in whatever you're measuring, but then over time you're seeing what we call the Pacman effect.
(32:31):
You know, one of those demographics eating the other, so it disappears.
Mm-hmm.
Then you probably have more issues with equity and inclusion throughout your process, so finding where you start seeing the demographic shifts, not numbers going down, because that's what it's designed for.
Right.
Your, your hiring process is supposed to go from a large beginning of the funnel to a small end of the funnel for a final selection.
(32:53):
That's good.
Having all of your representation disappearing as you go through that funnel, that could be very problematic.
And that is exactly we, we do a course called DE E N I data Storytelling, and inside of that course we teach individuals how to mine data and how to tell stories inside of their data.
(33:17):
And I don't know that we do a good enough focus group on people who don't make it through the hiring funnel or the people who get an offer and who decline the offer.
Yes.
And they'll say, I got a better job.
But is that really what the decision was? The decision was, and I got a better job.
The decision was I had a pretty bad experience.
(33:37):
During that hiring process, and I just don't feel comfortable with that hiring manager and how I was treated, and so I think I'm gonna take this other job because I feel way more comfortable here.
And a lot of times, just like the earlier story that you told, the data tells a very strong story and sometimes an uncomfortable story, right? It's not uncommon that you will see demographics, people of color, women disappear as soon as those demographics are exposed.
(34:05):
So if you have a process where you might hide the names, hide the genders, hide what you can, if not have it completely anonymous, and it goes all the way through code review.
And you see the demographics holding that distribution holding.
Then you get to that interview where now they're showing up and suddenly you've got that Pacman effect.
That is one of the, it's very prevalent.
(34:27):
Mm-hmm.
It's when a lot of those assumptions take place.
We actually change the way if you do not have a set script.
On what it is you're supposed to interview on what questions you're supposed to ask, how to do the follow ups, and I'm a big a fan of, of the set scripts.
We want that equity, which means everyone should be getting the same questions because without it, what ends up happening is women, especially people of color mm-hmm.
(34:53):
Are put on the defensive.
Why do you deserve to be here? Where our, our colleagues, our male colleagues, our white colleagues are put on the offensive.
Tell me about yourself and how and what you've achieved.
Mm-hmm.
So even if they are exactly the same in terms of capability, if you have one group that's spending the majority of their time defending themselves and another group spending the majority of the time talking about how great they are.
(35:19):
Mm-hmm.
What is that impression that the hiring team is gonna walk away with? And all of that comes in the tone and the language choice of the questions.
So another thing you can do is, cuz you asked about the different impactful things that you can do to fix the process, one of the things you can start with, especially if you know your problem is in the process and not in the attraction and sourcing.
(35:43):
Is creating an objective uniform process before you do anything else.
If you just create that consistency, you have the scripts, everyone gets the same questions, you have the answer key.
That one is huge.
So that you have, here are the things that make a good answer.
Here's the things that make a bad answer, so you're not left to know it when you see it.
(36:05):
Mm-hmm.
And instead, you've got the key in front of you.
So that's gonna take away some of that comfort.
Mm-hmm.
Validation and turn it into objective evaluation.
Now you've got a strong start starting point.
Now you can start asking questions.
Are these the right questions? Am I getting the right information? Rather than questioning my evaluation of individuals, you're spending the time evaluating the questions, the process, not the people, and we are better and more comfortable at that.
(36:32):
Right? That that is a great.
A great lens to, to take us through.
And I think that is a critical takeaway.
Melissa, that is important because I know that when you and I first started talking, you were talking about software that makes everything disappear.
There's no identifier there.
(36:52):
It's just, just the information about my experience.
And that gives a diverse candidate.
And, and you had created this software to sort of make all of this disappear.
Right? And then the, the individual would then come to the hiring manager without any bias being built in.
You wouldn't know that my name was Laia or Margaret.
You wouldn't be able to look at me and say X, Y, or z.
(37:13):
I remember when my kids were little and I, my, when my sons were born I kept, it was the time when you could do a lot of different types of names and I said, Nope.
My kids are going to be, have simple names.
You're not gonna know who they are at the door.
Because I knew from an HR desk that name discrimination is a real thing, right? And so, In thinking their life through, I made the decision to go simple name.
(37:42):
Right? And that's, and most people don't think like that, but as a diverse person, that's what I thought about.
Right? And I thought of ways to eliminate bias.
And I know for myself, one of the things that happens to me is if you get me on the phone, I'll go call somewhere and I'm on the phone and I have this eloquent conversation, and then I show up and the person is like, Right.
(38:08):
Oh, she's black.
Wait, she didn't sound that way on the phone.
Yeah.
Okay.
My mother told me when I was three years old.
People will hear you before they see you.
Make sure that they hear you well.
But now we're at the candidate spot.
So as we wrap this up and put a bow on it, What is the solution? Is it software solution? I've heard you talk about software.
(38:32):
I've heard you talk about process.
I've heard you talk about script.
I've, we've bantered on training.
If you are walking into an organization tomorrow morning and they didn't have a problem with, as they call it, attracting talent, but they can't hire them, what would you tell 'em to do? All of the above.
(38:55):
Just like anything else, technology is an enabler.
It is not a replacement.
It is not a, it is not something that's gonna solve all your problems.
That beautiful easy button is left to the Staples commercials.
It is not reality.
So your technology's important.
It's gonna save your people a lot of time.
It can help with guardrails, it can help with structure.
It will not create a good process from a bad one.
(39:15):
You still need to implement it and use it in a good and effective way.
So you want technology and as a name enabler, you want process because those standard operating procedures, those SOPs are what's dictating how to accomplish a task.
They help with training.
They help get your team up to speed.
They help reduce the liability of mistakes.
(39:37):
They help increase the effectiveness because now you can tweak and you can manage the process rather than individual outcome, because that could be a lot if you're hiring the lot.
So you wanna manage it on in bulk in the process.
So you wanna do process design, technology enablement.
You need people to understand the process.
And be effective and successful.
That is training and practice and measuring and feedback.
(40:03):
So you need all of that.
You just like any other process.
Again, this is nothing new for organizations, we're just applying it in a new way.
Think about for you in an organization, back to the sales team, cuz it's a great analogy.
Think about your sales team's CRM versus your ats.
Right.
They have a process that they are using for the sales process.
(40:23):
They are measuring things like phone calls, like touchpoints to those clients and those prospects, they probably are recording the conversations because they're constantly tweaking the messaging.
You can do all that.
You have those capabilities within your organization.
You're just transferring them into your talent acquisition.
(40:43):
And could you imagine a, any other part of the organization saying, here's your technology.
Go.
Right, right, right.
Or here is the script.
Go.
No, it's a whole bunch of things.
It is what you're supposed to do, how you're supposed to do it.
Practicing, validating, adjusting, and learning.
Whether it's because I'm still getting developing the skill or because the message that worked really well last year, it's not working anymore.
(41:10):
This year, we're in a different market, so we're gonna need to naturally adjust it anyway.
Or I'm going after a new market.
We've expanded our sources.
We've expanded which communities we're gonna reach into the shoe commercial that wor, that worked really well in a middle class suburban.
Target market isn't gonna work in my, in this other, in the rural market, right? So, mm-hmm.
(41:33):
That's okay.
So you're constantly tweaking, growing, evolving, but you need to do all of those things at once.
You need to have the process, you need to have your augmentation, which is your, your technology, whatever form that works for you, you need to have training so your people know how to execute that process and do it successfully.
You need to measure.
Your outcomes against some sort of goal, so you know if you're doing it well or not, and then have methods to adjust and learn.
(42:01):
Yep.
So finally, how can people get in touch with you, Melissa Dobbins and Career Place? Tell me about that in a few minutes and then we're gonna wrap up today.
This was a empowering conversation about talent acquisition, and I'm so happy that we were able to do this and to do this today because as we close out this quarter and we move now to the next quarter, this is where the rubber meets the road.
(42:29):
We can't say the great resignation.
Okay.
We've, we're probably not saying that word anymore.
Alright.
But what we are having is the great retention, but we're having an issue hiring talent as well.
And we're having an issue with diverse hiring and we still continue to have an issue with diverse candidates coming in the door and women.
Count certain roles.
So tell me briefly about Career Place and how do we get in touch with you? Yes, absolutely.
(42:54):
So Crew Up Place, we do a couple things.
We do do technology, we do candidate screening.
It is a replacement for resumes and those screener phone calls.
We use structure, we use anonymity, we use measuring so that you've got those guardrails.
It is the concept of augmentation to a process or making a process easier and more efficient.
(43:14):
We also, because process is so important, we do training and it's all around that actionable, measurable outcome in town acquisition and beyond.
You know, as we, we were talking about before, it's not just a matter of getting people through the door, it's keeping them there.
And so the idea of how do you create these productive, thriving environments across.
(43:37):
All demographics and attributes of humanity.
So everyone you bring in with that talent you need mm-hmm.
Is thriving and being part of that additive culture, being part of that productivity.
And then finally we do a bit of consulting.
We're not major into consulting, but to make sure that these tools that we're providing in terms of training, in terms of technology are being optimized.
(43:58):
And so wrapping that up, So that we are setting our clients up for success.
So that is what career do place does.
You can reach me either on LinkedIn, Melissa Dobbins crew.place,
you will find me or you can send me a message@mdobbinscareer.place.
Great.
Great.
And so Yoda, you've got a whole bunch of Star Wars behind you.
(44:19):
I can't, without saying, okay, how much Star Wars memorabilia do you have? This is what my husband calls the more professional looking memorabilia, the rest of it is off screen.
So one of the things as a D E I practitioner and advocate, we are very much be and celebrate your authentic self.
(44:41):
And it's such an important part of creating highly productive and.
Impactful environments and cultures of understanding one another is being proud of who you are.
That's such an important part because once you're proud of who you are, you can very proudly share it.
And I mean all of who you are, and this is part of who I am, so we.
(45:02):
Proudly display.
I proudly display pieces of myself, and that includes, if you look in, in in detail, there are things that my daughters have made me that are on display back there and various things I've accumulated throughout the years.
Mostly star warfs, but I think you've got a little Ironman on the, in the corner there.
Oh my.
She's got stuff there.
Yeah, I got you.
Got a bunch.
(45:23):
So the orchid over here is my passion.
I am an orchid nut.
I have orchids all over my back patio.
I am an orchid.
Person, so I show up as the orchid.
Love orchids.
There's a beautiful orchid room at Longwood Gardens, which is in Pennsylvania.
My daughters, we go there every, every few weeks and they take pictures.
(45:46):
So both of my, my girls are in one's in elementary and one's in middle school, and they just.
Love the variety and the beautiful colors of orchids.
So, so we go and we take lots and lots and lots of photographs.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, Melissa, thank you so much for coming to Inclusion unscripted today.
And thank you for joining me in this impactful conversation of putting talent acquisition under the microscope and everything that you've left behind.
(46:13):
And we've had a few folks listening live.
Thank you Gina and Trina for being here live with us today.
The information that you've shared is actionable.
It's, it's easy to administer.
If we put the investment into talent acquisition, the talent acquisition process is the gateway to the organization.
And if we don't get that right, and if we don't fix that, then we really sh can't fix the after product, which is, you know, retention.
(46:39):
We gotta get the door correct before we can really even address retention.
So thank you, Melissa, for joining us, and we're gonna sign off for today.
But hang on everyone.
Thank you for, for being here this week.
We will be back again on Friday at 2:00 PM next Friday at 2:00 PM and for all of you who are members of at t d, my team and I are going to the at t d conference.
(47:02):
I am speaking and exhibiting at at t d in San Diego.
So if you are in San Diego and you're list.
To this, come to the a t D conference and join us there.
Thank you again for joining today.
Thank you, Trina.
Thank you, Gina.
And all of you who are listening after to the recording, we appreciate your support.
Take care, and we'll see you again next Friday.
You are like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound, and when a fall you tied a rope to me.
(47:35):
You blessed me of every day I was down with an illusion, like a sparrow with broken wings.
But now shine.
Will your reflection on me.
Take care, everyone.
You're like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound.
And when a fall you tied a rope to me.
You've listen me every day I was down with an like a sparrow with broken wings, but now shine.
(00:26):
Will your reflection on me.
Hello everyone and welcome to Inclusion Unscripted.
We are back live today and we are unpacking and going under the microscope on talent acquisition and how it connects to D N I.
The issues that are embedded in talent acquisition are hard to avoid.
(00:51):
It's not the thing that we could say, oh, it doesn't exist.
I don't think that we unpack talent acquisition enough and that we don't talk about it enough in our talent process and in our diversity and inclusion script.
So we're going to unpack that today, and I am joined by fabulous guest.
(01:12):
Who's gonna unpack this with me? And so I'd like to introduce everyone to Melissa Dobbins.
Melissa, welcome to Inclusion, unscripted, and let me tell everybody about you and then I wanna hear all about you.
So when I said to Melissa, send me your bio, she sent me, Melissa, is many things.
(01:34):
Entrepreneur, engineer, analyst, product strategist.
Mother Star Wars.
Star Wars enthusiasts, leader, avid writer, uc, Trojan wife, science fiction, fan, speaker, artist.
Yay.
And then career play.
So I have to tell everybody how did Melissa and I meet? Thank goodness for LinkedIn, right? I just say LinkedIn is like the best connector ever in life.
(02:00):
We met just before the pandemic, I think.
Mm-hmm.
Just before the pandemic, so.
So Melissa, welcome to Inclusion unscripted, and thank you for joining us today to talk about talent acquisition and de and i and all things in between.
Tell me about you.
Thank you so much.
It's such a pleasure to be here.
I'm really looking forward to this.
So I started my career many years ago.
(02:24):
I actually studied to be an electrical engineer and what happens with many electrical engineers, one thing led to another and I ended up in high tech in the software space and I ran product management for hypergrowth tech companies that were looking for an exit.
So my specialty was to come in and help organizations look.
Larger than they were perhaps with a lot of potential, which was helping the process to get into that next exit.
(02:50):
And me and the rest of the executive team, the leadership team, we were really good at what we did.
And so I did this a few times over, but, but what I experienced as I was going through that process coming in and out of the job market, Going to the next opportunity, going to the next hyper-growth tech company was the further I climbed up the ladder, going from a director to a vp coming into the executive team, the more absurd the experience became.
(03:21):
And I got a lot of questions, a lot of interactions that were completely irrelevant if not inappropriate or illegal.
So I started getting questions about how I was able to focus.
If my kid got the sniffles and we need people who can focus here.
So is that something you can do? I've gotten questions like, can you fire people? Because you know that's emotionally difficult.
(03:47):
So it got so bad that I ended up walking out of or leaving more interviews than I completed, and I'd explain why.
Say that question is completely irrelevant.
What you should be asking me as a product strategist for Hypergrowth Tech company is this, this is what you need to know.
This is what you need to be able, what I need to be able to do for you.
(04:09):
What you should not be asking me is about my children.
That's illegal, and I finally got to this point where I had to decide, do I put up with this or do I try to solve it? And that is where I ended up today.
You know, that classic engineer personality, I can't put up with it.
So I better start trying to solve it.
(04:30):
Wow.
Wow.
You know, what you described is very interesting.
I think, you know, as I work with brands and I work with organizations across multiple sectors, the biggest challenge that I have beyond getting them to implement More proactive d n I strategies is to get them to unpack talent acquisition, right? Everyone will say when they call us up and you know, they'll dial up and say, fill out a form on our website.
(05:05):
Margaret, we wanna talk about how do we create more opportunities for diverse candidates? How do we get more diversity in our workforce? And I stopped asking the question of, tell me what you want.
I start asking the question of how do people of color survive your hiring process? How do women survive your hiring process? How do young, early careerists survive your hiring process? Are your recruiters and talent acquisition folks.
(05:40):
Functional or dysfunctional.
And so I either get, well, we gotta go think about those questions and we'll get back to you.
And then I never hear from them again.
Or I get, oh, we need to deal with it.
But then when you get into the meat and potatoes, they don't really wanna deal with it.
Mm-hmm.
Because two recruiter hires the same.
(06:01):
No two recruiters represents the brand the same.
No two recruiters recreate the experience for the person coming in.
So tell me what your experience is with that beyond what you've just described when you are working out there in the world.
Are you seeing the same thing? Yeah, absolutely.
(06:22):
There's a few things that are at play when it comes to equity and inclusion practices when it comes to driving diversity within talent acquisition, and then there's also retention.
Totally different conversation, but a very necessary one as well, because you don't wanna put all this effort into your talent acquisition process only to lose everything you've gained within six months through attrition.
(06:44):
But within talent acquisition, there's a few things.
One, Is moving beyond these concepts that we generally dub as awareness and into action.
We see a lot of activity talking about intention without action behind that intention, and the reality is humans don't just stop with their habits because they're told their habits are bad.
(07:06):
This is why we have the same new year's resolutions year after year after year.
It's not malicious.
It is just human nature that when we go into any zone where we are under pressure in which a lot of us are in our positions, we'll go back to what we know.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
So we need to move past conversations, especially if they're only happening once a year, every six months, and move into action.
(07:29):
That's one piece.
A second piece is systemic equity.
It's not just the action of what we do once or what somebody cares about because it's a passion.
Or because they're trying to increase the representation of what they are themselves, which you see a lot of activity there.
What we want is systemic change, process change, so that just as you put it, no matter who that recruiter is, that hiring manager, that team, they've got a set of boundaries of processes that are.
(07:59):
Helping them navigate equity within that process.
Usually that includes in terms of how do you generate requirements and pressure, test those requirements to make sure they're equitable.
Training and evaluation and practice on job descriptions and marketing of jobs, of ads of your culture.
(08:20):
To allow for that attraction and how we treat all individuals independent of their demographics when they're going through the process with us, when they're candidates looking for jobs, because not only could they be our future employees, They might also be our future customers or members or patients or whatever you're working in.
They're your future brand ambassadors, even if they're not the ones who come on board.
(08:45):
So it matters what every one of those individuals experiences.
So what can we do systemically within our process to make sure that those are all positive and empowering experiences? So in general, it's about what are we doing to change to make a measurable out difference and going beyond just intent or beyond the conversation.
(09:09):
Right.
And that is where I think we are getting stuck, right? Mm-hmm.
There's no longer, and, and I, I try to be a disruptor on this Friday live.
We can no longer just train people.
I, I, I hear this.
Oh, we're gonna, we're gonna create a training program.
(09:29):
A training program does nothing.
If the next 364 days, things remain the same.
And so I'm almost at the, at the place where when, when individuals and organizations call me about training, I have to ask, what else are you doing? How is this sustainable? What is the reinforcement and the accountability that's gonna be created in this? But I tell you, I wanna just.
(09:53):
Share a little story about what happened to someone who is near and dear to me, right? And I am trying to figure out, I'm on a mission first to find this recruiter.
Number one, find their organization and share this experience with their higher up.
Okay? So a near and dear person to me was in the job market over the last couple weeks, and their software engineer.
(10:22):
And they're looking for a software engineering role, and they've been talking to this recruiter for months before the day that they call to say, Hey, I'm ready for this role.
I, I wanna try to get this job.
Now this individual recruits for one of the big brands.
One of the top five tech companies out there in the ethers, right? And I think if that brand knew that this individual was doing this to their brand, they would be in shock.
(10:52):
That's number one.
So I'm gonna go there.
So the person says, and you, you're in, you're in engineering.
Do the coding challenge for us.
Go into their system and write this code for this particular thing.
Write this code.
So he went in, did the code, wrote the code, people started commenting on the code.
(11:15):
This code is great.
This code is great.
Who is this person? We don't have a resume that matches this name.
We don't have anything about this individual Who is this person? Now the candidate is inside of their software and can see the notes that are being created on the software.
That that he's created and he could see that people are pulling the software and saying, damn, this is good code.
(11:35):
I wish who wrote this.
We need to find this person.
We need to hire this person.
So the individual went back to the recruiter and said, I uploaded the code.
And she said, you did.
Like she didn't expect him.
She gave him the cha, the coding challenge as a diverse person with no expectation that he was going to be able to meet the coding challenge.
(12:00):
But this is what I've been doing for 10 years.
So he called her up and said, I'm ready for the interview.
And she says, well, I didn't send your resume to them.
I didn't.
I wasn't, I wasn't sure you could do this.
And then proceeded, this is where it went off the rails.
(12:22):
Melissa then proceeded to try to dismantle his resume to make it seem that he wasn't qualified for the role.
Hmm.
Well, you made a mistake.
You gave me the challenge.
Assuming that I would never do the challenge, assuming that I wasn't capable of doing the challenge.
(12:45):
So you never connected.
Resume and challenge you just sent me.
Go do the challenge.
It's, he's never gonna do that.
That was what was going on in her mind.
So he passed a coding challenge but can't get hired because she's not submitted his resume and she is the gatekeeper into this organization.
Now imagine how many other black, Hispanic, and women candidates, Asian candidates, this individual has done that too, because the pattern that you show up with today is not a unknown process.
(13:21):
You've done this before.
You're sort of good at this because you've done it before.
It was so easy for you to say, oh, go do the challenge.
Call me if you ever get it done.
Yeah, and people spend so much time validating.
The biases or the choices they've already made, rather than learning from the data that's coming in.
(13:43):
This is what one of the challenges, the basic challenges of talent acquisition with resumes now.
Crude up place is anti resume.
So just putting out my bias there we are all about finding alternatives to resumes because there's so much bias and there's so many assumptions that are built into them.
So with that bias in mind, what we find.
(14:03):
Is that people like her, like that example, make a decision based on some pattern recognition on the resume, and then spend the rest of the time in whatever that process is validating that decision.
Very few people are really good at learning and changing their best, their opinions, their decisions, which is why it's so important.
(14:24):
That first impression is so important because it's really hard to rewrite it.
It's human nature.
So in this case, something on his resume, and it could have been his demographics, it could have been someplace he worked at that she's like, oh, they make horrible people there.
It could have been where he got educated, right? Whatever it was.
Something triggered in her that this is not a good ca candidate.
(14:45):
Everything else she's gonna do from now on, because she's really good at her job.
You know, as a recruiter, she's awesome at her job, which means she has to be right.
So she's going to find a way to be right.
Otherwise she was wrong and potentially biasing or discriminatory.
And that can't be right cuz that's not me.
And so therefore, but we see it all the time in talent acquisition, whether it's the recruiter, whether it's the hiring manager, it's not usually malicious, it can be, it's not usually malicious.
(15:13):
It's pattern recognition, it's comfort level.
It's, I don't wanna take a risk.
I need someone who's really good for this team.
And then the logic goes something like this.
I'm amazing.
This person's like me.
They must be amazing.
I'm gonna go ahead and hire them, which is why you tend to get so much homogeny in teams if you're not thinking through and deliberate about how you go through that decision making process.
(15:41):
So when, and I know about the work that you do at the career place, right? And one of the reasons why we're doing this together today and why we have continued to have conversations over the last three, almost four years now, is there has to be a point where talent acquisition makes a shift.
(16:02):
Okay.
And I do, I honestly don't think that organizations spend enough time on talent acquisition and the biases built in to the talent acquisition process.
Yes, I've worked with organizations that could not remove name and gender, so I would be doing data analysis on how people get hired.
(16:24):
Okay.
And what we try to do when we go into organizations is recreate the hiring funnel.
Okay? So how does, how what, what got the applicant into the funnel in the first place? Let me look at the ad.
Let me look at what was written.
Let me look at where you sourced that information.
Then I look at what was the initial review process.
(16:45):
Yes.
Who looked at that application? What was their biases? How many, and if you take it now down to the first review process, how many diverse candidates d get through the review process based on the reviewer? Sometimes we don't actually go down to the reviewer.
We say, well, you know, we had 400 candidates that made it to the end.
(17:07):
Okay, but how many started at the top? Was it 10,000 and only 400 made it to the end and you hired two? So I try to unpack the hiring process and I ask really critical questions when I'm unpacking it.
And what I often find is people are eliminated at various parts of the hiring process.
(17:27):
They're eliminated.
They're eliminated on mask.
And there's Nori, no rhyme or reason often for the elimination, but what is coming up right now that I have heard is I am matching the candidate to the hiring manager because the hiring manager doesn't like X, Y, or z.
(17:50):
Yes, yes, that definitely happens.
And there's also hitting or implied expectations that are communicated back and forth between the hiring manager and hiring team and the recruiter.
And depending on the organizations, a lot of times recruiters and talent acquisition are seen as execution.
Branches, I'm told what to do, I must do that.
(18:14):
Versus advisor or expertise areas where No, no, I know the rules of how to engage and legally and fairly evaluate talent.
And as an expert I can help you figure out what you actually need versus these assumptions.
So, and you were talking about how we need to do a transition.
(18:35):
We absolutely do.
First of all.
We need to transition our mindset of T A T A is not an organization that looks stuff up in a job board of choice.
They aren't just pushing out somebody else's content in the form of a job description or variations thereof.
We have to transition them just like we see in other branches of HR into that true business partner, because we need to have the expertise, not just from a legal and compliance standpoint, but from a impact standpoint of being able to attract great talent across all demographics, across all attributes of humanity.
(19:13):
So we truly get the best and not just repetition of what we already have.
But we also need them to help the hiring managers, to help the hiring teams truly understand and then find what they need.
And it's okay that a hiring manager is not an expert in that because it's not what they do every day.
Right.
It's only when they need somebody that they're even going through this process who goes through it every day, who can build up those skills and abilities That understanding that that strength is talent acquisition, but then we need to let them use that strength.
(19:47):
And then the third piece, and you brought it up so elegantly in that exp, in that experience of your friend, as we have to hold our tone acquisition professionals to a high quality standard.
We give them this power, we give them these expectations.
We give them the role of being the experts, the communicators with our talent, the ones who can attract, the ones who can engage, the ones who can evaluate.
(20:13):
They must be able to do these things.
They must be able to do them to the best of the ability for our organizations, which means equitably, which means impactfully and fairly.
It also means in order to find true, fantastic talent, that's gonna help our organizations get to that next level, not just achieve what we've already achieved before.
Right.
And that is it.
That is it right there.
(20:35):
But, but how do, okay, so organizations are struggling with this, and the only thing that they're thinking about is we've got requisitions sitting here.
TA's job is to fill those requisitions, move people through.
I feel like a cattle call almost.
You know, you're at a cattle call, you push all the cattle into the, into the thing.
(20:57):
Somebody up at the top says, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We got some blue, green, orange.
Oh, okay.
Ferret them through.
Decide which one's gonna make it through and which one gets put back on the truck.
That's it.
That's where we're, we are.
That's how we have viewed talent acquisition.
It is.
It can be.
There's 40 job requisitions to fill.
You need to fill those 40 job requisitions.
(21:19):
But the challenge that I see is we're not doing an effective job of training, talent acquisition to be champions for diverse candidates through the hiring process.
We're not giving them the power to challenge the leaders, the hiring managers that they are working with.
(21:41):
We're not giving them enough accountability for the process of getting a candidate from point A to point B, right? We're basically saying, candidate, the candidate's gonna make it through.
Everything's gonna be okay.
We're gonna say a prayer on the other end.
We're gonna get the right candidate.
We can't keep doing this.
(22:05):
Yeah, and what's really interesting is we have a parallel because an excuse that we hear all the time is that there's just too many, you know, you have to get through.
We have to do it fast.
We need that person in the seat right away.
First of all, Anyone who has managed people had to hire somebody that have been on a team knows that filling the seat is only the beginning.
(22:28):
If you cannot retain that individual, if you cannot have that individual provide value to the team, all you're doing is repeating that process every few months.
Which is very detrimental to the team, to the morale, to the output productivity.
So it's not just a matter of find someone and fill the seat quickly, it's find the right person, somebody who can add to the team, who can bring those skills and abilities that we need to thrive.
(22:51):
Right? So shifting that to that person is important.
It is a future employee.
It is not just a number of fill in the seats, but here's one of the things that's really interesting to me, is we have a parallel within our businesses that is very similar, high throughput.
We have to spend the time and energy to do it right, because the outcome is super important, and that's our sales process.
(23:16):
Yep.
So we spend so much time and effort in how we're gonna brand, how we market, how we advertise, how we cultivate from a beginning, potential lead through the prospect process, into the closing the sale, and then beyond to have a strong account so that we're able to continue that relationship and generate revenue.
(23:37):
So we know how to do this at high volumes.
We know how to do this deliberately.
We know how to do this intelligently at high volumes.
So if we're that good at handling our products and our services, shouldn't we be that good at handling the people who create and manage and sell those pro products and services? So it is possible that excuse that there's too many and we just have to figure something out.
(23:59):
We already deal with that in other aspects of our business.
It's taking that concept, taking those skills, and applying it.
And then you brought up another really good point, and circling right back to the beginning of the conversation.
Mm-hmm.
About training and how it can't just be training and then what are you gonna do, right? Because now you're waiting and that one day is not gonna impact anything.
Right? But to your point, if you have a process, you have a skill, then you can train and measure and practice.
(24:29):
So it's not training for training's sake.
This is not a check the box to say that you've done it.
This is not a raise the awareness in some monthly routine for whatever the flavor of the month is.
What this is, is real skills that have a place within existing processes or designed processes.
If you don't have them yet, and they can be practiced, the output can be measured, and it has real impact to the business, in this case, to the quality, quantity of your candidates, your future employees, and that demographic representation.
(25:03):
Right.
And that that is, that is it right there.
I mean, I don't know that.
We think in business.
I was in I was in Washington, DC a couple weeks ago and I said, you know, d and i needs to be run like a business.
When you think about diversity and inclusion, it needs to be run like business.
You need to know all your buyer personas.
(25:24):
You need to know all the things that affect your buyers.
You need to be able to know what's keeping them up at night.
You need to be able to connect in on a a microscopic level with a.
The outward stakeholders within the organization, you have to run de and I like a business.
It is not a process.
It is a business impact and it is a business imperative and it should be run like a business.
(25:48):
But somehow when we get to our individual department areas like talent acquisition, there is a complete disconnect between what we train, what we expect.
How we empower what we continue on repetition, right? Because the process repeats and repeats and repeats itself.
(26:12):
But if we have bad repetition, right? For example, if you were a swimmer and you were doing the forward stroke wrong or the backstroke wrong, you wouldn't, you would be stuck in the water, just treading water.
That is where we are with talent acquisition.
We're stuck in the water, we're treading water.
There's no duplication.
(26:33):
I personally, and I've done a lot of training with talent acquisition groups and teams, and what I hear is I don't have enough time.
All I have time for is directs.
I do a good job of getting diverse candidates through the system.
I do that.
Okay, but.
I, I, I'll give you the funny, funny, funny joke.
(26:54):
I was doing a program for TA and HR together and I had one leader on Zoom herself and say, I don't have time for diversity.
Set it out loud.
I don't have time for diversity inclusion.
I don't have time to do what you want me to do.
All I have time for is to fill my ranks and whoever comes to that door, that's who I'm filling it with.
(27:17):
I don't have time to do what you need me to do.
She said out loud what the other 29 people on that zoom wanted to say.
She was brave enough and I said, you know what? You're brave.
You're brave enough to unmute yourself and say this.
So Melissa, tell me, what should we be doing? I am the Chief HR officer of an organization.
(27:41):
What should I be doing to fix talent acquisition and put it under a microscope and connect this divide that we have between what we say and what we do? Yes, such a great question.
I would say it starts with the data, with understanding where you stand right now.
(28:01):
Because without data, it's all opinion, it's all feelings, and you end up with a lot of people who say, just like what you're saying, you know, I don't have the time, or I'm doing my best, or, Hey, there just aren't enough people of, name your demographic or attribute here who want this type of role.
So there's every excuse in the world to justify.
(28:23):
What is already here versus understanding the current state.
So know what your data is.
If you don't have it, that's okay.
That's your first step, is collecting that data, the demographics of your candidates as they come in.
Of course, there's rules around that, so know what the rules are for a collection, but you can do an opt out.
Or opt-in collection for collecting those demographics.
(28:46):
So that way you have a sense.
And then to your point, make sure you know what those are, so you have an ability to watch how those demographics change throughout the process.
So those who are hitting that applied button or responding to those emails are outreaches to those that are getting into the middle, where they're going into the, the interview stages to those that are being selected because you wanna see if those demographics are changing.
(29:07):
What that is gonna do is allow you to then focus your next step of how you can start fixing or improving your process.
Because if you don't have representation at the beginning, you're certainly not gonna get representation at the end.
So if that's the problem, Then taking a look at, well, where are you reaching out to find those candidates? How are you sourcing? Where are you sourcing? What are those demographic pools and are there other opportunities, other communities to tap into to get talent that is worthy talent? I'm not saying just to fill the, the numbers I'm saying that is true talent that has the requirements, that has what you're looking for, that you're just not tapping into.
(29:44):
And there's a lot of different variations of that, but spending the time in that sourcing piece.
The other piece is the attraction piece.
Look at those descriptions, your website, how you are representing your culture and your brand.
Do what you already probably do all the time on the marketing side for your products and services.
Do some focus groups and some tasks, see how those messages are or are not resonating with different communities.
(30:11):
You can have a fabulous job.
In a nicely representa representative, diverse community, but you are only attracting certain individuals because of something that's lurking in the language, in the presentation, in the imagery.
Mm-hmm.
So find it.
And then you can change what that is.
You can resonate, or you can create multiple brands.
(30:32):
I give an example going back into our parallel conversation of advertising.
Mm-hmm.
Of Nike shoes.
Most people are familiar, at least in the US with the Nike brand.
Mm-hmm.
If you think of a good mid-level shoe, They have with variations of colors and themes, basically a, a whole line of mid-level shoes, right? With a whole range of demographics that are customers to those mid-level shoes.
(30:59):
What do you think would happen if they advertise those shoes? I.
With a nice couple that's older, that's walking down a path and it's kind of the sun lit and it's spurred singing.
It's gonna be great to a certain audience.
Are you gonna get a lot of younger, urban customers with that commercial? Even if the shoe is basically the same.
(31:23):
No, that's not my shoe.
That's their shoe.
Right, right.
If you have a bunch of kids who are playing basketball in the middle of the city and laughing with their friends and racing down to catch their bus, are you gonna sell that shoe to the couple that's Bulls taking walks on Saturday afternoons because their kids are outta school and they don't have to worry about that anymore? No.
(31:45):
Cause that's not their shoe.
Even though the shoe is the same.
Right.
It's how we advertise is how we engage with our audience.
Mm-hmm.
So the job can be the same, but what we care about as various audiences as target markets, as we call 'em in the advertising world, mm-hmm.
Can be different.
It doesn't mean you're any less genuine.
(32:05):
That shoe is fantastic for walks.
That shoe is fantastic for having fun with your friends.
It's just telling a variety of stories to resonate with the audience.
So that's the attraction side.
If you are seeing that the demographics change over time.
So that you start with maybe a lot of representation in whatever you're measuring, but then over time you're seeing what we call the Pacman effect.
(32:31):
You know, one of those demographics eating the other, so it disappears.
Mm-hmm.
Then you probably have more issues with equity and inclusion throughout your process, so finding where you start seeing the demographic shifts, not numbers going down, because that's what it's designed for.
Right.
Your, your hiring process is supposed to go from a large beginning of the funnel to a small end of the funnel for a final selection.
(32:53):
That's good.
Having all of your representation disappearing as you go through that funnel, that could be very problematic.
And that is exactly we, we do a course called DE E N I data Storytelling, and inside of that course we teach individuals how to mine data and how to tell stories inside of their data.
(33:17):
And I don't know that we do a good enough focus group on people who don't make it through the hiring funnel or the people who get an offer and who decline the offer.
Yes.
And they'll say, I got a better job.
But is that really what the decision was? The decision was, and I got a better job.
The decision was I had a pretty bad experience.
(33:37):
During that hiring process, and I just don't feel comfortable with that hiring manager and how I was treated, and so I think I'm gonna take this other job because I feel way more comfortable here.
And a lot of times, just like the earlier story that you told, the data tells a very strong story and sometimes an uncomfortable story, right? It's not uncommon that you will see demographics, people of color, women disappear as soon as those demographics are exposed.
(34:05):
So if you have a process where you might hide the names, hide the genders, hide what you can, if not have it completely anonymous, and it goes all the way through code review.
And you see the demographics holding that distribution holding.
Then you get to that interview where now they're showing up and suddenly you've got that Pacman effect.
That is one of the, it's very prevalent.
(34:27):
Mm-hmm.
It's when a lot of those assumptions take place.
We actually change the way if you do not have a set script.
On what it is you're supposed to interview on what questions you're supposed to ask, how to do the follow ups, and I'm a big a fan of, of the set scripts.
We want that equity, which means everyone should be getting the same questions because without it, what ends up happening is women, especially people of color mm-hmm.
(34:53):
Are put on the defensive.
Why do you deserve to be here? Where our, our colleagues, our male colleagues, our white colleagues are put on the offensive.
Tell me about yourself and how and what you've achieved.
Mm-hmm.
So even if they are exactly the same in terms of capability, if you have one group that's spending the majority of their time defending themselves and another group spending the majority of the time talking about how great they are.
(35:19):
Mm-hmm.
What is that impression that the hiring team is gonna walk away with? And all of that comes in the tone and the language choice of the questions.
So another thing you can do is, cuz you asked about the different impactful things that you can do to fix the process, one of the things you can start with, especially if you know your problem is in the process and not in the attraction and sourcing.
(35:43):
Is creating an objective uniform process before you do anything else.
If you just create that consistency, you have the scripts, everyone gets the same questions, you have the answer key.
That one is huge.
So that you have, here are the things that make a good answer.
Here's the things that make a bad answer, so you're not left to know it when you see it.
(36:05):
Mm-hmm.
And instead, you've got the key in front of you.
So that's gonna take away some of that comfort.
Mm-hmm.
Validation and turn it into objective evaluation.
Now you've got a strong start starting point.
Now you can start asking questions.
Are these the right questions? Am I getting the right information? Rather than questioning my evaluation of individuals, you're spending the time evaluating the questions, the process, not the people, and we are better and more comfortable at that.
(36:32):
Right? That that is a great.
A great lens to, to take us through.
And I think that is a critical takeaway.
Melissa, that is important because I know that when you and I first started talking, you were talking about software that makes everything disappear.
There's no identifier there.
(36:52):
It's just, just the information about my experience.
And that gives a diverse candidate.
And, and you had created this software to sort of make all of this disappear.
Right? And then the, the individual would then come to the hiring manager without any bias being built in.
You wouldn't know that my name was Laia or Margaret.
You wouldn't be able to look at me and say X, Y, or z.
(37:13):
I remember when my kids were little and I, my, when my sons were born I kept, it was the time when you could do a lot of different types of names and I said, Nope.
My kids are going to be, have simple names.
You're not gonna know who they are at the door.
Because I knew from an HR desk that name discrimination is a real thing, right? And so, In thinking their life through, I made the decision to go simple name.
(37:42):
Right? And that's, and most people don't think like that, but as a diverse person, that's what I thought about.
Right? And I thought of ways to eliminate bias.
And I know for myself, one of the things that happens to me is if you get me on the phone, I'll go call somewhere and I'm on the phone and I have this eloquent conversation, and then I show up and the person is like, Right.
(38:08):
Oh, she's black.
Wait, she didn't sound that way on the phone.
Yeah.
Okay.
My mother told me when I was three years old.
People will hear you before they see you.
Make sure that they hear you well.
But now we're at the candidate spot.
So as we wrap this up and put a bow on it, What is the solution? Is it software solution? I've heard you talk about software.
(38:32):
I've heard you talk about process.
I've heard you talk about script.
I've, we've bantered on training.
If you are walking into an organization tomorrow morning and they didn't have a problem with, as they call it, attracting talent, but they can't hire them, what would you tell 'em to do? All of the above.
(38:55):
Just like anything else, technology is an enabler.
It is not a replacement.
It is not a, it is not something that's gonna solve all your problems.
That beautiful easy button is left to the Staples commercials.
It is not reality.
So your technology's important.
It's gonna save your people a lot of time.
It can help with guardrails, it can help with structure.
It will not create a good process from a bad one.
(39:15):
You still need to implement it and use it in a good and effective way.
So you want technology and as a name enabler, you want process because those standard operating procedures, those SOPs are what's dictating how to accomplish a task.
They help with training.
They help get your team up to speed.
They help reduce the liability of mistakes.
(39:37):
They help increase the effectiveness because now you can tweak and you can manage the process rather than individual outcome, because that could be a lot if you're hiring the lot.
So you wanna manage it on in bulk in the process.
So you wanna do process design, technology enablement.
You need people to understand the process.
And be effective and successful.
That is training and practice and measuring and feedback.
(40:03):
So you need all of that.
You just like any other process.
Again, this is nothing new for organizations, we're just applying it in a new way.
Think about for you in an organization, back to the sales team, cuz it's a great analogy.
Think about your sales team's CRM versus your ats.
Right.
They have a process that they are using for the sales process.
(40:23):
They are measuring things like phone calls, like touchpoints to those clients and those prospects, they probably are recording the conversations because they're constantly tweaking the messaging.
You can do all that.
You have those capabilities within your organization.
You're just transferring them into your talent acquisition.
(40:43):
And could you imagine a, any other part of the organization saying, here's your technology.
Go.
Right, right, right.
Or here is the script.
Go.
No, it's a whole bunch of things.
It is what you're supposed to do, how you're supposed to do it.
Practicing, validating, adjusting, and learning.
Whether it's because I'm still getting developing the skill or because the message that worked really well last year, it's not working anymore.
(41:10):
This year, we're in a different market, so we're gonna need to naturally adjust it anyway.
Or I'm going after a new market.
We've expanded our sources.
We've expanded which communities we're gonna reach into the shoe commercial that wor, that worked really well in a middle class suburban.
Target market isn't gonna work in my, in this other, in the rural market, right? So, mm-hmm.
(41:33):
That's okay.
So you're constantly tweaking, growing, evolving, but you need to do all of those things at once.
You need to have the process, you need to have your augmentation, which is your, your technology, whatever form that works for you, you need to have training so your people know how to execute that process and do it successfully.
You need to measure.
Your outcomes against some sort of goal, so you know if you're doing it well or not, and then have methods to adjust and learn.
(42:01):
Yep.
So finally, how can people get in touch with you, Melissa Dobbins and Career Place? Tell me about that in a few minutes and then we're gonna wrap up today.
This was a empowering conversation about talent acquisition, and I'm so happy that we were able to do this and to do this today because as we close out this quarter and we move now to the next quarter, this is where the rubber meets the road.
(42:29):
We can't say the great resignation.
Okay.
We've, we're probably not saying that word anymore.
Alright.
But what we are having is the great retention, but we're having an issue hiring talent as well.
And we're having an issue with diverse hiring and we still continue to have an issue with diverse candidates coming in the door and women.
Count certain roles.
So tell me briefly about Career Place and how do we get in touch with you? Yes, absolutely.
(42:54):
So Crew Up Place, we do a couple things.
We do do technology, we do candidate screening.
It is a replacement for resumes and those screener phone calls.
We use structure, we use anonymity, we use measuring so that you've got those guardrails.
It is the concept of augmentation to a process or making a process easier and more efficient.
(43:14):
We also, because process is so important, we do training and it's all around that actionable, measurable outcome in town acquisition and beyond.
You know, as we, we were talking about before, it's not just a matter of getting people through the door, it's keeping them there.
And so the idea of how do you create these productive, thriving environments across.
(43:37):
All demographics and attributes of humanity.
So everyone you bring in with that talent you need mm-hmm.
Is thriving and being part of that additive culture, being part of that productivity.
And then finally we do a bit of consulting.
We're not major into consulting, but to make sure that these tools that we're providing in terms of training, in terms of technology are being optimized.
(43:58):
And so wrapping that up, So that we are setting our clients up for success.
So that is what career do place does.
You can reach me either on LinkedIn, Melissa Dobbins crew.place,
you will find me or you can send me a message@mdobbinscareer.place.
Great.
Great.
And so Yoda, you've got a whole bunch of Star Wars behind you.
(44:19):
I can't, without saying, okay, how much Star Wars memorabilia do you have? This is what my husband calls the more professional looking memorabilia, the rest of it is off screen.
So one of the things as a D E I practitioner and advocate, we are very much be and celebrate your authentic self.
(44:41):
And it's such an important part of creating highly productive and.
Impactful environments and cultures of understanding one another is being proud of who you are.
That's such an important part because once you're proud of who you are, you can very proudly share it.
And I mean all of who you are, and this is part of who I am, so we.
(45:02):
Proudly display.
I proudly display pieces of myself, and that includes, if you look in, in in detail, there are things that my daughters have made me that are on display back there and various things I've accumulated throughout the years.
Mostly star warfs, but I think you've got a little Ironman on the, in the corner there.
Oh my.
She's got stuff there.
Yeah, I got you.
Got a bunch.
(45:23):
So the orchid over here is my passion.
I am an orchid nut.
I have orchids all over my back patio.
I am an orchid.
Person, so I show up as the orchid.
Love orchids.
There's a beautiful orchid room at Longwood Gardens, which is in Pennsylvania.
My daughters, we go there every, every few weeks and they take pictures.
(45:46):
So both of my, my girls are in one's in elementary and one's in middle school, and they just.
Love the variety and the beautiful colors of orchids.
So, so we go and we take lots and lots and lots of photographs.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, Melissa, thank you so much for coming to Inclusion unscripted today.
And thank you for joining me in this impactful conversation of putting talent acquisition under the microscope and everything that you've left behind.
(46:13):
And we've had a few folks listening live.
Thank you Gina and Trina for being here live with us today.
The information that you've shared is actionable.
It's, it's easy to administer.
If we put the investment into talent acquisition, the talent acquisition process is the gateway to the organization.
And if we don't get that right, and if we don't fix that, then we really sh can't fix the after product, which is, you know, retention.
(46:39):
We gotta get the door correct before we can really even address retention.
So thank you, Melissa, for joining us, and we're gonna sign off for today.
But hang on everyone.
Thank you for, for being here this week.
We will be back again on Friday at 2:00 PM next Friday at 2:00 PM and for all of you who are members of at t d, my team and I are going to the at t d conference.
(47:02):
I am speaking and exhibiting at at t d in San Diego.
So if you are in San Diego and you're list.
To this, come to the a t D conference and join us there.
Thank you again for joining today.
Thank you, Trina.
Thank you, Gina.
And all of you who are listening after to the recording, we appreciate your support.
Take care, and we'll see you again next Friday.
You are like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound, and when a fall you tied a rope to me.
(47:35):
You blessed me of every day I was down with an illusion, like a sparrow with broken wings.
But now shine.
Will your reflection on me.
Take care, everyone.
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