Editor’s note: Veteran entrepreneur and investor Donald Thompson is a regular contributor to WRAL TechWire. His column is published on Wednesdays.

RALEIGH – After some serious economic belt-tightening and workforce reduction throughout 2020, this summer is kicking off with a rush to find new talent. Right now, nearly everyone is hiring. In fact, as Techwire recently reported, there are currently almost 50,000 jobs available in the Triangle area. If you read this column regularly, you’ll know this is a topic I’m invested in, with my top tips for retaining current employees and recruiting diverse professionals. Why? One reason.

This summer’s hiring boom presents a huge opportunity to build more diverse and inclusive workplaces by opening up some untapped talent pools and investigating your hiring process to root out any hidden bias. I don’t want you to miss that opportunity.

Especially when you’re in the startup space, one bad hire can be detrimental to your growth, company culture, and productivity. Every business wants to grow, but we have to take the time to grow well, not just quickly. In that vein, let me share some of the biggest mistakes I often see in recruitment and hiring. 

You can learn more by joining my team next week — June 17th at 12:00 noon — for a free webinar about the Must-Haves to Develop a Diverse Talent Pipeline. And if you want to go even further, check out our new white paper on Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring Your Diversity Leader. The pitfalls in this paper hold true when you’re hiring for just about any role, not just a DEI leader, so I want to highlight them here as well. 

  • DON’T neglect your prep work. 

If you want to hire well, first you have to know why you’re hiring, what you’re looking for, and how you’re going to find the best candidate. That means preparing a fully inclusive, accessible, and accurate job description and application process. Take the time to discuss and clarify prerequisites and expectations for every role, and make sure that every person who is part of the hiring process knows exactly what role you are hiring for, especially if the position will be new to your organization.

Advertise the opening on a broad range of job boards and social media, and standardize your interview process to mitigate the impacts of unconscious and implicit bias. Everyone has bias — even people who have the best intentions, knowledge, and skills to hire inclusively —  so, it’s critical that you use a diverse interview team who will challenge each other’s assumptions and impressions.

Additionally, make sure that you are using language that is gender-neutral, welcoming, and respectful identities and that every step of your end-to-end process is accessible to people with disabilities. Two great resources to learn those skills are The Diversity Movement’s “Say This, Not That” inclusive language thesaurus and my friend John Samuel’s article for Recruiter.com: “If Your Job Applications Aren’t Accessible, Your Diversity and Inclusion Strategy Is Incomplete.”

  • DON’T prioritize speed over fit. 

It’s tempting to fill an open position with someone who is conveniently available and eager to get started, but you want to be completely confident that this person will also do the best possible work. Remember, finding the right candidate for any role will depend on the quality of your hiring process, not its speed. To slow down and gather more information, consider trial experiences like short-term contracts or freelance work that will test a person’s skill and how they interact with your team. 

Also, remember to look for people who are motivated to do the job, not just get the job. Sometimes, that means you’ll have to fight your own implicit bias, since first encounters can be powerful moments. As Business News Daily puts it, “It’s so easy to assume that a firm handshake and good eye contact means someone is competent across the board. […] Don’t use the interview to try to validate a good or bad snap judgment. Hiring managers should actually try to disprove their initial impression.” Selecting a diverse interview team, and standardizing their interview questions, will help you to  avoid this misstep. 

  • DON’T neglect necessary skills.

Get specific about the skill set your new hire must bring, and resist the tendency to shift or compromise on whether a person has those skills because of any impressive names or titles on their resume. Focusing on required skills will help you keep productivity and quality of work at the center of mind. You want to cast a wide net in terms of where and how you find great talent, but then you want to be as specific as possible about what is necessary for success in the role. 

One way to avoid this pitfall is to draft your job description with a heavy emphasis on tasks and responsibilities, not previous experience or qualifications. Does the person really need 10 years of experience in business-to-business sales, or do they need to know the industry you work in and have the right set of skills to connect with people, be persuasive, and learn on their feet? Is a college degree really necessary for the job, if what you’re really looking for is someone with proven entrepreneurial and communication skills who has been exceeding their sales quotas for multiple years?

  •  DON’T look for someone who fits.

Looking for someone who’s a “good culture fit” often leads to biased hiring and homogenous teams. Instead, look for someone who’s a “good culture add”. Yes, you want a candidate who aligns with your mission and values but that doesn’t mean you want them to “fit in.” What you actually want them to do is move the needle — to expand your team’s capabilities and capacities, to make it better and stronger by adding their own insights and experiences. 

For each new hire, ask yourself “how will this person help to expand our diversity of thought and perspective? What cognitive diversity and lived experiences will they bring to the table as part of this team?” Forbes describes it this way: “Why bother recruiting an amazing, diverse pool of players for your band if you’re going to force them all to play the same chords? To stand out you don’t need more carbon-copy guitarists. You need a violinist. And a DJ. This is how we create new sounds.” 

By avoiding these four common missteps, you can create a more robust hiring process that makes your recruitment more effective and efficient in finding top candidates for every role. For business leaders, 2021 offers a tremendous chance to grow and evolve by developing more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces. Let’s seize the opportunity.

About the Author

Donald Thompson is an entrepreneur, public speaker, author, podcaster, and executive coach, recently named one of “Forbes’ Next 1000: Upstart Entrepreneurs Redefining the American Dream.” He is also co-founder and CEO of The Diversity Movement, a results-oriented, data-driven strategic partner for organization-wide diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. He is also a board member for several organizations in marketing, healthcare, banking, technology and sports, a Certified Diversity Executive (CDE), and a thought leader on goal achievement and influencing company culture. You can connect with Donald on LinkedIn and at donaldthompson.com.