The Pomegranate Principle

CHAPTER EIGHTPRINCIPLE 1: Building a Diverse Talent Pipeline in Advance of Hiring Needs

Companies and organizations that consistently produce diverse slates and consistently have success recruiting diverse talent almost never start from scratch with sourcing diverse candidates. They begin building a diverse talent pipeline well in advance of their hiring needs. There are a few successful tactics that I have seen companies and organizations employ to make sure they always have both diversity and liquidity in their candidate pipelines.

I am going to start with helping an organization in a difficult scenario: a Phase One company that does not have a track record of recruiting diverse talent, or one that is trying, but is struggling mightily, to do so. The strategy of building a diverse talent pipeline starts by building some initial awareness of your company and organization and to continue parallel processing other more specific outreach and employer branding efforts within these communities.

When it comes to building a diverse talent pipeline, the first thing to do is to start telling your story within communities of color. And the easiest way to do that is to find a compelling narrative about some element of your organizational culture that might resonate in professional communities of color. I know what you are thinking: we are in the agribusiness/cloud computing/pharma business and there is not really a narrative here. Every time I hear that from a client—and I hear it often—I ...