We all know we should be hiring inclusively and ethically…
but do YOONO what this really means in practice? Brush up on your inclusive recruitment principles with this complete guide. It’s time to get your recruitment ethics in shape!
Inclusive recruitment practices should be in place within your business for two good reasons. First, hiring should be fair and equitable, meaning that everyone has an equal chance of being considered bias-free for a role. It’s just good ethics to make this a reality, and people will see your business in a better light as a result.
Second, ethical hiring can have HUGE benefits for a business. Like the sound of bringing in fresh, perhaps unexpected talent to the table? Or expanding your company’s resilience with a greater diversity of skills, ideas and perspectives? Thought so.
Often the only barrier to ethical recruitment is not really knowing where to begin. That’s where we come in! We’re here to show you the ropes of inclusive hiring, so you can start hiring more inclusively and equitably. We’ll cover:
Read on to transform how you hire, and start bringing fantastic talent into your company.
Is there a recruiter code of ethics?
The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) provides a Code of Professional Practice that offers UK recruiters guidance on recruiting ethically.
In brief, their inclusive hiring checklist includes:
Compliancy with the law: Recruiters should observe UK employment legislation, in particular the Employment Agencies Act 1973 and the Conduct Regulations 2003 (along with its more recent amendments).
Respect for work relationships: This includes treating clients and co-workers with respect at all times, as well as striving for ethical customer service, due diligence and accuracy of information.
Acting with honesty and transparency: Recruiters should always behave appropriately, within ethical standards, and not engage in any activities that would bring the profession into disrepute.
Respect for confidentiality and privacy: Confidentiality of client and jobseeker data must be respected at all stages of the recruitment process.
Respect for diversity: Recruiters should strive to promote diversity within their working practices, and stay up-to-date with recruitment industry information.
What are unethical recruitment practices?
Unethical recruitment practices can range from the obvious to more subtle practices that you may not realise you are doing.
Some of the more obvious unethical recruitment issues include:
Discrimination: By eliminating candidates from opportunities on the basis of factors like age, gender, race, disability or faith, or by introducing bias into the hiring process with biased interview questions or unconscious bias.
Misleading job descriptions: It’s tempting to embellish the truth to make a job sound more enticing, or mislead candidates with inflated salary ranges or by omitting key information about the role. Don’t do it!
Ghosting: Whether in dating or recruitment, no one wants to be ghosted. You should strive to respond respectfully to every enquiry, application and inform rejected candidates politely and promptly.
Excessive or non-compliant background checks: While a compliant background check is good practice for ensuring candidates are suitable for a role, performing too many checks or using background screening tools which are non-compliant (such as scanning private, rather than public, data) can risk introducing both bias and discrimination into the hiring process.
How to hire ethically: 4 things to do now
Ethical recruitment doesn’t need to be complicated. You can easily incorporate better and more inclusive hiring practices with these four simple tasks.
Now you know the basics of what you should and shouldn’t be adhering to in terms of recruitment ethics, let’s look at some ethical recruitment examples that you can easily integrate into your existing hiring process.
1. Practice ‘blind CV’ reading
On receipt of a candidate’s CV, it is advisable for an individual who will not be assessing the application to first remove any private data or personal information from the CV, not limited to but including name, gender, photo (if provided) and contact details. Requesting a standardised CV or form-based application is also best practice for ensuring every candidate is assessed on an even footing.
2. Standardise interview questions
Prepare a set of standardised interview questions which avoid straying into personal territory, which runs the risk of introducing bias into the decision-making process. All candidates should be invited to respond to the same set of questions to ensure fairness.
3. Advise clients to use a panel interview technique
A panel of interviewers is much better practice than an individual or even pair of individuals. This reduces the potential for conscious and unconscious bias creeping into the process, and helps to create a balanced view of the candidate that is constructed from multiple perspectives.
4. Use compliant background screening
A background screening check is an essential final step in ensuring someone is suitable for a role, eliminating any risk that you could be passing on a poor hire to your client.
Some background screening checks are more compliant than others, with many, especially those which look into confidential or private data, requiring the explicit consent of the candidate to be performed. It’s advisable to use a background screening check that only processes already publicly available data relating to the candidate, meaning that no consent is required, and you can perform the check worry-free that the data sourced would already be easily available through manual research.
Save time and stay compliant with GDPR regulation by using an intelligent screening service like YOONO, which generates a report based on the candidate’s social media, employment history and career background.
Ethical recruitment = better business for everyone
Ethical working practices shouldn’t simply be something we feel we have to adhere to. Beyond a box-ticking exercise, ensuring that your recruitment practices are ethical, equitable and inclusive benefit every person involved—recruiter, jobseeker and client.
A more diverse and multi-talented workforce? Here at YOONO, we’re all for it. Run a YOONO report on your candidate and you might be surprised what hidden gems you discover.
Weekend volunteer, high achiever or side hustle entrepreneur? We believe that every candidate has a bigger story to tell, and that through data-led insights you can find the people that will bring something exceptional into a business.