Let&rsquo;s address the elephant in the room. Building a diverse workforce is about more than just tips, tricks, and short-term changes. It&rsquo;s about building an ever-growing respect for diversity and inclusion and continuing to learn as time goes on.
Blog posts, like this one, are a kickoff to a dedicated effort that deserves your attention and care. Read on to learn more about building a diverse workforce that will bring you success for years to come.

<h2 style="text-align: center;">What Is Workplace Diversity?</h2>
Workplace diversity is the differences in characteristics among employees in a workplace. This can include race, ethnicity, gender, education level, etc.
Since the social justice movements of 2020 and beyond, workplace diversity has become a critical aspect of day-to-day life. In fact, <a href="https://www.selectsoftwarereviews.com/blog/workplace-diversity-statistics" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">76% of people say that diversity is important to them when looking for a new role</a>. Investing in diversity means investing not just in the right thing to do, but in a value that jobseekers require.
When our companies reflect the world that we do business in, we not only get financial success, we build trust within our community.

<h2 style="text-align: center;">How to Recruit a Diverse Workforce</h2>
When you&rsquo;ve decided to invest time into transforming your diversity hiring practices, it can feel overwhelming knowing where to start. These 5 steps will get you on the right track! 
<h3>Start Where You&rsquo;re At</h3>
Before you do anything else, understand where you are at and what you can do to make people more comfortable and respected at work.
Ask yourself questions like:
<ul>
<li>How accessible is our workplace for disabled people?</li>
<li>Is our leadership trained on how to handle racial microaggressions at work?</li>
<li>What sort of support do we provide to parents returning to the workplace?</li>
<li>Do we have any biases that we think are &ldquo;no big deal&rdquo;?</li>
</ul>
Beyond the personal side, look at the data! How are different groups represented at every level of your organization? Do you experience a particular loss in retention amongst a particular group? Who is most likely to get a promotion on your team? Are salaries and benefits equal throughout your company?
By looking directly at the data, you can avoid trying to tackle personal biases with your own good intentions and instead make decisions based on that data.
Diversity hiring isn&rsquo;t a passing fad. It relies on fostering a culture of inclusion and belonging so that all team members feel psychologically safe and welcome when they come to work.
This step will likely be the most difficult. You&rsquo;ll need to confront some long held biases that you and your team likely may not realize that you have. Working with an expert in diversity in the workplace can be a great help! 
<h3>Invest in Unexpected Talent Sources</h3>
Think about it like fishing: Let&rsquo;s say your neighborhood has a fishing pond. Every month, it is loaded with bass, so every time you go fishing there, you catch a bass. But you need salmon for the recipe you&rsquo;re trying to make. If you go to your local pond and expect to catch a salmon, you&rsquo;re going to be disappointed.&nbsp;
You need to fish somewhere else to catch the type of fish you&rsquo;re looking for.
Deciding to recruit a diverse workforce is similar. If your current workplace looks more similar than different, you need to search for candidates in sources that are different from what you usually do. You need to fish from a new pond.
Have you ever considered funding or supporting professional development for your more junior staff or building out an internship or apprenticeship program? What about hosting a job fair for recently certified professionals?&nbsp;
At CareerCircle, we partner with employers, like you, who are passionate about recruiting a diverse workforce, but need a helping hand to get going. Our packaged service offerings can provide you with everything you need to get diverse talent into our pipeline, but we are always happy to build a package that directly serves your goals.&nbsp;
If you&rsquo;re just starting out with diversity hiring, we recommend <a href="https://go.careercircle.com/request-a-demo" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">speaking with our team</a> about hosting a virtual job fair that will help increase your employer brand and the diversity of your talent pool.
<a href="https://go.careercircle.com/request-a-demo" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Get in touch with us today to learn more!</a> 
<h3>Embrace Equity</h3>
The fact of the matter is that equality often isn&rsquo;t enough to really make the needed changes for workplace diversity. Cue the role of equity.
In terms of recruiting and hiring, <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/equity-vs-equality-a-slight-but-crucial-difference-in-the-workforce" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">equality means providing everyone with the same resources, no matter their need. Whereas equity means providing the resources that that individual needs to be successful.</a>
For example, equality means requiring all interviews to happen between 12 and 1 PM ET. Equity would be scheduling interviews at any time that is best for the jobseeker (like after they have completed their workday at their current role).
The more equity you can bring into your recruiting process, the better. What equity is in your situation varies depending on your current process, but some things to consider are:
<ul>
<li>How are candidates with disabilities supported through the hiring process? Can we provide any resources to make the process more accessible?</li>
<li>Can we provide any benefits to appeal to parents returning to the workforce or entry-level people starting off their career?</li>
<li>Are we judging candidates based on traits that may be out of their control like eye contact? How can we transform how we judge candidates to ensure a bias-free environment?</li>
</ul>
<h3> Rework Your Job Requirements and Postings</h3>
Did you know that <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90661349/dear-female-jobseeker-apply-for-the-job-ignore-the-qualifications" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">women apply for 20% fewer jobs than men despite having otherwise similar job search behavior</a>? This often stems from feeling like they have to match all of a job posting&rsquo;s requirements before even considering applying.
Requiring certain industry experience or education, in-office work, and more isn&rsquo;t a problem if it&rsquo;s truly needed for someone to complete the job. But if they are more of a &ldquo;nice-to-have&rdquo; requirement, you could be driving otherwise qualified, diverse candidates away from your role.
When you are writing job requirements, make sure that the skills and responsibilities you list are actually necessary for success in the role.
It&rsquo;s also important to consider the exact words used in your job posting.&nbsp;
Textio, a workplace language guidance software, found that &ldquo;<a href="https://textio.com/blog/language-in-your-job-post-predicts-the-gender-of-your-hire/13034792944" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">common phrases that exert a bias effect&hellip;include exhaustive, enforcement, and fearless (all masculine-tone) and transparent, catalyst, and in touch with (all feminine-tone)</a>.&rdquo; But it&rsquo;s not just that the words put out a particular tone in the posting. It affects hiring outcomes. Textio&rsquo;s study found that, &ldquo;<a href="https://textio.com/blog/language-in-your-job-post-predicts-the-gender-of-your-hire/13034792944" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">In jobs where a man is hired, the original job post averages almost twice as many masculine-tone phrases as feminine. In jobs where a woman is hired, Textio finds the exact opposite: twice as many feminine-tone phrases as masculine in the job post.</a>&rdquo;
To take some actionable steps,&nbsp;<a href="https://katrinakibben.com/2023/03/07/how-to-write-a-job-post-free-ebook/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">check out this ebook from Kat Kibben</a>, an expert job post writer who helps teams optimize their postings with an eye for removing bias and increasing clarity.&nbsp; 
<h3>Adopt a 360&deg; View of a Candidate</h3>
When a jobseeker creates a profile in CareerCircle, they are prompted to fill out what we call their <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/how-the-360deg-candidate-view-helps-hiring-managers-find-the-right-fit" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Candidate 360&deg; profile</a>. This profile gathers information like, contact information, employment preferences, passion projects, career history, compensation preferences, certifications, and more.
For the <a href="https://go.careercircle.com/request-a-demo" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">hiring managers on our platform</a>, this helps showcase not just a candidate&rsquo;s work experience, but more of what makes them who they are!
Remember that you can bring this 360&deg; understanding to every candidate you interact with by understanding that their experience and skills go far beyond what is just on a resume. Valuing the candidate and making an effort to understand how their transferable, hard, and soft skills blend to become the person they are is a simple way that you increase the diversity in your talent pool today.

When it comes to recruiting a diverse workforce, sometimes you need to make major changes that completely transform the things that you do. Other times, small, incremental changes will create the sustainable change that you need. Regardless of what steps you need to take or where this journey might take you, the effort is worth it to ensure that your workplace is welcoming, successful, and open to all.

If you're working on recruiting a diverse workforce, this blog post is here to help you take the  steps you need to take now.

How to Recruit a Diverse Workforce in 2023

Regardless of what steps you need to take or where this journey might take you, the effort is worth it to ensure that your workplace is welcoming, successful, and open to all.

One of the values we live by here at CareerCircle is to be the change you want to see.
When we realized that people&rsquo;s experience went beyond their resume, we created the <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/how-the-360deg-candidate-view-helps-hiring-managers-find-the-right-fit" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Candidate 360&deg; profile</a>. When we saw that the technology industry was sorely lacking in diversity, we started partnering with non-profit organizations who worked with underserved communities.&nbsp;
And this Mental Health Awareness Month, when <a href="https://www.stress.org/workplace-stress#:~:text=83%25%20of%20US%20workers%20suffer,stress%20affects%20their%20personal%20relationships." rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">83% of US workers report job-related stress</a>, we&rsquo;ve decided to tackle how work can be a place for wellness.
Now don&rsquo;t get us wrong&hellip;it&rsquo;s a challenge. But we&rsquo;re a team who has never shied away from a challenge.&nbsp;
In fact, we&rsquo;re the team who recently <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/the-power-of-changing-941-lives" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">helped 941 people get hired in less than 941 days</a> so we know that when we set our minds to something, we&rsquo;re going to accomplish it.
&nbsp;
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Kicking Off Our Wellness Journey Together</h2>
Our wellness initiative kicked off with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-sneeder-a49a723/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Kim Sneeder</a>, our Managing Director, opening the floor to the team to share with her one thing they love about the company culture and one that we need to change.
Because our leadership team and Kim, in particular, has been dedicated to creating a culture of transparency and honesty from day one, it wasn&rsquo;t an issue to be completely honest about what we were facing. One of the recurring topics that was brought up was focusing on wellness at work through professional development, accountability, and more.
<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/ewxYLMy9QSG7oMjZAwvH" alt="Image of CareerCircle team making homemade cards for kids" width="488" height="256" class="butter-float-right">
With this feedback in mind, the leadership team invited <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedcapshaw/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Ted Capshaw</a>, a business coach and dedicated leader who helps people and companies grow before tragedy, to speak with us at our <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7048678297672536064" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">National</a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7048678297672536064" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">&nbsp;Team Meeting</a> about the 8 pillars of wellness:
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Emotional</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Mental</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Physical</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Professional</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Financial</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Community</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Relationships/Connection</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Spiritual/Values</li>
</ul>
The presentation sparked one of the most important conversations we&rsquo;ve had amongst our team. People opened up about how work interacts with their life and the goals they have to make the changes they need to make. It also prompted the 3 key changes at our company we&rsquo;re implementing.

<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">How We&rsquo;re Supporting Wellness at Work</h2>

After our conversations at our National Team Meeting, we took a pulse survey of our team to learn which pillars are most important to them. Spiritual/Values overwhelmingly took the top spot with mental and physical health tied in second. We knew that we needed to give people space to discover what they valued alongside the ability to live those values at work and be able to prioritize their health in ways they hadn&rsquo;t been.
&nbsp;
<h3 dir="ltr">Team Accountability Groups</h3>
We&rsquo;re an action-oriented company so it didn&rsquo;t take long for our team to realize that we would reach our goals better if we worked together. As our team began to share the pillars that we wanted to focus on individually, accountability groups began to spawn amongst those who shared the same goals.&nbsp;
These accountability groups will be helping to support each other on hard days, provide resources to learn and grow together, and, most importantly, give us a chance to connect on topics outside of our day-to-day work.

<h3 dir="ltr">Company-Wide Development Events</h3>
Beyond our accountability groups and our individual wellness days, CareerCircle as a company is also committing to providing development events that any team member can join. These will be anything from meetings about stress management or building your brand on LinkedIn to fireside chats about the challenges we&rsquo;re facing.
These events will give us a chance to join together as a team to get a pulse on how our wellness efforts are going and make sure that we&rsquo;re staying true to our goal of prioritizing wellness at work.
&nbsp;
<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">Building Your Own Wellness At Work Initiative</h2>
According to a post from RallyBright, <a href="https://www.rallybright.com/feeling-undervalued-at-work/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">almost 50% of American workers have left a job due to feeling undervalued</a>. Investing in wellness at work is just one of the ways that you can help your employees feel valued every day. Building a wellness at work initiative doesn&rsquo;t have to take weeks of market research and sign off. It can be made up of small, but intentional shifts in the way that work happens in someone&rsquo;s life.
We kicked off our efforts by simply opening up the conversation with our team. Asking questions like, &ldquo;What does our company do well?&rdquo; and &ldquo;What do we need to work on?&rdquo; are an easy way to get the suggestions rolling in. Remember that this effort will only work if employees see actual change come from these conversations so only open them when you&rsquo;re ready to take action.
When you&rsquo;ve had those conversations, cater your initiative to what people really want. If the overwhelming majority of employees want more support when it comes to setting boundaries at work and you choose to initiate 5 minutes of stretching at the start of every meeting, you&rsquo;re not supporting the needs of your team. Every team is different and they deserve personalized care.
It is also critical for leaders to know that words need to match actions. While it is wonderful to say that you care about your team&rsquo;s mental health, it means more to provide appropriate time off and a focus on workload management. Remember to also practice what you preach, leading with vulnerability and honesty will encourage your team to come to work in the same way. 

Ultimately, there is always more work to be done to value wellness at work, but we wanted to share the changes that we are making to inspire you to do the same for your workplace. Let us know on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7058848435956801537/" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> what you&rsquo;re doing to prioritize wellness at work!

One of the values we live by is to be the change you want to see. Here's how we're doing that when it comes to wellness at work.

Being the Change for Wellness at Work

One of the values we live by here at CareerCircle is to be the change you want to see. Here's how we're doing that when it comes to wellness at work.

When you&rsquo;re breaking into a new industry, like <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/course/google-digital-marketing-and-ecommerce" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Digital Marketing</a> or <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/course/google-ux-design" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">UX Design</a>, Google Career Certificates can help you get your foot in the door and build out a professional portfolio that can help you on your job search.
Here at CareerCircle, we believe that the people, like you, who work their way through a certificate program are some of the most tenacious and valuable people in the workplace and we want to make sure that you get credit for all of your hard work.
On your Candidate 360&deg; profile, we provide space for you to identify the certificate you&rsquo;ve earned, but verifying your certificate by uploading a copy of it will take you even further.
<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">How to Verify Your Google Career Certificate</h2>
By verifying your certificate on your profile, you're proving to employers and hiring managers that you are dedicated to your field and your professional development. Beyond that, profiles with verified certificates are boosted in search results when hiring managers and our own recruiters are searching the platform.
Here&rsquo;s how Google Career Certificate completers can verify their certificate: 
<ol>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation"><a href="https://login.careercircle.com/login?state=hKFo2SBVVm1vZWZGeXN4dEx3QVplMmpqWlg3TWw4NmhmWE9RaKFupWxvZ2luo3RpZNkgVDVkNjVmUHVTQTFkRmpPOExseEJ3UHZxTDhLdE1QU3OjY2lk2SBsaFlwZDE1M3hZVXliOXZVc0lmbVVpYTl6R1NuNG96Zg&amp;client=lhYpd153xYUyb9vUsIfmUia9zGSn4ozf&amp;protocol=oauth2&amp;scope=openid%20profile%20email%20offline_access&amp;response_type=code&amp;redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.careercircle.com%2Fapi%2Fauth%2Fcallback&amp;connection=Username-Password-Authentication&amp;audience=https%3A%2F%2Fcareercircle.azure-api.net&amp;acr_values=%7B%22registration%22%3A%22%22%2C%22role%22%3A%22candidate%22%2C%22social%22%3A%22%22%7D&amp;nonce=ebd4a68cacc6b6cced761a3b2134af82" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">Login to your profile</a> and navigate to your dashboard</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Click &ldquo;Add Your Google Career Certificate&rdquo;</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Select the certificate you completed</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Customize your headline and create a job alert</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Click the gray box and upload an image of your certificate</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Select &ldquo;Apply Changes&rdquo;</li>
</ol>

<img src="https://cdn.buttercms.com/vXlwhJjSXqUMv1MuJpAb" alt="undefined" width="951" height="465" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">

And that&rsquo;s it!
To see a step-by-step of this process, you can view a Scribe training&nbsp;<a href="https://scribehow.com/shared/How_to_Add_and_Verify_Your_Google_Career_Certificate__Rhj30mD7QdaUolNKZ1Ix_w" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">here</a> or a video tutorial <a href="https://vimeo.com/821347213/babffc463f" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">here</a>.
<h2 dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">What&rsquo;s Next?</h2>
Once you&rsquo;ve verified your certificate, we recommend you do three more things:
<ul>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Set up a job alert based on that certificate: If you didn&rsquo;t do this while uploading your certificate, you can <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/blog/post/how-to-set-up-job-alerts-to-find-the-right-job-postings" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">follow these steps</a> to set up a job alert based on your certificate and get jobs delivered directly to your inbox.</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Schedule 1-on-1 coaching to continue your career journey: Our recruiters are here to help you and that means you can schedule time with us to go over what you need to do for your job search. The best part? It&rsquo;s totally free to you! To schedule a coaching call, just click the &ldquo;Schedule 1-on-1 Coaching&rdquo; button at the top of your dashboard.</li>
<li dir="ltr" role="presentation">Visit the Resources page:&nbsp;As a Google Career Certificate completer, you have access to a full Resource page filled with tools to help you on your career journey. Check out the interview warmup tool, resume builder, FAQs from top recruiters, and more!&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
 If you have any questions, don&rsquo;t hesitate to <a href="https://www.careercircle.com/contact" rel="follow noopener" target="_blank">contact us</a>!

On your Candidate 360° profile, verifying your certificate by uploading a copy of it will take you even further.

How To Verify Your Google Career Certificate in CareerCircle

On your Candidate 360° profile, we provide space for you to identify the certificate you’ve earned, but verifying your certificate by uploading a copy of it will take you even further.

*UPGRADE IN PROGRESS* -- CareerCircle platform upgrades will occur between Monday June 27th 10PM Eastern Time through Tuesday June 28th 4AM Eastern Time.&nbsp; The system may be intermittently unavailable during this timeframe.&nbsp;&nbsp;

*UPGRADE IN PROGRESS* -- CareerCircle is upgrading its capabilities and as a result the system may be temporarily unavailable as we bring new capabilities and infrastructure online to better serve our members.&nbsp; If you receive an error during this timeframe please bear with us as we're working to improve our system and you may need to retry that operation at a later time.&nbsp; &nbsp;

Keep up to date with CareerCircle's latest blog posts on keeping an inclusive workforce.

How to Recruit a Diverse Workforce in 2023

Being the Change for Wellness at Work

How To Verify Your Google Career Certificate in CareerCircle

How to Recruit a Diverse Workforce in 2023

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