On Thursday 22 April, Amsterdam – Diverse & Inclusive (ADI) organised its third webinar for Amsterdam SMEs. The webinar was broadcast from the SER studio and focused on inclusive recruitment. This was the second part specifically focused on inclusive recruitment & selection. The aim of the webinar was to provide participants with some practical tips to help attract more diverse staff. While the previous webinar touched on the importance of a good recruitment plan and alternative recruitment channels, the focus during this webinar was on the importance of inclusive job postings, use of language and selecting without prejudice. Watch the webinar back now (with subtitles)!
https://youtu.be/6sevW3VaWqg?t=338 Shivan Shazad, policy advisor for ADI, kicked off the webinar with a short roadmap for inclusive recruitment and selection. He also tipped the new knowledge document ‘diverse recruitment and selection’ by Diversiteit in Bedrijf and, on behalf of the municipality of Amsterdam, offered the first ten organisations that complete an action plan together with ADI a free training by the Human Rights Board. View the roadmap for inclusive recruitment & selection here.
[06 .50] Your job ads under the microscope
After Shivan, it was Karima el Bouchtaoui’s turn. Karima is director of Ocullus Consultancy and her company focuses, among other things, on training in objective recruitment and selection and executive search and consulting. Karima took participants through how candidates look at job ads. Candidates mainly look at job requirements. It is therefore important to see job requirements as the heart of your vacancy text. It is also important to write vacancy texts broadly enough so that new target groups recognise themselves in them. Other tips Karima gave were writing from the perspective of the target group and limiting job requirements to a maximum of four or five requirements.
Download Karima’s presentation on inclusive job postings here.
[22 .30] Inclusive language of the city
To further underline the importance of inclusive language, poet, writer and spoken word artist Gershwin Bonevacia was invited. Gershwin was named Amsterdam’s city poet in 2019. He is currently working on a new book of poetry When I was little, I wasn’t afraid-he is translating Amanda Gorman’s children’s book Change Sings. Gershwin took the participants on a hypnotic journey through the city with words like “a city that is not made of stone, but is sustained by people, by context, an exchange, a cultural environment and where we have to work together continuously for coexistence and great transitions.”
Listen back to Gershwin’s entire poem here from 22.30 in the recording.
[29 .25] Unbiased hiring in healthcare
Gershwin handed over the baton to Tanja Crouse-Tilburg. Tanja has been working at HVO-Querido for 5.5 years where she started as a supervisor and now works as a recruiter. HVO-Querido has developed its own training course for selecting new staff to make hiring more unbiased. Tanja talked about applying the Forces methodology where you look at what someone can do instead of what someone cannot do. This methodology also puts the direction for recruiting new staff more with teams themselves to look at what is needed a new staff to complement teams. Download Tanja’s presentation here.
[41 .40] Selecting without prejudice. For the best match!
Finally, the webinar was concluded by Barbara Bos. Barbara worked for the Human Rights Board for 19 years, where she worked as a legal advisor on many discrimination cases. In doing so, she discovered that a lot of discrimination also arises from not recognising talent enough, and that is because recruitment and selection is not done objectively enough. Barbara therefore gave participants a brief training in how easily we tend to think in terms of prejudice. Download Barbara’s presentation here.
WEBINARSERIES
Amsterdam – Divers & Inclusive is organising a series of webinars focused on practical tips for a diverse and inclusive SME business in 2021. This webinar is the third webinar in this series. Read more about the previous and upcoming webinars here.