Our guest blogger is Roman Duty of Recruiting Services International / RSI in Rushville, Indiana. RSI is a boutique executive search firm that celebrated 50 consecutive years of business in 2020. The firm provides highly individualized recruiting services to clients on a local, regional, and international basis. The firm’s recruiting activities are focused on high-level technical search and managerial placement in many manufacturing arenas. Read his post below about diversity, equity and inclusion data.
About a month ago, I participated in an owner’s roundtable call and as part of the agenda we discussed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). It is not a secret that corporations, from Fortune 500 companies to small privately-owned organizations are taking further initiatives to incorporate DEI into their hiring process, either voluntarily or mandated. However, several of the owners discussed openly that their clients were requiring them to submit DEI data on candidates. Specifically, clients were requiring a submission of a DEI candidate as part of a candidate slate before interviews were to be conducted. My question is, how as recruiters can we acquire this data legally? This is indeed a slippery slope.
When clients and recruiters interview candidates, we are prohibited from asking candidates their race, color, nationality, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, or ancestry. Asking any of the above information can lead to a legal battle, fine or both. A couple of years ago, our company, RSI, was given a search for a vice president of engineering for a publicly-traded company. Due to a crackdown by the EEOO on our client, we were given the directive that any candidates submitted to the role had to be African American. This presented several challenges for our firm. In addition, we were told that we must submit documentation on all candidates that we spoke to and submitted. Knowing that we are not allowed to ask candidates their race, we were forced to source candidates from just several ways: LinkedIN pictures, degrees from African American universities, or African American groups. Is this truly ethical? Should we have pushed back and declined the search?
Simply, I believe the vast majority of companies out there will soon require recruiters to share the data of DEI candidate searches and it is quite possible that it will be up to us to find creative solutions to get this data from candidates without violating the law! In other words, the risk might begin to fall on us. What creative ways can we employ to get this data as companies begin to require this?