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What is a "diverse" job candidate?
It is common to read in articles about the importance of employers recruiting "diverse" candidates for jobs. What is a "diverse" candidate?
I recall a diversity training situation I conducted last year with a national bank. When we began discussing recruiting strategies, one of the human resource managers said they wanted to increase the number of diverse candidates in their labor pool. Discussion followed and several other human resource managers used the term "diverse" candidate. I stopped the discussion and asked the group, "What do you mean by diverse candidate?" I saw blank faces staring back at me. Being a white, middle-aged man, I ask them, "Am I diverse candidate?" This prompted discussion about the meaning of the words we use, the assumptions we make about what they mean, and how the words are perceived by others.
So, what is a "diverse" job candidate? How would you define such a candidate? And does your definition leave any one out? I welcome your comments. Thank you.
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I've often wondered this question myself. I would think that sometimes it would be obvious about who a "diverse" candidate would be. We can sometimes guess the race of someone as African-American. But sometimes the line is blurred. Is a person Latino or merely a well-tanned Caucasian? Even harder to decifier would be sexual orientation or age. Since these questions are illegal to ask in an interview,it means the interviewer has to make assumptions. And are those assumptions of the interviewer accurate or based on that interviewer's own biases and prejudices?