Happy Wednesday we are right here at the hump. And I can see Friday in the horizon. Exciting. We are here for our second roundtable of the year hiring with equity in mind. So excited that you could join us today. So we're gonna go ahead and get started. So who exactly is rooted if you are a first timer or someone who has been with us, we appreciate you joining us, we always like it to be known that we are an organization that does branding, communications and website development. But most importantly, we lead with our values. So what does that mean? In our work, and our partnerships, and in the community, we believe in anti racism, equitable access to opportunities and resources, partnership through listening and building trust community led breakthroughs, fearless curiosity, and most importantly, health and healing. One thing we want to be put out there first and foremost is that we do offer coaching. So we are an organization that also likes to do capacity building and recognizing that for a lot of shops, whether you're a small one man team, that it's sometimes helpful to have some thought partnership, or just someone review plans and such with so we included do offer opportunities to continue to build capacity, as well as support organizations on their way to communications. We are so glad that you are here right now we want to invite everyone to drop their name pronouns department roll into the chat. Also, if you are aware of the land that you inhabit, and that speaking to land acknowledgments, you can add that as well. Any current or previous challenges that you experienced, as far as hiring, you can share those as well. And then any accessibility needs. If you are someone to whom the chat is inaccessible, we invite you to turn on your mic and let us know. And we'll give you a moment to do that right now so that we can see all who's in this space. All right, so excited to see everyone we're gonna go ahead and keep it moving. Hello, Hillary. So glad to have you. Yeah, Anita. Hello. All right. So your facilitator for today, and I will allow her to introduce herself. I'll hand it over on Julie.
I still wonderful to be here, everyone, and really excited to facilitate this conversation. Just a heads up, I'm going to be off camera because I'm recovering from a surgery. And although I have very high energy, I cannot sit up so. But I'm just grateful to be here and to be walking you through this topic today.
Thank you so much. While we're at introduction stage, I will introduce myself my name is sia Magadan. And I am rudas, director of community engagement and fundraising. I reside here in Sacramento on Nissinen. Land to my left is routed unofficial intern or doodle, who will be joining us as well. At times he has some insight to share. Yes. And that is in I will pass it over to that out.
Hi, everyone. My name is Val. i My pronouns are she they I am the Director of Strategy here at rooted and for today's session, I'll mostly be in the background sort of the person behind the screen doing my best Wizard of Oz impression. Oh, and I am in the San Francisco East Bay on Chanyeol Aloni land. Great to see well.
Thank you so much. If you're just joining us feel free to drop your name and all of your information into the chat so that we can know who's here. So before we do any of our sessions, we always like to begin by sharing our community agreements which allow us to create a space of belonging, not necessarily a safe space but unnecessary space. So we invite you to approach with curiosity. Be open to new ways of doing and thinking. Sit with discomfort, expect and accept non closure. As much as you can engage and be present. practice mindful listening. We know so much is happening in our virtual spaces. Some of us are caregiving. Some of us are sharing space with other family or community members so we understand and invite everyone to just be gracious with each other. Be aware of power dynamics and consider the space you consume. Be willing to share space. We ask that you speak from your experience, assume best intent and acknowledge the impact of your words on others accept restraints as they are presented. We want you to ideate yes and For my Type A's as hard as it may be, we want you to put aside perfectionism, just for this little bit of time that we're together today, I promise it'll be worth it. The next set of agreements are our biggest slash Sesame Street rules. What's shared here stays here, what's learned here, leaves here, be willing to slow down notice the name what is coming up in the room. Most importantly, we ask that you take care of yourself, and have fun, we do have breaks built in. But if at any time you need to come off camera or just want to take care of yourself, we ask that you feel free to do so. If there are any other agreements that you feel we have omitted, please drop them into the chat and we will add them to subsequent sessions. Also, if you would like to update your information on the participant list, bow has graciously drop that into the chat and it will be editable, editable until later on today. So that if you need to get in touch with someone or during your triad share, you've made a connection and you want to continue networking, feel free to do so. So our objectives for today, why are we here, we intend to share strategies to build equitable hiring systems. We want to provide you all with tools for how to manage the hiring process, and then deepen our shared understanding that hiring should be an intentional process that might be slower than expected.
So we're gonna do a little quick activity and feel free to raise your virtual hand or your actual hand in the video or use emojis, whatever you are comfortable in doing. But raise your hand if you have been overwhelmed by a hiring process.
Raise your hand if biases have shown up in the hiring process. The job description posted for the hire didn't really reflect the position. candidates were overloaded with too many assignments with the hiring process. And you want to help rethink hiring practices at your organization. Yay, you're in the right place. So um, in my experience, hiring has often you know, unearth a lot of power imbalances. You know, the hiring manager or the final decision maker being a person who wasn't going to necessarily work with the new hire closely, or direct reports or somebody who has an associate or coordinator in their title, title, not really having a say in who gets hired. And then many times the hiring manager has been bedeviled by a candidate's credentials, and name dropping versus their ability to actually do the job or a commitment to the organization's values. And a lot of times, people who have held positional power of anticipated or expected hiring to happen within three to four weeks when in reality, to do it fairly and equitably. And without perpetuating the sense of urgency, it takes six to eight weeks. So all to say like let's work to change how hiring happens at our workplaces.
All right. So as we're beginning we want to introduce a framework that we employ here and rooted but we also feel that it is beneficial to any process where you're going to be working with individuals, most importantly those who are going to be impacted by what you will be designing.
So the design Justice Network recognized that the design process was fraught with biases and inequitable practice. And so they came up in collaboration with the National Equity project, the liberatory design framework. And the goal of this framework is to center the voices of those who are directly impacted by the outcomes of the design process. And so the design Justice Network deck itself has been added to the chat. So if you have not are not familiar with it, take a moment to review it. And what we're going to do is they put out a series of mindsets and ways to just re envision and rethink how you approach the process of designing and developing if you will
All right. So what you're going to do is this is our first individual activity where you're going to jot down some thoughts and feelings. And what the design Justice Network and the framework helps you to do is to actually see the system. There are some things that you should begin to ask yourself as you're beginning to put together your process, even when you're talking about hiring. Who are we designing for thinking about identity? What biases and assumptions might we be bringing? When you think about the power dynamics? What are the roles and power relationships on our team, those spoken and unspoken, and I think that's the part where sometimes we, you know, glaze over? Where does decision making authority relative to our design, focus sit? So and even coming up with this process for hiring? Who gets to make the final say, emotion in context? What feelings are present? What do we want to be aware of? And then mindset, what do we want to set intention around in this project?
So we're going to ask you to take a few moments, and just answer these questions on a sheet of paper right in front of you, just jotting down the things that just came to mind as the questions were asked. All right. As you are continuing on, I'm going to review two of the mindsets from liberatory design to familiarize you with the deck. So one of the mindsets they want you to practice is self awareness. And with that, you're going to ask yourself, what is unfamiliar to me here, and how am I positioned relative to privilege and or oppression, and how my identities whether they be race, class, gender, language, impact people and our process. And so self awareness helps us determine who we are how we design, looking in the mirror reveals what we see how we relate and how our perspectives impact our practice. The next mindset that we're going to review is focusing on human values, getting to know the community we're designing with, in as many different ways as possible, anchor all of our decision making in human values. So doing the necessary work to know the community and recognize the expertise of those who are closest to the issues being addressed.
So
with that in mind, you're going to spend some time noticing and reflecting, and then looking through the mindsets. Then select one to two to set intention for how you personally want to show up for this session that we're about to dive into. Then we're going to break you all up into triads. And I believe we hit yes, then you want to introduce yourself to your partners pronouns organization, any accessibility needs, and land acknowledgement and then spend some time sharing the mindsets that you selected and why. So right now, as we're preparing to divide everyone up, take a moment, the late people mindset has been dropped into the chat. So take a moment to review them. And then you will be moved into your groups. All right, thank you all so much for participating. Right now what we have is a mini break built in. So this is our 2020 20, where you're going to look on one direction count to 20, then you're going to look in the next direction. And then the third, with each direction you look into you're going to count to 20 as a way to give your eyes a break from the screen, or you can just close your eyes. And we'll reconvene shortly.
So I'm gonna break our conversation up into eight steps. And then after each step, you know, we'll pause for questions. Sound good? Awesome. All right. So step one, so who is involved in the hiring process? The next slide well, I'm so identify the rules for the hiring process. So in my experience, I usually like to have these three roles. So a hiring manager, the interviewers, and then somebody from ops or HR to help with the support side of things. So the hiring manager, this should be someone who's going to work with the new hire on a regular basis. So ideally, a direct report if that's applicable. And so by regular basis, you know, somebody who you're going to be thinking or having conversations on strategy and or like dealing with the database of the job together. Because this is also somebody who knows What qualities and skills are needed to get the job done more than somebody who has positional power, like an executive director or other directors, the hiring manager is in charge of being the final decider on who gets hired. So they have veto power, but also manages the overall hiring process, right. So reviewing all of the applications, you know, ensuring that there's like debrief conversations happening, and making sure that, you know, the overall process is kind of moving forward. So the interviewers are people who, who will be working with this person or this new hire closely at different levels. So this can be other directors, managers, associates, or coordinators. And in my experience, when others are also excited about the candidate, then the onboarding process, and just the the overall like experience for current staff, and then new hire is a much smoother process, versus when there have been situations where, you know, other team members were not excited about a new hire, it just created a lot of cultural tension. That didn't need to happen. You know, and it all could have just been avoided. But that's another story. And then our ops and HR support. So this is, this is somebody who will then just kind of provide administrative support, like ensuring the team is following the overall process, communicating with candidates, scheduling the interviews, filing all the paperwork, and then just kind of making sure that everyone is staying on schedule. And part of this whole process is, is really important to have the, what I like to call the candidate tracker. And this is a work sheet that will really help us kind of keep everything in order. So this is kind of, kind of before you post the job, what needs to happen when you post the job, what needs to happen and who's doing what, and then the interview process, and everyone will have access to this worksheet after as well. And you can make it your own. This is just my template that I've used and really enjoy. And so it just kind of gives you really detailed information. And then the timeline, right, so you come together as a team kind of discuss at a very high level what needs to happen, and then your application start coming in. So we have Billy Eilish did they send their cover letter and their resume, you know, you can add in any other applicable links and any in those initial notes about the candidate, and then kind of like checkboxes and, and scoring options throughout the hiring phase. And this is a little, like funding that I created. And same with like BTS that you can create notes in this way, it allows there to be a paper trail when you're thinking about hiring, and you know, one, it doesn't actually take up physical space, but then it helps kind of keep everything in order. And that five years down the line, if you're if the audit ever happens, right, then you have this kind of record. And then like the different scores that we'll be using, and I'll go into that a little bit later in the process, and then again, like in every phase of the interview process and you can kind of track a candidates process and kind of like see their their total scores
so any questions on who's involved before we go on to writing the job posting? Feel free to put them in the chat if you prefer.
All right. So then the next phase is writing the job posting. So if you want me to go to the next slide now so the hiring manager should lead this process. And of course I you know, get input from HR and then the relevant team members and then of course, take that input seriously. What ends up happening is like when only one person works on it and doesn't get input from others, you know, the hiring manager have maybe on one page and then everybody else on a separate page, and then it creates just a lot of confusion in the process around, then what is this role actually going to be doing. And so then this way, it just kind of creates an opportunity to have some of that conversation from the get go versus once like, you're super well into the into the process. And of course, like, include the salary. So I know in some states, it is now locked to make sure that the salary is included in the job posting. And even in states where it is not the law, you should just do it because it's a good use of everybody's time. And my I like to only include one salary versus a range, just to make sure that there's then pay equity amongst genders abilities and races. And in some instances, in job postings, I've seen almost a $20,000 difference in the pay range. And so that just kind of creates a lot of opportunity for inequity, versus just having one number for folks to react to, or a smaller range like, you know, a five to $10,000 range. And then make sure that there is a timeline identified in the job posting in well, if you can go to the next slide, I have a sample of what that timeline would look like. And so if we were to post this job posting on April 1, right, then my recommendation is to not look at any of the applications until the week of the 17th. Because those like first two to three weeks is when you will get pretty much all of your applications after that fourth week, you may get one or two, but a majority will come in, in that first, first two to three weeks. And then this way, it allows you to kind of assess all of the applicants in one go versus doing them, you know, one at a time or one at a time, and then not being able to kind of compare and assess like across the board. And then this way, it also just becomes less overwhelming and, you know, reduces that sense of urgency that now you have kind of a dedicated time to sit and like reflect on each of the applic applicants that have come. And then of course they give your organization typically gets 25 applicants for any job posting, then that's great. But if you get 100, right, then you're kind of building in some a bit of a buffer. And then of course, like whoever is your ops support, then they can start filling out that candidate tracker, and linking their applications to that to that worksheet. So that you know, all of the information is just really readily available. And you're not having to like multiple, like go through multiple folders to find the information that. And then of course, like the week of May one, so between the 17th and the week of May one, right, but you have about two, two weeks ish to kind of review everything and assess as a hiring manager, right, like who you would want to move forward in the hiring process, and who just wouldn't make a great addition to your organization. And then, you know, again, give yourself like two weeks buffer between the first round of interviews, and then the second round of interviews, and then kind of review folks and then do your third round of interviews. And then ideally, by the end of May, you've made an offer and somebody has hopefully accepted. So you know, this is like a sample timeline that then you can share within the job posting, of course, like maybe not the don't do more than three interviews a day piece that's more for internal use. But but the the rest of it and I think it also for a candidate gives them transparency in terms of like when to hear back when they should expect the organization to respond. And if they don't hear back, right, like by the first week of May, it's they can move on in their in their job search process. So any questions on the timeline? Oh, yeah. So in terms so there's a question around recommendation of like the limit of how many interviews to do in a day. So in my experience, when I have done more than five interviews in a day, not only was I exhausted, exhausted, I couldn't remember who was who anymore, and then it just kind of was really overwhelming. And then you know, I found myself questioning like, why am I doing this to myself, like I'm being very unfair to the candidate. Are to the candidates and to myself, and so let's like slow down this process, and just do no more than three days I can one digest like the information that they're sharing with me, and what information I'm sharing with them and then fairly be able to kind of assess and whether like this candidate would make a great addition. And then same with like the second and third interviews, other people then in theory are also getting involved in the second and third interview phase. And so then this also kind of reduces that sense of urgency and creates space for people to also do other work that they need to do throughout the day. dB. Does that answer your question? Awesome. Any other questions before we move on to step three.
So step three is identify the qualities. So in the in the candidate tracker, we had a, an area where there was like a scoring tool. And so this is, in my opinion, like really important to do, because it helps us kind of gauge at what are the bare minimum qualities each candidate should have, in order to be, you know, to be set up for success for this role that we're hiring for. And my recommendation is to limit that to just five qualities, the more you do, then it becomes, you know, impossible for any candidate to then meet those meet the criteria. So, within that five, three should be hard skill focused. So the professional knowledge, and then two should just be soft skill focus. So the social emotional intelligence. And so some examples for the heart skill is, so say, the role requires this person to be tech savvy, or what is that mean, you know, everyone involved in the hiring process could have a different definition of what tech savvy means. And so to specify and to define that. So if we're saying this person needs to be tech savvy, that they need to have an advanced knowledge of Salesforce, GIS and MailChimp in order to really thrive in this position, that they need to be a political political expert. And that means experience navigating local policy and who the players are, and that they need to have super resourceful experience, and that they have the ability to lead a team through coaching versus just dictating and holding power. So, so those are some of the the professional skills and then the soft skills, we can say, Oh, they need the EI experience like that is a must that we are not willing to compromise. Given the culture of our organization. Well, what is the I mean, right, so it's, for in this example, like I'm just defining it is well versed in white supremacy culture, and has done the personal work to undo harm, and then the other is like that they add to the culture, so they can jump right in and build healthy relationships across the board, while comfortable maintaining work life balance. So, once we have these these parameters identified and clearly defined, it makes it a lot easier assessing each of the candidates based on these qualities. So then, and then whatever you are identifying in these qualities, then that is going to be the the kind of the parameter or the scoring tool for the entire hiring process. So for the first interview for the second interview, for the third interview, or however many interviews that you are doing as a part of your hiring process, and then once everyone is scoring based off of these, these, this criteria, right, then it's really powerful to kind of then look at the data and help with that decision making. So any questions on the identifying the qualities before we move on to step four?
So step four is standardized questions. And what what this means is like drafting standardized questions ahead of time. So this should be a collaborative process led by the hiring manager, given that they're the best qualified to understand what kind of soft. So the emotional intelligence and the hard the professional knowledge, skills are needed for this position. And then make sure that everyone has a pre assigned interview question or questions, so that multiple people are actively participating in the interview process. Make sure that you are organizing the questions and themes. So it is easy for the candidate to engage and follow. And then make sure that you are not asking 20 questions in each of the interview phases, because the candidate goes also interviewing us just as much as we're interviewing them. So just some kind of parameters. If you're doing a 445 minute interview, then you shouldn't ask more than eight questions. And then if you're doing a 60 minute interview, then don't ask more than 10 questions so that this kind of makes sure that there's at least 15 minutes at the end for them to ask us questions. And then most importantly, when you're inviting the candidate for the interview, send them the questions that you intend on asking them ahead of time. This allows for you to be inclusive for you know, various neuro abilities and language abilities as well. And also just helps everyone who, you know, interview processes in general are just nerve wracking. And this kind of helps not calm everyone down, but at least helps them prepare. But also, you know, lets them shine and share, like all of the strengths and successes that they have had as well. And I think I just want to also highlight that when you're drafting all of the interview questions ahead of time, it doesn't mean that you cannot change the questions as once the interview has started, it's just makes it a lot easier that things are kind of done ahead of time. And then you can kind of then just make edits, based off of you know, who's kind of moving forward in the interview process. And of course, that also means you can ask clarifying questions, you know, as you're interviewing people, but the but the foundation is that every candidate is being asked the same questions. If we go to the next slide, I'll show you what I mean by organizing things in, in bucket or in by theme. So here's like, the standard kind of questions and the, and the checklist in general. And, and Val has shared the link to this. And just kind of make sure that your this is your checklist, and that you're meeting that checklist. Yes, and then just some guidelines, again, on like the eight to 10 questions, and that making sure that after each of each interview, you know that there's an option for for you to score. And so this is just kind of the template make it your own. So who's the candidate, the interview date, who's part of the interviewing, you're kind of your grounding. And then we identified that tech savvy that this candidate needed to be tech savvy. So questions related to that. The political expert questions was like another hard skill that randomly identified, and then this super resourceful experience, the DEI and then the cultural ad question. And it's always good to make sure that you are having a good balance between theoretical questions and scenario questions so that you can better assess. And then after you finish, you know, after the interview is done, then whoever is involved in the interview process, there's like space for people to then score and like leave notes. And then the ops and or ops or your HR support person can then take those scores, and then average it out and put it back into the candidate tracker, so that you can kind of see across the board, like how well each candidate is doing based on on the information that they're sharing. So any questions on that before we go on to Step five?
I have a question. Related to sharing the interview questions in advance. This is something that I've been advocating for and something that my organization is interested in doing for part of the questions. But the they have also been advocating that like for the type of work that we do. Sometimes folks don't have the time to prepare in advance. And they would like to see how someone reacts to like being put on the spot and having to think on their toes. And I feel like I haven't been able to, like really counter that in an effective way. And I'm just curious. Yeah, how how you would respond to that. Because I do think that it really does make the process more accessible and inclusive.
Yeah, that's a hard one to write because, you know, most of at least in my experience, and I don't know if others have thoughts on this, too, like, yes, there is some on the spot thinking. But for the most part, like our work is not like, we don't have to decide things within that minute, right, there's usually some grace period, and that we're more likely to get a more like well rounded response if we give people time to prepare, right and, and kind of really see what their thought process is, like in in reality, and what we would get by hiring someone, if we gave them that time to kind of prepare their responses ahead of time. And there's also towards the end, an article that is in our resource sheet that actually talks about that, too. And it's more around giving people the time and space to to prepare, and to really live our equity values and make sure right, that we're creating the space for people who are neurodiverse, or don't or who are like English language learners, right, to be a part of the hiring process and to be equal potential employees at our organization. And I don't know if others have thoughts of how they've had to kind of navigate that in their workplaces and would like to share as well. And the balance here too, if you have something to add, please do. Great. Does that help Phoebe? Yeah, it does. Thank you. Yeah, it's hard, because, you know, it's yeah, it's a mind shift, too. So I wish that there was like a one, one solution kind of fits all. But good luck with that. And if there's like after support that you need, I'm always available, if you want to some of that thought partnership as well. Um, so step five is around scheduling. So this is the fun stuff, if you like to do scheduling things. And so this is something for your ops or HR person to become scheduling loyalty. And, if that's if that's their jam, but so before, like any hiring, their interview process, you start. So in our hiring timeline, or like we said that the job posting goes live. So between that April, one to April 17, timeframe, just schedule out everything on everyone's calendars, right. So whoever's involved in the interview process, and then this, again, like allows for people to have lives and continue their other work without feeling like there's this last minute additions like being added to their calendar or that other things I need to kind of get rescheduled because this, this time wasn't already blocked off. And so what I like to do is to just to schedule everything out in time slots. And so then when I'm communicating to potential candidates, I can say that, you know, this is time slot one or time slot twos, time slot, three, these are like, the time availabilities that we have, please like select from one of these times, and if it doesn't work, then you know, you can find some other options there. And so here in the example, it's, you know, round one of interviews, that's the first round, Round two is the second round and I didn't do the third round, but you kind of get the point. And then make sure that you know, at each phase of the interview, like folks are getting like a 10 minute break in between each interview, bio breaks, water breaks, or stretch breaks, screen breaks, whatever it is that they need, and also time to have to score the candidate and write any notes that they may have. And then again, like this just makes the process a lot smoother and reduces that sense of urgency or even chaos. That may come up For folks. So any questions on that?
Okay, so step six is the interview. So here's some, again, like the recommendations of the time. So like, first interview, in theory, this would be a phone interview. And so don't have more than 10 candidates. So if you have, you know, I don't know, like 63 people apply for the job, you take those 63, and you narrow it down to your top 10. From that 63, you know, there will be, you know, a handful of people who didn't complete the application process properly or as instructed. So that means you can automatically just disqualify them. And then you kind of keep narrowing it down. And then, you know, once you've even looked at your scores, it'll be very apparent, like who your top 10 are. And I don't know how this works, but it just works. Sometimes there'll be your top 12, in which then you can also have like, a conversation with a team of like, a year 12 People, I'm struggling to even narrow this down to the top 10 Can you please, you know, help and help me assess, like, you know, if there is some people that need to be eliminated, and you don't need to even like, communicate with like all the other candidates, right, until, like, you've completed the whole interview process, because even within the 10, that you narrow down, you know, six may say, Yes, we're really excited, and we want to move forward. But then four may say, oh, you know, I don't think I'm interested anymore, or I've accepted that position somewhere else. And so that way, you have some options. And it also kind of gives you slows you down as well. And then we'll do this the second interview, so take that top 10 and narrow it down to your top five. And then same for your third interview, narrowed it down to your top three, in there, folks are not comfortable in scoring it in that in that interview, she, she or were that were all the questions were defined, then you can also very easily create a like a quick google form or a survey or something where then folks can anonymously score and that just allows everyone to them equally contribute to the to the process. And also, you know, throughout each of the interview phases, make sure that you're leaving at least 15 minutes for them the candidate to ask you questions, as well. Any questions on that? And if not, then we can take a quick five minute screen break. All right, welcome back, everyone. We are going into step seven, our debrief. So debriefing with your team, so after each of each phase of the interview is complete. So you can take that time to kind of review the scores and also kind of what was standing out to you about each of the candidates and also what some of your concerns were. And I think like reviewing this, the scores with, you know, the hiring group is really, really helpful. Because then it kind of, because now you have data to kind of backup any biases that you may be experiencing, but also like other people's scores, as well. So it's not just one person, we're reviewing this. And in my experience, like 99% of the time, the scores will validate the decision, and ensuring that there's kind of some checks and balances around again, those biases and just power dynamics in general. And so it's, it's pretty quick and easy. And so if you're doing, you know, round one of interviews all in one week, then maybe that Friday, you just have I don't like 30 to 45 minutes together and you just review everything and discuss like, you know, again, review the scores, what's standing out what concerns do you have and then which candidates should move forward. And then our final step, Sir, actually, any questions on that before we go to Step eight, our final step?
Great, so then the final step is step eight, which is making an offer and so you know, it's really really important that the offer process feel accessible and inclusive. So make sure that you're sending an offer in writing. And then of course, reach out to the candidate by phone, be available to answer any questions that they may have. And then be prepared to discuss questions around the culture, or any other concerns that they may have. And this last point, I want to just really emphasize that if any candidate is nervous about your organization's culture, or they have hesitations, then to please be honest with their concerns, and really validate those concerns. Because it's so much better to restart the hiring process. And yes, it is very time consuming, but it's better than to do that. And then to have somebody enter a new work environment, to be re traumatized, and then just leads to, you know, burnout, or even then, you know, leaving sooner than you would have expected, right. And then it just kind of perpetuates unhealthy work culture and just in general, like staff turnover. And so it's just, it's just better to be honest about things that that they may have to navigate. So, and on that note, any questions about either step eight, or any of the other steps that we've discussed or any process questions that I can answer? I have a
question. And it might just not be this training. Or maybe you have resources to point to how do you or how do we ensure the recruitment process like gathers a diverse applicant pool? Yeah, that's
a great question. You know, definitely idealist is a great place to post, then, you know, leverage your board, leverage your staff, leverage your network, right, like so put it in, in use, if you have it, ask your board to share it with their like networks on LinkedIn. Same with with your staff, as well. And I'm sure, I think we actually have an internal list server where you can share job postings as well. And I'm happy to share that as well. And I'm sure others have recommendations on where they post as well and see it. And well, I don't know if you have recommendations that also come to mind as well.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things I think about a lot, and especially when we went through a huge hiring process about two years ago, is going and looking for candidates where they're looking for job posts. And that might seem like an obvious thing. But it's like, we get very, it's really easy to get like stuck in our bubbles of like, in I'm not saying idealist isn't a great place, because it is, but depending on like, who you're looking for, and what kinds of lived experiences you're looking for. There's a ton of job boards and websites and just all kinds of different meetups, and it just takes some research to find the places where the kind of candidates that you're looking for are going to look because they're not the ones that are looking on Indeed, oftentimes, you know, like it's not it's, it's the smaller places. You know, there's like, there's just so many one of the ones that I started going in and researching because we're in the tech industry was people of color and tech. There's there's just a ton of places I just, you know, at the beginning of the process, I did a bunch of resources, a bunch of like research finding the different kinds of places where people were looking for job postings, or like in our case, like rad, you know, we're in communication. So like, the radical communications network is a really good one because that's where a lot of people who are values aligned, go to look for information and connect with one another. So there's a lot so it really just depends and like Anjali said like we're more than happy to help if you give us some, like parameters of what kinds of places that you're looking for, then we can kind of help point in the right direction.
Yeah, it was more like a question like a philosophy or like I've heard of some organizations will not close the application period if they don't meet certain, like if their pool is not diverse, it means that they're not doing enough outreach to you know, to reach more audiences and then that statistic where, you know, women sorry, my camera's being weird, where more women that women pre qualify themselves out of a job and won't apply. And so like, what, what are people doing to account for, you know that lack of applications just even before you get to this whole process,
I've seen that. And I've seen where people are now starting to add wording where they're like, even if you feel like you can do three out of the five, we want you to apply, because that represents like a learning curve. So communicating that we're trying to be more inclusive is one way I've seen it, I think and going back to what Val was saying, another place that I think people underestimate is Craigslist. Craigslist has a nonprofit section where they list some really great and it just ties in lived experiences of like the people you're looking for. So there's a variety. There's some people who go to LinkedIn jobs, indeed and idealist glass door because glass door will also give you background information if somebody wrote, you know, disclaimer, or they gave some insight into the organization, you can read that before you decide is this the type of environment I want to work in?
Thank you, Phoebe. And Phoebe had a question. So I want to make sure we address that as
well. Thanks, Cindy for sharing of the NPO. Net to
Yeah, great, thank
you Hillary.
In that offer stage, I was just curious about negotiation. And if you had sort of an organizational point of view about set salaries with no negotiation versus yeah, having negotiation within the range.
Yeah. So I mean, if you are providing a range, and you know, you give somebody you tell them that, okay, if so, say the range is, I don't know, 75,000 to 85,000. And you offer the candidate, I don't know, 76,000. And they come back and say, Actually, I would prefer to have maybe, I don't know, at 2000, my policies, if they're asking for more money, I'm not going to push back, I'm just gonna give it to you, because it's within the range. And we have that money budgeted. But I also know that a lot of other places tend to frown on that, but I just, it's my personal philosophy, they're going to ask for more money, take it, and I'm not going to because I know like how hard it is, to come back, and to renegotiate on that. But if others have philosophies or strategies on how they've had to navigate that, you know, certainly please do to share as well.
I feel like one of the ways that we really think about, like, decolonizing ourselves, and, and just trying to do this work differently. It's like, just give people what they asked for, so that they can feel comfortable doing their job, you know, and I mean, I'm also saying that it's, you know, currently a part business owner. And I know that there are always restrictions, right? Like, I'm always I'm very aware of what our company budget is, and all of those kinds of things, but at the same time, like you really want people to show up and be their best selves and be able to do their work and feel like they can, you know, like, we're not trying to, like survive, right? Like, the hope here is that we're trying to thrive in there just needs to be a bit of a mindset change around how we're approaching this and why we get into these kinds of negotiations, are we trying to make someone feel that they're less than, and I know, that's sort of like a different perspective to it. And I know that, you know, I've done a lot of hiring throughout my life. So not saying this is like, you know, in a sort of naive way, but also in just a way of like, how I'd like the world to be. How I'd like the world to be is that when someone asks for an amount that will make them feel comfortable and that they can do their job well, then, you know, then give it to them. If you need to make the case to somebody. Then the ways that I've gone about doing that is gone. And then there's like lots of things online where you can look up like, okay, and where this person lives here is, you know, the cost of living in that area here are, you know, hopefully you've already done your research across, like what the pay range should be according to like market and, you know, whatever that means in your portion of the sector. But those are some of the things that like, and this is what we've done with our own pay raise is an pays structures is getting really transparent and trying to like account for Okay, does this person and granted you won't know this in the hiring process? If they have any, you know, people that they're caring for our you know, whether that's any kind of dependent, whether an elder parent or a child or whatever, like, these are things you aren't going to know about. So, you know, I just tried to when I'm thinking about that, and if I'm needing to make the case to someone else, it's, that's those are the qualities that I start to think about is how to ground that in, you know, and these things that like humanize the person to get what they need. Oh, right, thank
you all so much for your participation, we're going to do our look away 2020 20. So take a few moments to rest your eyes from your screen, and then we'll reconvene shortly. All right, as we are bringing the plane in for a landing, we want you all to take a moment to drop into the chat. What did we harvest if there is something that you are walking away with today, or an epiphany that you had, or just an appreciation for our time together, we want you to take a moment and drop that into the chat. We also have some tools that we want to share with you. So we'll give you a moment to think through what you'd like to drop and then we'll move on.
Yes, Cindy?
Hi. I have a general very general question about assessing applications. As a as a longtime proofreader, and a lifelong perfectionist, I would not think twice to discard any application with a typo in it. Now that I know for a communications job, right. Now that I know that perfectionism is a trait of white supremacy, I'm wondering if that if I should not worry about typos for communications? Not that I'm hiring anybody right now. But just in terms of assessing qualifications, if anybody has thoughts on how rigorous to be. I would appreciate that. So
I have lots of thoughts about this. And I'll say first and foremost, if there's ever a moment where you're you feel like you're questioning yourself, and you're going back to like white supremacy characteristics, and you're like, is this if the answer is probably yes. So let's just, you know, start there.
I,
I definitely understand the tension, especially in a communications position. But when we're talking about typos and spellcheck, and like, I mean, even sometimes grammatically, like this is actually even a conversation we had earlier today with a client who we've been helping do some content strategy. And we were encouraging them and I'm going to drop the article. I think it's when if CRN or Anjali can drop it in there real quick. But there's this whole article that's that community centric fundraising just put out where it anyway, it's from their archives, but they put it out again today. And it's talking about how, because of our schooling system in the United States, thanks actually. We, we go down this, this lane of thinking that academic language and sort of the perfectionism around writing is like, how we show legitimacy. But it's not the way that we talk to one another whatsoever, right? It's not the way that we actually communicate. So I think the part I would go back to is like, if we're worrying about someone having a typo in their resume or in whatever they've sent to us. Like, what is that actually an indicator of within ourselves that it's that that's what's queuing up for us in the first place. And, and a lot of that, to me is around whiteness, it's around thinking that if, you know and this is, it's, it's like are in many ways our own insecurities that somehow like, if we are not performing to perfection, or if this person is not looking flawless, that they're not going to be able to do their job well, or they're not going to, you know, be able to, and none of that is accurate, right? I mean, it's actually many times, someone being able to have the time and space to, to perfect their resume. Like, I feel like what you want is somebody who's adjusting their resume to each of the instances that they're applying for that they're personalizing it. And if they're personalizing it, then they're probably going to have a mistake, right? They're not just like carbon copying something. And so to me, that's, to me, that's more of an indicator I, when I'm reading someone's cover letter, when I'm looking through their resume, like I'm trying to hear or feel who they are, you know, there's like ways to in, you know, I'm really looking. And I mean, this is why we started this whole thing with doing a mindset exercise. Because when you're starting a hiring process, you need to think about the mindset that you're bringing into these spaces. And that it's not just about who you're trying to bring onto your team, but the culture that you're trying to maintain, and who's the person that is going to be the best fit for that culture? Because honestly, like, there's spellcheck, there's people who are really good at proofreading, that are going to catch all those things on your team. And I can say that I am one of those people on our team, right, like, I'll catch that stuff, it doesn't matter. But that's not what I need out of a teammate. You know, that's not a quality, you know, like, that's not what's going to make it a good communications team.
Thanks. That's very helpful. Oh, awesome.
So we have a couple of tools and resources that we wanted to share with you inclusive of a candidate tracker. And all of this will be shared after the event as well. So if you're unable to click into the deck, they will come in a subsequent email, some sample interview questions as well as an article from community centric fundraising on a few ways we can make hiring practices more equitable in our sector. And I believe they're covering a great amount of the things that we have been talking about, as well as a lot of things that were unearthed during our question and answer period. So definitely feel free to check out those resources. Again, we invite you to take which links Phoebe wasn't working for you. Oh, all the survey is doing that thing again. Again, if you're you or your organization is interested, we do offer coaching, leadership, professional development and comms capacity building support for individuals or in a cohort style. Please feel free to email myself if this is an add an interest of yours or something you just want to discuss. Let's chat. See, it@rooted.com I believe now is working on the survey. So if you have not already, feel free to also use the QR code with your phone, or just click onto it, but please leave us your sentiments and thoughts so that we can continue to offer this great programming and iterate as we go along. All right. Again, as we are closing out and giving you the remainder of your day back, we ask that you share an insight or something great that you got gathered from today's session. As always, we're appreciative of your time with us. And for just being in community and in communication with us. We invite you to join us again as we have our routed events calendars up on our website. Feel free to check it out as we have more great sessions coming ahead. If you have any other questions or just want to get in touch here, our email addresses, we invite you to follow us like us share anything that you have gathered here today that has is going to definitely impact your work. Again, thank you for joining us and have a great remainder of your day.
