As the head of talent acquisition for the FBI for the past four years, Peter Sursi realized that the bureau's career portal was persistently attracting the same kind of candidate. “A lot of white guys find their way to us,” he said. So Sursi reasoned that the task of the FBI’s recruiters was to change the model from the inside. If they wanted to have a diverse pipeline at all, the talent team would have to be proactive in wooing diverse candidates.

Andrew Myers, founder of the early-career jobs platform RippleMatch, witnessed something similar, albeit in a totally different context. When he was a student, he was watching his friends whose parents worked in tech and finance set them up with internships. “I would go to the career fair and take out my paper resume,” he said, recalling that the process was inefficient and messy, “and that was at Yale!” When he went home to Colorado, he found himself among a more diverse pool of applicants, both in terms of race and socio-economic status, but when those candidates did not come from a school targeted by employers, Myers recalled, their job applications would disappear into a black hole.

Sursi and Myers spoke on a panel of talent-acquisition experts focused on how companies can get an advantage in the red-hot labor market by recruiting for potential rather than pedigree, part of From Day One’s virtual September conference on new ideas and tactics for diversity hiring. The premise of the conversation was that employers have relied too much on narrow sets of credentials, driven by a tendency to play it safe and go with what has worked in the past.

That won’t work anymore, especially at a time when the definition of diversity in the workforce is in flux. Once it applied mainly to gender and ethnicity, but the spirit of inclusiveness is expanding to embrace people without a four-year college degree, people with disabilities, those who are caretakers, and workers who don't necessarily live in the main corporate or tech hubs. After all, if a company's diversity effort simply consists of hiring a person of color with a STEM degree from Stanford, we can hardly say they're challenging the status quo. That's when technology can work in synergy with a more humanistic approach, rooted in empathy, open-mindedness, and curiosity. “We have nothing to do with our privilege,” said PaShon Mann, VP of talent acquisition at Comcast, “we were just born in a certain situation.”

When Listing Skills, Understand That Skills Are Not Eternal

In the contemporary job market, especially in tech fields or anything with a strong digital component, many credentials a candidate has on a resume are likely to be outdated within a year due to the ever-evolving nature of the field. “Be open-minded about what we want about the position: Can you teach the most important skills to build that role?” said Mann. “Hiring for potential, for me, is to go to non-traditional places and sources to find folks, and really be open-minded in the interview.” These places include state schools, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and community colleges.

The speakers suggested that employers should be more practical in their expectations about candidate qualifications. Liz Freedman, head of talent, leadership and DEI at IHG Hotels & Resorts, described conversations with managers to narrow down the competencies listed for a position. “We have a laundry list of things, and we should be asking, “What is the absolute requirement?” she said. “It's three to five things maximum. Let's have a reality check on that.”

In considering candidate skills, employers should recognize the prevalence of stereotypical assumptions, for example that older candidates lack relevant technical skills or are less apt to learn them. Or that younger candidates don’t have the skills associated with maturity. “I think we don't talk enough about different generations and being inclusive and respectful of all of them,” said Comcast's Mann. “It's interesting that people forget about that. That's an under-discussed part of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). I had one DEI professional tell me that everybody gets old, so it's not that sort of a thing.”

Yes, Data Is Your Friend

Reducing the number of requirements, pointed out Jeremy Schiff, CEO of RecruitBot, a machine-learning platform focusing on talent acquisition and retention with an eye for diversity, represents a challenge: how does one calibrate between getting enough candidates that are truly relevant while broadening the pool at the same time? “Hiring managers have a hard time squaring that circle,” Schiff said. His company has a rating system comparable to the one Netflix uses for movie and TV recommendations that goes from 1 to 5, which can then detect a pattern in the recruiter’s choices and present choices based on what the employer deems relevant. “It's easier to articulate that you like a candidate that's a good fit for the role, as opposed to describing what to look for,” said Schiff.

Similarly, Myers sees the limited usefulness of resumes and LinkedIn profiles, especially among early-career people, since what they list often doesn’t paint a thorough picture of the candidate. “By pulling in way more data, you can have more companies comfortable with having fewer hard filters,” he said, adding that this applies to pedigrees too. “A software developer from a state school or an HBCU can perform just as well as someone from Stanford, but you need retention data to dispel the myths and prejudices related to pedigrees.”

In Screening, AI Can Be a Help, Not a Hindrance

“AI can do a lot of damage to diversity efforts if you're not thoughtful,” warned Schiff. “Think from the bottom up to make sure that machine learning is focused on the right attributes. We continue to double down on it [at RecruitBot], with specific messaging for specific groups, leaning into going to find that talent rather than having the talent find you,” Schiff said.

A lot of it boils down to changing the mindset of hiring managers. Schiff reported being aware of hiring managers filling in spreadsheets with LinkedIn links and asking recruiters to find candidates like the ones they listed, rather than creating a dialogue with recruiters about the criteria needed for the job. “Hiring managers and recruiters can collaborate more effectively, and machine learning and AI can help,” he said, adding that AI, if trained properly, could automate the filling-the-spreadsheet component of the talent search.

Expect Some Resistance

Yet persuading hiring managers to change their habits can be a challenge. “Part of our journey with the hiring manager is that the crappy system selected them,” said Sursi, noting that the implementation of a new system might be perceived as a slight against the managers' own qualifications. “We need to talk about evolution as the world is changing.” He continued, “I do try to anchor them to all the things that have changed that are super obvious, but we need to evolve because the world is evolving.”

“I am OK with hiring managers to feel a little bit of pain,” said Freedman. “They're searching for a unicorn. We want them to be uncomfortable in order for them to be more open for a different way to think about talent and where we source.” Quipped Schiff: “So you're looking for a purple spotted unicorn? Maybe remove spots from the requirements!”

Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Milan and Brooklyn.

Where to Start: Making the Workplace Inclusive of Neurodiversity

It’s estimated that 15–20% of the global population is neurodivergent in some way, and growing awareness of diagnoses has people curious. They want to learn more about the term, what it means, and how they can support people who identify that way.Neurodivergence describes so many different experiences, but generally, people who are neurodivergent process information differently than most individuals. This includes people on the autism spectrum, people with learning disabilities, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Tourette’s syndrome.Millette Granville is the VP of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at digital learning platform 2U. She’s seen the appetite in her company and has been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm. “We have over 200 employees that are actively engaged in our abilities resource network. They were really, truly ready to get started building the community. I was not as prepared for the thirst for knowledge from our people, from leaders, as well as our employees about what exactly we need to do to make sure we are supporting our employees.During From Day One’s February virtual conference on getting to the next stage of diversity and belonging, Granville and her industry colleagues gathered for a panel discussion on neurodiversity in the workplace and how they’re changing their organizations to be more inclusive of neurodiverse needs.Neurodivergence can describe so many different diagnoses, experiences, and needs. It can also be invisible. “Neurodiversity is hidden in plain sight all around us,” said Hal Lanier, client engagement leader at accessible tech company TextHelp. So how does a workplace become inclusive if the needs can be hard to identify?An Inclusive Interview ProcessSome leaders begin with the hiring process. Monica Parodi, VP of talent acquisition at The New York Times, said she’s starting at the beginning, using tools to comb their job descriptions for noninclusive language. They’re also adding details about the hiring process to the company’s career pages so candidates can prepare in advance and avoid uncomfortable surprises.The panelists discussed the topic "How Companies Are Embracing Neurodiversity in Innovative Ways" at From Day One's virtual conferenceOnce candidates get to the interview stage, they’ll see other changes. “We know that the first 30 seconds [of an interview] are really uncomfortable for a lot of people who are neurodivergent. So we take that space and say, ‘we’re going to ask very structured questions to everyone, and we’re going to limit small talk,’” Parodi said. “We’re also making sure panelists understand neurodivergent behaviors and don’t penalize candidates if they don’t make eye contact, if they’re writing questions down, if they’re pausing, or if they’re asking you to repeat questions.”Building a reputation as an employer that is supportive of neurodivergent employees doesn’t happen by accident, she said. “There’s not one single place that you focus on; it’s weaved into every single part of your process in business and brand.”Designing Learning Opportunities with Neurodivergence in MindLearning and skill development programs often designed for the neurotypical employee are also getting a revision. Joshua Crafford is the VP of leadership learning and development at financial institution Synchrony. He said that his experience as a person with learning disabilities shapes his work. Crafford uses his personal point of view to design better learning experiences, often asking himself, “how would I have to learn the material?”For instance, Crafford talks to his audience to understand their learning styles, he teaches concepts, not just rote memorization. “It’s designed to be simplified. It’s built for all learners, divergent and neurotypical. We make sure that people can interact with the information through discussions and gain others’ perspectives.”At aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman, VP of talent management Jackie Reisner considers use cases when creating and evaluating skill development and training programs. Who’s going to be using it? Can you involve them in the design? Can you ask them what does and doesn’t work about the programs?Perhaps most importantly, does everyone have to complete the training in exactly the same way? Because neurodivergence represents non-traditional ways of processing information, it represents many different learning styles.“This is something that we have to be more open-minded about: there’s got to be more than one way to get to the goal,” said Reisner. When and how the training is delivered should be flexible and adaptable by the learner. The goal is that everyone learns, not that everyone completes the training in the same way.“I know from a compliance perspective, that feels challenging, because you want to just check ‘yes, everyone in my company took ethics training,’ Reisner said. “But if you can get more models, more ways people can get to that end state, then you’re going to see so much more success.”Don’t Assume, AskThe challenge for many who are neurodivergent is that they will prefer not to disclose their diagnosis at work–and others may not know they’re not neurotypical. That’s why many leaders are making these changes and accommodations available to all employees–not just those who openly identify as neurodivergent. No one should be forced to disclose neurodivergence if they don’t want to. “An individual should not be required to disclose to get assistive technology,” said Lanier of TextHelp. “There are a lot of organizations that make our product available for everyone.”The best practice is to simply ask employees what they need, panelists said, and be open to creativity. “Companies come up with all these accommodations, and it looks like a list to choose from. That can be great, but you have to remember to ask people what they need as well,” said Reisner. “At the end of the day, we have to ask, ‘how can we make your life easier? What are you seeing as challenges in the workplace, and what would be the ideal state to make this workplace a great place for you to work regardless of that neurodiversity status?’”At 2U, Granville leans on the neurodiversity resource networks for ideas and policy review, also considering parents and caregivers who are responsible for neurodivergent family members. “We rely on good communication and connection,” she said. “If leaders have questions, they can lean into our resource groups, myself, or our DEI team and also HR to make sure that we’re guiding people in the right direction, and doing what's best for them, not what we think they need.”To Lanier, it’s a matter of psychological safety, and high-performing teams feel free to be themselves. “Is it safe to take risks and be vulnerable and be fully known?” he said. A workplace that is psychologically safe is welcoming to all, neurodivergent or not.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the BBC, the Economist, the Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

How to Create and Sustain a Growth Mindset to Nurture Talent

When Dr. Mary Murphy was working on her PhD at Stanford, she was mentored by Carol S. Dweck, best-selling author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, a book that covers the potential of individuals. Now a social psychologist, Murphy has taken the mindset concept a step further and for over a decade has studied how the “fixed” or "growth” mindset affects not only individuals, but groups of people. Murphy discussed research from her book, Cultures of Growth: How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations, and how it can help teams during a fireside chat at From Day One’s March Virtual Conference.Those with a fixed mindset, Murphy says, believe in being born with skills that can’t grow any further. While those with a growth mindset believe they can learn and grow into new abilities. When talking about teams, organizations, families—there is a similar mindset culture.In a fixed mindset culture, or a “culture of genius” as Murphy called it, the focus is on the star performers. The opposite is a “culture of growth” where there is a focus on continuous learning so anyone can grow and contribute. And it’s that culture of growth that organizations need.Idea SparkIn 2005 during her PhD program, Murphy clearly recalled when this group application of mindset sparked. She was at a grad student seminar supporting a friend, where a professor voiced his opinion about what the fatal flaw of this student’s work was. Another professor chimed in and disagreed, saying the fatal flaw was something else. In essence, it was a battle of which professor was right.“I saw what it was doing to my friend,” she said. “All of a sudden, he lost focus. He wasn’t able to answer questions.” Unfortunately, the experience was so painful that months later he hadn’t continued his work.Two weeks later, in a different seminar, she witnessed something else. Rather than critiquing the students about what was wrong, the professors offered ideas on how to grow the project. The effect was clear. “The students were able to respond totally differently,” Murphy said. “They were able to actually engage in the brainstorming, answer the questions, and they left motivated to dig in.”Reflecting on those two experiences or environments, she realized how much a group can impact an outcome. The harsh approach was not motivating at all. On the other hand, the mentality of growth and how we can all contribute really turned things around for the better.Dr. Mary Murphy discussed her new book Cultures of Growth: How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations in a fireside chat moderated by From Day One co-founder Steve Koepp (photo by From Day One)Murphy presented the idea to her new mentor, asking what if mindset is more than just internal? What if it’s baked into culture and influences the cultivation of talent? She blinked a few times and said, “No one's ever thought of mindset this way. But we should do it together. And that began 15 years of work on reconceptualizing the mindset, as not just in our head, but also as this cultural feature.”Time to StudyNow with 75 studies in her back pocket, Murphy has seen firsthand just how deep mindset goes. Murphy and Dweck looked at the mindset of teachers and faculty members in K-12 and college and how they practice that in the classroom.“We look at how that impacts student experience. We’ve created apps that actually measure student experience in the moment looking at their sense of belonging, whether they think their teacher has a growth mindset, belief for them or not, their sense of self efficacy, their trust of the teacher.”What they found was that even if a student has a growth mindset, when set into a fixed mindset culture, they won’t have the opportunity to benefit from their growth mindset. The group trumps and stilts their progress. In the National Study of Learning Mindsets, a randomized control trial of more than 12,000 students around the country underwent a growth mindset program to see how it would impact their grades and if they’d be willing to take challenging courses. As expected, it had a positive effect. Their GPA was higher and more of them enrolled in the challenging courses than the control group. They also looked at where the program didn’t work.“The answer was two places,” Murphy said. “It was with teachers that had more fixed mindset beliefs or engaged in fixed mindset practices, then giving students that personal growth mindset. The effect was zero. It had no impact. It wasn't even a small impact – it had no impact.”The other place it didn’t work was when peers didn’t engage in challenge seeking, then students were less likely to want to work hard. But when there were teachers and peers who relished a challenge and supported each other, the growth mindset helped students flourish.Organizational CultureWorking with companies of all shapes and sizes, Murphy saw similar results. The mindset of a team at large has a huge impact on creativity, collaboration, and innovation. In one study in particular, they looked at the difference between a psychologically safe environment and a growth minded environment. They found that psychological safety is the baseline for any other growth to take place.“Psychological safety just means that you're willing to speak up when something’s gone wrong. But growth mindset culture really is being vigilant about how to improve what you’re doing, your interactions with others, the outcomes and the strategies that you’re trying. You’re proactively looking for improvement opportunities.”In fixed mindset cultures, they search for the narrow genius prototype to come up with all the answers. When in reality, a growth culture would open up the spectrum of recruiting, looking more at positive values. As Murphy says, a growth culture helps organizations naturally look for more diversity. “What’s most important is the extent to which people are willing to develop, grow and learn.”Changing Company CultureIn her book, Murphy goes over four common mindset triggers which can help individuals understand where people are on the fixed to growth spectrum. In turn, those who work with those individuals can help them shift. For example, one trigger is praise. If someone else gets praise, how does the person react? Are they happy for them, or are they jealous, thinking they are less than? One way to help foster a growth mindset is how praise is given. Rather than a “good job!” which doesn’t offer helpful feedback, Murphy suggested managers repeat what the person has done so well, so they can replicate that and others can encourage.When Satya Nadella first came to Microsoft as CEO, he described Microsoft as everyone thinking about their own silo. He read Dweck’s book and wanted to help Microsoft become the first growth minded culture and company. Kathleen Hogan, head of talent, asked how things needed to change so they could recruit and onboard people that would help shift the company’s culture. She implemented changes, but success didn’t come right away. Some bragged they had the biggest growth mindset in the room. “She had to really talk to people about what a growth mindset actually looks like. And to bake that in to some of the incentive systems and also some of the mentoring and sponsoring and support systems so that people could take on challenges could make mistakes, and actually get points for the learning and the growth from those mistakes and the communicating of those mistakes across the company, so that the whole company can learn at the same time more rapidly.” That’s when things picked up. Slowly but surely, the culture was changing. It became okay to make mistakes, but putting out ideas and taking risks and being open to failure became the norm. And that’s how they got cloud computing. Was the culture change worth it? No doubt about it.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.

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