Inclusive Hiring Practices You Should Implement to Reach Your DEI Goals

Did you know that companies with ethnic and cultural diversity in the top quartile are 36% more likely to be profitable ahead of their competitors? It’s not just the ethnicity or cultural diversification at the workplace that brings such outstanding organizational development. A gender-diverse leadership team is also 25% more likely to perform better than average.

That’s the kind of impact inclusive hiring can make when considered a strategic business priority. Inclusive hiring isn't just about increasing diversity but also about fixing what’s broken in the way most companies hire. That’s why transforming DEI goals into real hiring outcomes requires more than intent. It demands proactive action, conscious practice, accountability, and the right tools.

If you want to rebuild your inclusive hiring strategy, we have got you covered. In this blog, we’ll break down the practical, structural changes that can make your hiring genuinely inclusive and not just performative.

Best Practices to Ensure Diversity and Inclusion in Recruitment

1. Audit and Rewrite Job Descriptions for Inclusion

Language shapes perception. Job descriptions often unintentionally exclude certain groups by using gendered or biased language, jargon, or overly rigid requirements.

Inclusive hiring practice:

• Remove exclusionary terms like “rockstar,” “ninja,” or “native speaker.”
• In addition to degree requirements, put additional emphasis on skill-based criteria.
• Use tools that flag biased language and suggest inclusive alternatives.
• Put more emphasis on flexible work arrangements and support you ensure for people with disabilities.

An applicant tracking system that includes AI can assist in A/B testing the job description, then analyze the success of the language across various demographics of applicants.

2. Diversify Your Talent Sourcing Channels

Hiring from the same few job boards often leads to homogeneous candidate pools. If you want to enforce diversity and inclusion in the workplace, you must actively reach out to underrepresented groups through different job boards or your own career page or your LinkedIn page..

Inclusive hiring practice:

• Partner with diverse professional communities online to get candidates, especially for niche tech roles.
• Source candidates from vocational schools, community colleges, and historically marginalized communities.
• Leverage employee referral and directly source candidates from your career page. If you don’t have one, top recruitment software like Talentpool can help you build your career page in the shortest turnaround time.

3. Shift to Skills-Based, Structured Hiring

Conventional recruiting techniques involve using pedigree, such as the name of a college, large-brand employers, which might feed biases. Although these are relevant, recruiters must also focus on a skill-based approach in order to create an equal playing field among candidates.

Inclusive hiring practice:

• Use structured interviews with predefined questions and scoring rubrics.
• Rank candidates using role-relevant competencies instead of subjective impressions, and check their upskilling capabilities.
• Integrate good assessment tools directly into your recruitment software.

4. Train Hiring Teams on Inclusive Interviewing

Unconscious bias can derail even the best-intentioned hiring processes. Educating your hiring panel is one of the best practices to ensure diversity and inclusion in recruitment..

Inclusive hiring practice:

• Conduct regular interviewer training on bias awareness and inclusive questioning.
• Use standardized feedback forms to avoid vague or subjective comments.
• Include diverse voices on interview panels to minimize bias.

The right applicant tracking software can help operationalize this by embedding feedback templates, checklists, and interview guides within the hiring workflow.

5. Make the Candidate Experience Equitable and Accessible

A positive, fair, and accessible candidate experience is essential for inclusive hiring. Candidates should feel informed, respected, and empowered at every touchpoint.

Inclusive hiring practice:

• Ensure application forms are accessible (screen-reader friendly, mobile-optimized).
• Clearly communicate the hiring process and timelines, and respond to candidate queries with clarity.
• Allow accommodations for neurodiverse candidates or those with disabilities.
• Personalize candidate communication using automation.

6. Use Data to Identify and Address Bias

Data is your biggest companion in driving measurable DEI outcomes. Without visibility into your hiring funnel, it’s impossible to fix what you can’t see.

Inclusive hiring practice:

• Track conversion rates across demographics (e.g., gender, race, disability) at each hiring stage.
• Identify drop-offs and ask yourself if women are underrepresented in the final round or if certain groups are declining offers.
• Use data-driven candidate sourcing practices to recalibrate job requirements, processes, or sourcing strategies.

An intelligent candidate tracking system can automatically flag the bottlenecks, helping recruiters and CHROs make informed decisions.

7. Include DEI in Every Step

It’s not enough to review bias at the end. Proactive inclusion must be built into every step of the process.

Inclusive hiring practice:

• Use blind resume screening to hide names, photos, and dates.
• Enable pronoun preferences and inclusive onboarding fields.

Hiring inclusively is not something that is a quick fix, but a continuous and conscious practice. It is important to get feedback from candidates as well as internal teams to help improve the process. Recruiters need to conduct post-interview surveys to measure impartiality and transparency and internal tests to measure DEI standards compliance. The trends in feedback should be analyzed to understand what can be improved. By using a top-tier applicant tracking software like Talentpool, it will be possible to automate the process of collecting feedback and closing the loop with candidates and hiring managers.

Conclusion: Inclusion Isn’t Optional, It’s Foundational

The future-ready workforce is built on inclusive hiring. It is the process through which companies introduce innovation and earn the trust of both employees and clients. However, manual efforts alone do not work effectively to implement DEI hiring practices.

With the help of modern hiring tools or recruitment software, particularly an AI-based applicant tracking software, you will be able to operationalize the practice of DEI in the hiring funnel, minimize the impact of unconscious bias, and produce measurable results.

Are you ready to turn your DEI goals into results?

Explore how Talentpool’s intelligent candidate tracking system can help you hire inclusively, efficiently, and equitably. Schedule a demo now!