Building upon the UW’s diversity brand
Interview with Ebonee Anderson, Diversity Recruiter, Total Talent Management

You were hired into the new diversity recruiter position in April. What has your work involved over the past few months, and where do you see it going?

I’m not a reinvent-the-wheel kind of person, so my strategy is to work with existing champions — of which there are many here at the UW — to see how we can collaborate and help each other get results. One of my first steps was reaching out to people across campus who have “diversity” in their title, and to others who may not have it in their title but are doing diversity and inclusion work (D&I). I’ve also been working closely with Simone Willynck and others in the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity as well as reaching out to leaders of various affinity groups to find out how they’re leveraging those groups and about any potential gaps or challenges.


Essentially, I’m using my background in full-cycle recruiting as a lens for increasing diversity and inclusion to not just attract and hire talent but also to retain, develop, engage and advance employees. In collaboration with my colleague Recruiting and Sourcing Specialist Terra Kerr, I hope that we can enhance UWHR’s reputation as a partner in D&I work, and I am also highly invested in building upon and further developing the UW’s diversity brand.

What sort of role do you see HR having in this work?

There are a few different ways I see HR contributing. One is to ensure the University’s diversity values are embodied in our recruiting and hiring practices. As an example, one of the first things I did was start looking at what “diversity” means to the UW. There was a lot out there, from the Diversity Blueprint to the Diversity Hiring Toolkit and the Race and Equity Initiative. In UWHR, we crafted a diversity statement that is now included in every job posting on our website:

Committed to attracting and retaining a diverse staff, the University of Washington will honor your experiences, perspectives and unique identity. Together, our community strives to create and maintain working and learning environments that are inclusive, equitable and welcoming.

Some departments are actively doing D&I work and have processes in place in regard to hiring, and many of them include verbiage about diversity in their job postings. Those departments can continue to keep their own distinct messaging, but the global diversity statement standardizes the UW’s commitment and enhances the UW’s diversity brand.

There’s the recruiting and sourcing side of it, but once people apply, how far are they getting in the process? Who makes it to the phone screen? Who gets an interview, a second interview, an offer? A lot of the work I’m doing is looking at our current full-cycle process, the journey each candidate takes. Where are some potential exclusions and barriers in the process and how can we make the process more equitable?

Some people interview very well; some people don’t. Some people write very good resumes; some people don’t. Some people are good at selling their skills and some are not, but they all might be qualified to do the work. It’s not just the person who stacks up the most credentials who’s the most qualified, but in the traditional hiring process, you’re screening out people. You’ve got all these people knocking at your door and you’re figuring out how to eliminate half of them. A problem with that is our bias. The truth is we’re all naturally biased, that’s how our brain naturally works, so sometimes we gravitate to what we know and what we’re comfortable with and that can affect hiring.

As recruiters, we are in the positon to act as consultants. We do not make the hiring decisions, but we are able to help influence decisions by partnering with those who participate in the hiring process to provide recommendations about best practices, tips, and strategies to create more inclusive and effective hiring processes. There may be things, for instance, in our policies or job descriptions that could essentially deter someone from applying or from being able to get a position.

For instance, the minimum job requirements say that anyone who meets those is qualified for the role, even if we have to train some more than others, but then you have this long list of desired qualifications. Maybe there’s a position that requires a high school diploma but the desired degree is a master’s. Two things could happen in that situation. An applicant who has 10 or 15 years of experience and could be really good at the job thinks, this is a higher education institution, they’re going to pick the person with the master’s. I don’t have a chance, so I’m not going to apply. Or maybe the hiring manager gravitates towards that person with the master’s, even if otherwise they might not be the best for the role. This illustrates why hiring departments should be intentional when listing desired qualifications. We have to consider what experience is truly needed to be successful in the job, who are we looking to attract to this job and who are we potentially excluding.

For you, what’s the crux of ensuring diversity, and in thinking about hiring and retention, what’s missing?

For me it’s not about targeting a specific demographic but really creating a more inclusive and equitable process because, really, inclusion and equity is going to bring diversity, versus the other way around. If you’re creating an inclusive process, if you’re creating an equitable process, you’re going to get diversity because, essentially, you’re casting the net wide, you’re making sure any and all people who are interested and can qualify for this role are being considered.

I’d also like for people to think more about “culture adds” versus “culture fit.” What can someone add to your team that you don’t already have? If you begin to consider diversity not just in the external things we don’t have a choice over, like our race and things like that, but in different work backgrounds, different cultures, different perspectives, different experiences, then you are essentially hiring somebody for their diverse quality. You’re recognizing this person brings something different than everybody else or that they’ll be able to fill a gap on your team.

In my philosophy, your best recruiting tool is retention. The employee’s experience, from hiring to onboarding and beyond, will affect their future decisions about whether to go or whether to stay. If you can keep your staff engaged and retain them, then you don’t have those positions you have to fill over and over. I’m hoping to help build specific strategies around retention but then get to the point where it’s not a D&I strategy, it’s just the norm, the culture of the work that we do.

You mentioned building upon the UW’s diversity brand. Why is that so important?

Our goal is to be an inclusive campus where everyone can show up as themselves, where everyone can reach their full potential, where people are open to learn from each other, where diversity’s actually valued and not something that’s just a checkbox or something that’s for marketing material.

The UW’s been doing this work for some time, and we need to make sure we’re communicating that diversity brand as widely and clearly as possible. In this market, people look at jobs and employers and think, who am I interested in working for? They’re also thinking, how can I show up in my workplace? This is especially true with more millennials in the workforce, and studies have shown that diversity, inclusion and equity work is very important to that population.

I want to ensure we have an environment, and are known to have an environment, that when people apply for a position, they know they can show up as themselves. That’s who you, as a hiring manager or leader, want to show up in your interview and that’s who you want to show up every day at work because that’s who you’re going to get the most productivity and the most benefit from — and that makes diversity our strength.

As I’ve said, inclusion begets diversity. Diversity’s going to come; it’s a fact. We live in a diverse world. The choice we have is making it our strength.

Summer 2019 | Return to Issue Home