Our applicant pools were not as diverse as we wanted them to be, but we were not sure how to go about increasing the diversity of our applicant pool.

We invested $6,600 in eQuest, which is a software program that auto-posts our job postings to numerous job boards, local community-based organizations, colleges, universities, vocational centers, and rehabilitation centers. eQuest covers and specifically targets job boards specializing in all categories of diversity, including veteran, disabled veteran, LGBTQ+, disability, and women.

Since implementing eQuest, we have seen an increase in the diversity of our hiring pools, which has resulted in the hiring of more women and minorities. A recent view of our Recruiting Funnel by Gender report showed that over the past 90 days, for both self-identified men and women, 12% of applications make it to the Interview stage. For men, .54% of applicants are offered jobs, whereas .72% of women are offered jobs. Ultimately, .43% of men were hired, and .72% of women were hired. In our Engineering designation, self-identified women made up about 25% of the applicants for Engineering roles. Women were about 20% of the applicants interviewed, and ultimately made up nearly 50% of the applicants hired.

Kira Childers