Diversity Recruiting Software: 2023 Buyer's Guide

It's no secret that employers today recognize the importance of nurturing a diverse pool of internship and entry-level talent to future-proof their organizations. However, the current economic climate has forced talent teams to get creative to reach ambitious diversity hiring goals, and do more with less in terms of staffing and budget.

That's where strategic solutions come into play for talent acquisition teams on the lookout for strong interns and entry-level hires — such as diversity recruiting software. By leveraging specialized campus recruiting software that puts diversity at the forefront, you can expand your candidate pool, attract a diverse range of talent, and foster a more inclusive workplace. 

For Gen Z talent especially, candidates are expecting high-tech recruiting and onboarding processes. With the right tools, you can both source a diversity of early career talent, and provide a standout candidate experience along the way. 

What is diversity recruiting software, and how can it help your team?

Diversity recruiting software is designed specifically to help organizations hire candidates across different demographics and from a variety of backgrounds by mitigating bias. 

High-quality diversity recruiting software helps streamline every part of the hiring process and is able to manage a high volume of candidates, which is often a challenge after a career fair or large diversity recruitment event. This kind of software also makes it easier for you to advance the right candidates through the recruitment process.

This optimization makes the hiring process easier for you as a recruiter and reduces the chance for bias, as well as enables a more streamlined and user-friendly experience for candidates.

What are the different types of diversity recruiting software?

Depending on your needs, you may want to look at different types of diversity recruiting software until you find what best serves your talent pool. Here are some of the main types you should look at.

Applicant tracking system (ATS)

An ATS is able to take the candidate through the hiring process from when they first apply, to selecting the best candidate for the job. ATS software will usually have a range of features including resume parsing, interview scheduling, and candidate management. You can maximize your ATS to support your diversity hiring goals by using its capabilities to balance gender ratios as it sorts resumes, for example. Your ATS can also remove unconscious bias when hiring because it eliminates the chance that a recruiter will select a candidate due to any reason other than whether they are qualified for the role. You can also integrate other diversity recruiting software into your ATS to help increase your DE&I efforts beyond your ATS’s basic capabilities. 

Candidate engagement software

As recruiters foster relationships with a diverse slate of candidates, candidate engagement software can assist in building that relationship by sending follow-up correspondence after events, collecting resumes and other information easily, and evaluating candidates on mobile devices. Additionally, this software assists in scheduling interviews and ensuring that candidates feel well-prepared, which is particularly important in promoting fairness and equal opportunities for individuals from diverse backgrounds.

Candidate sourcing software

Finding and engaging with a diverse slate of top talent can be one of the biggest struggles for recruiters — especially since you can’t visit every diversity-focused institution in the country. Campus recruitment software that specializes in helping you source underrepresented talent may also be able to help you manage campus connections and track the ROI of your relationships with universities with diverse student populations. This type of software can also help you build engagement around diversity-focused recruiting events and market opportunities to attract top talent there.

What should you look for in a good diversity recruiting software (and what to be wary of)?

Not all diversity recruiting software is equal or the right fit for you, and in order to get the best ROI possible, you need to find software that caters to your ideal talent network. The following are a few questions you should ask yourself during your search for a diversity recruiting software partner. 

• Does it support hybrid recruiting? Gen Z talent prefer hybrid working environments where there is flexibility in their schedules, and this is especially true for Black and Latinx candidates who may even prefer fully remote roles. Be sure you understand their preferences and that your campus recruiting software is set up to match and can support virtual efforts. Plus, virtual recruiting allows you to reach a wider range of diverse talent across the country.
• What is the candidate experience like for students? Candidates these days have high expectations of the recruiting process. Accidentally ghosting a candidate or providing a poor experience can hurt your chances of keeping top talent in your applicant pool. Be sure that you’ve selected software that prioritizes candidate experience and helps you respond to candidates quickly.
• Is the candidate network active? While some recruiting softwares have large student networks, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be any closer to getting responses from candidates. That’s because some platforms, such as Handshake, collect information from university’s career centers, meaning students have not opted in to a job searching platform and may not be looking for internships or jobs.      

How RippleMatch can help 

With an abundance of technology at your fingertips, it can be overwhelming to pick a diversity recruiting software that fits all your needs, as well as the needs of your candidates. But RippleMatch is designed specifically for Gen Z recruitment teams with a focus on building diverse teams. With all the above-mentioned points, plus several more features, RippleMatch sets the curve for campus recruiting software.

Here are just some of the features that RippleMatch users love:

• Diversity Recruiting: RippleMatch is the most efficient and cost-effective way to make a difference on DE&I. It allows you to engage underrepresented talent at 1600+ schools and 310+ HBCUs and HSIs with a single partnership, and to optimize conversions for diverse talent in your hiring funnel.
• An engaged student network: Candidates on RippleMatch made a profile themselves, and self-report all their own data. You can be sure that the information you see accurately reflects their backgrounds and interests, and that they are actively searching for roles. (That’s why our candidates response rate is 92% — verse 4% on other platforms)
• Streamlined sourcing and applicant review: With RippleMatch you can unify all your applicant sources into a single view, apply our scoring algorithm to all your inbound candidates and see your best-fit applicants right away — quickly rejecting unqualified ones and getting back to top talent faster.
• Recruiting analytics: It’s easy to optimize your recruiting efforts and maximize your ROI when there’s recruitment effort analytics at your fingertips. Plus, you can make sure that your lean team is having the biggest impact with even the smallest budget.
• Employer branding: If your employer branding isn’t optimized, you’re missing out on top talent. Remain competitive with software that helps improve your employer branding and communicates your brand effectively to candidates.
• Event management: Turn RSVPs into hires by having your event management all in one place. Not only will attendance be up, but the excitement will be too. Plus, capture candidate information, and make data-driven decisions.

Choosing a diversity recruiting software can be overwhelming at first, but this one-time decision could save you a lot of time, money, and headaches in the long run. Both your recruitment team and your candidates deserve the best experience possible, so use this technology to your advantage and blow the competition away.

Learn more about why top employers have turned to RippleMatch to help them build high-performing, diverse teams here.