Gen Z cares about what your organization is doing to help build a more inclusive workforce. In fact, we found that three quarters of early career talent would reconsider applying to a role at a company if they were not satisfied with its DE&I efforts. When broken down by gender, it’s clear that women are even more concerned with their future employer's DE&I efforts, with 85% of female internship and entry-level candidates agreeing with this sentiment (compared to 68% of men). With that in mind, we sought to discover what exactly female candidates are considering when evaluating your DE&I efforts to help you better understand where their values lie.
For our full report on traditionally underrepresented talent and their preferences, down our full guide, Diversity in the Workplace.
In order to recruit emerging female talent, you must show candidates in the recruitment process that you cultivate a diverse, inclusive work environment. From our survey of survey of nearly 2,600 Gen Z internship and entry-level candidates found that one of the best ways to do so is to ensure female candidates interact with diverse individuals during their interviews. In fact, we found that 60% of white women, 78% of Hispanic women, 86% of Asian women, and 97% of Black women cite this as an important factor they consider when interviewing for roles.
As a talent professional, you must ensure that a diverse slate of individuals at your company conduct interviews and are involved in hiring decisions. By showing female candidates firsthand that you have a diverse workforce and that they are responsible for helping to create the next generation of talent at the company, they'll be more apt to pursue a career at your organization.
Another crucial priority for women as they weigh their career options is that their immediate and company leadership teams are diverse. This factor is especially important to Black women, with over 60% considering the makeup of their potential direct and executive teams when evaluating a company's DE&I efforts .
It’s clear that female candidates not only want to see that they get hired at your organization, but that they can rise the ranks and hold leadership positions as well — and that company-wide decisions are being made by female leaders. By facilitating growth opportunities for your female employees, you’ll be able to both recruit and retain a more diverse workforce.
A clear theme that we’ve discovered among Gen Z women when it comes it DE&I is their need for transparency from their prospective employers. In fact, we found that 72% of women cite the importance of transparency and availability of representation statistics when evaluating a company's DE&I efforts, compared to 55% of men. We additionally found that they also expect companies to be transparent about salary ranges and want to confirm that payment is equitable across all groups. Notably, 70% of Black women consider this a critical indicator of whether an organization is committed to DE&I.
Transparency is key to successfully recruiting female Gen Z candidates, especially women of color. This means being upfront about salary ranges, availability of inclusive benefits, and your organization's demographic diversity. Female applicants will appreciate clear information about these aspects of your organization, all of which help them to determine if your company is the right fit for them.
When it comes to how female candidates evaluate your DE&I efforts, seeing is believing. For women entering the workforce today, the breakdown of your employees and leadership team matter much more than the details in your official and written commitment to DE&I. To attract diverse talent to your organization, your first steps should include ensuring that your company is fueled by a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds, and is prepared to support employees from all backgrounds as they grow within your organization. If your organization still needs to incorporate DE&I initiatives, executing the ideas featured in this post is a great place to start to attract the best class of Gen Z talent.
If you’re looking for more on what traditionally underrepresented candidates want from their future employers, download our full guide to Diversity in the Workplace.