Improving diversity in executive level talent.

So, here’s the thing; whilst we can pride ourselves on identifying and engaging with world-class diverse talent on behalf of our clients, helping them to create world-class leadership teams that are richly diverse; we haven’t actually improved diversity, we have simply transferred this talent from one organisation to another.

If we and our clients are genuinely committed to improving talent diversity at leadership level, then we must make greater efforts to support our clients to improve diversity at entry level.

Executive talent specialists cannot expect to access a greater proportion of diverse leadership talent unless we are willing to be a part of the solution to facilitate talent diversity improvements at entry level.

This is fundamentally uncomplicated, we need to focus the overcoming the challenge towards one hugely positive fact; namely that there is no lack of diverse young talent leaving schools, colleges and universities.

Given that diverse entry level talent exists, we need to take collective responsibility for recognizing that the roots of leadership talent diversity challenges lie in the lack of equality and inclusion for many young people who do not currently benefit from middle class parents, with useful networks and an understanding of how to coach young people to prepare for and survive formal selection processes. I am not suggesting that we middle class folk are wrong for wanting to help our kids, of course we want to help them, but I am suggesting that we take increased ownership of the fact that it is not OK for us to have an entry level recruitment culture and system that does not provide all young people with a level playing field of access to the same early stage career opportunities. For sure, entry level talent needs to be of a sufficient calibre and have sufficient levels of determination and resolve to evidence its potential to blue chip organisations, however, until there is a mechanism through which all of our young people can gain insights into and apply for entry level opportunities, regardless of where they went to school, what their parents do for a living, their cultural heritage, etc. then we shan’t move the dial on creating richly diverse entry level talent platforms from which diverse leadership talent will become the evolutionary result.

If Executive recruiters join the conversation around Equality and Inclusion at entry level, learning from entry level talent specialists and contributing to the creation of potential solutions, then we can find ways in which to improve the system – if entry level recruitment is truly inclusive, the leadership diversity challenge will solve itself.