Hiring a diverse team for your remote company: 4 Best practices

When it comes to remote work, there are tons of great benefits, like wearing sweatpants every day, avoiding road rage, and getting lots of quality time with your dog. But one of the biggest impacts that not enough people are talking about enough is the opportunity to hire a more diverse team.

In this new world of remote workplaces, hiring managers now have the ability to choose team members from more locations, cultures, and backgrounds than ever before. And there are tons of great tools available now that make this even more doable, which we're excited to share with you here.

Why should this matter to you? Having a diverse team creates a better workplace in many ways: Team members will feel a better sense of belonging, the company will represent a wider sample of your customer base, and it has been proven by researchers at Forbes and McKinsey & Co. that diverse organizations are more likely to be successful than their homogeneous counterparts.

At Sesh, diversity and inclusion are a core principal of our team as well as our product (with features like Talk Time and Rounds that ensure everyone's voice is heard in meetings). So, we've made it a priority to make our hiring process as inclusive as possible.

Follow this guide for tried and true advice on how to make sure you're walking the walk on your DEI policies when it comes to hiring. We've got everything covered for you, from sourcing to the interview process.

1. It all starts with the JD

Nothing good was ever written in a vacuum, and your job descriptions are no exception. But we're going to go ahead and assume you don't have a language expert (with a focus in critical race theory and minor in gender studies) on your team to tell you that offering "free beer and ping pong tournaments every Tuesday" is not going to attract a diverse crowd. So, what do you do?

Luckily, there are some great AI tools that will analyze your job description for you (they're also great for emails, ads, and blogs). For example, Textio can measure how inclusive your writing is to marginalized groups, as well as reporting on any gender bias.

2. Sourcing matters

So now that you have a job description that you're ready to share with the world... where do you put it?

An important thing to understand is that if you're only hiring through personal networks or generic tools, your sourcing process is likely biased.

So where do you go? The answer is going to depend on what industry you're hiring in, but we will share some of the tools that have worked well for us:

Hire Tech Ladies is an online job board with 100,000+ members. As a company, you can make job posts, get featured in their weekly newsletter, or purchase access to their database to find candidates.

Elpha is an online community of 75,000+ professional women (inclusive of femmes, trans, and nonbinary people who identify with the mission). This is a great option for posting positions across many different industries, and the community represents a wide range of experience levels, from entry to C-level.

Inclusively is a new startup that is working to help teams hire talent that is typically discriminated against by working with your ATS to highlight profiles that you may have normally overlooked. The tool is specifically tailored to provide more opportunities for the disability community. In addition to sourcing, they also offer training and support.

Working with a talent sourcer is another great option. In the past, we have had good experiences with the account reps at Angel List who put in the work to make sure that great talent wasn't being overlooked .

3. Be set up for a global team

Being prepared to bring on international talent will open a lot of doors for your company. When you can stop worrying about taxes, payroll, and compliance, you can focus on finding the right person for the position.

We're huge fans of Deel, which allows companies to hire in 150 countries in minutes without worrying about local laws, opening a new entity, or managing international payroll - and they're very startup friendly.

Having an international team brings a huge breadth of perspectives and cultures to the table at all of your conversations, and being able to do this would bring a competitive edge to any team.

4. Nailing the interview

Usually "nailing the interview" is something we expect the applicant to do, but it's really a 2 way street.

• Make sure your interviewers are appropriately trained and prepped to understand and counter "like me" bias
• Use the same questions for every candidate to ensure a fair experience. An easy way to do this is to use an interview agenda template in Sesh
• Check out our 4 Remote Interview Tips for a more in-depth guide to running great interviews

A great team starts with the hiring process - and if you're following these tips, you'll be off to a great start.