Give a fair chance to job candidates with criminal records

One way to make good on your company’s commitment to improve its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts is to implement a “fair-chance hiring” initiative. These programs grant everyone, regardless of criminal background, an opportunity to be fairly assessed for a given role: you only examine the candidate’s criminal record after the person has been interviewed and is considered qualified. To start a fair-chance hiring program at your company, coordinate with your leadership team, human resources and legal department to make sure everyone is on the same page about the mission, and how you’ll implement the initiative. Then connect with local partners to identify talent. Look for community-based organisations that focus on workforce development for re-entry. Conduct skills-based interviews with candidates, and focus on their transferable skills, potential and willingness to learn rather than their work experience (or lack of it). Finally, when the time comes, assess candidates’ records by considering what they were convicted of, how long it’s been since the offense, and the nature of the job that they’re applying for. Giving everyone a fair shake is an important step in building a more equitable workplace — and society.

(This tip is adapted from “Give Job Applicants With Criminal Records a Fair Chance,” by Margie Lee-Johnson.)

Know When It’s Time to Pull the Plug on a Project

We’ve all continued to work away on projects that we know are ultimately dead in the water. If you’re a manager, how can you recognise sunk-cost initiatives — and actually stop before wasting more resources? Start by ensuring that even big decisions are reversible. Recognise business plans for what they really are: experiments. Break large, risky gambles into a series of smaller tests. Clarify your hypotheses, the best ways to test them and the metrics that will signal whether to persist, pivot or pause. Then, implement systems that make visible to yourself and other managers what work is being done and how it’s going. This will help you recognise which initiatives are actually adding value, and which aren’t. Finally, keep a list of other projects you want to do, and set a rule that you can’t launch anything until you’ve finished or stopped existing projects. The fear of missing out on something better might help you overpower that feeling of disappointment over something that didn’t pan out. Pulling the plug is always hard, but knowing how and when to do it will help your team become more adaptable, innovative and resilient in the long term.

(This tip is adapted from “Start Stopping Faster,” by Darrell K. Rigby et al.)

Make better group decisions

When you have a tough business problem to solve, you probably bring it to a group. But there are risks to asking a team to collectively make decisions — namely, groupthink. Fortunately, there are behavioural science-based tactics that can help overcome the downsides. First, keep the group as small as possible. Having more voices in the room increases the likelihood that you’ll default to decisions that enforce the status quo. Next, make sure your group is diverse in order to reduce bias. Try appointing a “devil’s advocate,” a person whose job is to test consensus. Watch out for blind trust in experts: while they can help you become more informed, making them part of your decision-making can sway your team’s judgments. So you might invite them to provide their opinion on a clearly defined topic, but position them as informed outsiders. And finally, make sure that the group shares collective responsibility. Everyone should feel accountable for the decision and its outcomes.

(This tip is adapted from “7 Strategies for Better Group Decision-Making,” by Torben Emmerling and Duncan Rooders.)

Write a resume that gets noticed

If you’re looking for a job right now, you need to find ways to make your resume stand out — and fast. What can you do to set yourself apart and land that interview? First, you need to outsmart the algorithms that many companies use to filter resumes. Make sure you include keywords from the job description and keep your formatting simple — unconventional designs and layouts often get weeded out by artificial intelligence. You also should make sure your resume tells your story. Once it’s in the hands of a real person, you want them to see who you are, where you’ve been, and where you hope to go — not just a list of skills. Consider including a short, high-level summary of your background and what you have to offer. And don’t limit your experiences to paid work: what projects or volunteering have you done that may showcase your strengths as a candidate for this particular role? Nailing your resume is your first step toward the career you want. Give it the time and care it deserves.

(This tip is adapted from “How to Get Your Resume Noticed (And Out of the Trash Bin),” by Kristi DePaul.)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 12th, 2020