The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently announced that it has decided to drop “equity” from its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) approach, now focusing on “inclusion and diversity” (I&D). This change was explained as an effort to emphasize inclusion as the cornerstone of their strategy, with the belief that this will naturally lead to equitable outcomes. They also cited confusion around the word “equity” as a driving factor. Critics argue that this move downplays the importance of addressing systemic inequalities directly and risks ignoring the specific challenges faced by underrepresented groups.

In light of SHRM’s decision and the ongoing debate about how to frame DEI, we want to reiterate our focus on the equitable hiring practices that serve our clients and their evolving workforce. While acronyms may shift, our approach stays the same: to identify candidates with the right job competencies from a diverse range of backgrounds and evaluate them fairly through consistent, skills-based assessments.

We Focus on What’s Right…and Good Business

As language around DEI continues to change with political tides and societal opinions, we focus on doing what’s right and what works. Embracing each of the core principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion not only ensures fairness in hiring but also drives better business outcomes. We’ve seen firsthand how this leads to better matches between candidates and hiring organizations, increased employee satisfaction, and improved organizational performance.

Extensive research shows that teams perform better when they include people with different perspectives. And you can’t build more diverse teams without an inclusive approach that emphasizes equity in the evaluation process. Regardless of what you call it, leveling the playing field delivers results where traditional hiring practices often fail.

Words Have Meaning, Your Practice Makes Them Real

To us, equity in hiring means providing all qualified candidates an opportunity to show their abilities, regardless of their background or career path. This approach aims to reduce the impact of unconscious biases and expand the pool of considered talent.

It’s about recognizing diversity as an inherent advantage and using research-based methods to evaluate each candidate’s potential to succeed. We think about diversity as perspectives your team doesn’t already have. This spans different cognitive styles, industry or sector experiences, educational backgrounds, political affiliations, or factors like race, gender, and socio-economic status.

Our Results-Based Hiring® Process delivers on the promise of equity through a methodology that intentionally seeks out diversity and ensures fair consideration for every candidate. While traditional hiring practices often disadvantage those with less conventional career paths, we level the playing field by inviting candidates to demonstrate their unique skills and problem-solving approaches in different contexts. This includes job-relevant written assessments, structured competency-based interviews, and work sample tests that directly relate to the role. At every step, we help clients look beyond the limitations of familiar career backgrounds and outdated criteria.

A perfectly equitable system may not yet exist, but we are striving for it.

(For a deeper dive into why commonplace hiring practices so often fail us and what you can do instead, read The Case for Competency-Driven Hiring)

Serving Those That Serve Others

Ensuring fairness and equity in the hiring process is part of our ethical commitment to clients and candidates. For our clients, this means being able to access a wider pool of highly qualified talent and find candidates who bring fresh perspectives and problem-solving approaches. For candidates, it means fairer consideration and the opportunity to demonstrate their potential regardless of the path they took to build their skills. We believe these should be foundational practices for all executive search firms, especially those serving mission-driven organizations.

  • More than 87% of our work comes from existing clients, and most new clients come from referrals. That’s because we take our ethical commitments to serving mission-driven organizations seriously. They guide everything we do. Read about them here.
  • What exactly does it mean to take an inclusive approach when selecting candidates to interview? Here’s how to lean into the skills your team really needs and deemphasize factors that don’t predict job success.
  • Work sample testing is one of the most accurate (and fair) ways to assess a candidate’s ability to do the job. Here’s how it works.