Inclusive Recruitment
Our Human Resources (HR) department has developed a statement on the Historic England website that sums up our commitment to maintaining and continuing to improve our inclusive practices.
Everyone's Welcome | Historic England
We’re looking for new ways to promote the past. To make it inclusive to all, we need people with fresh perspectives, from all walks of life, to join.
HR and Resourcing objectives 2022
In the middle of our 3-year Strategy for Inclusion, Diversity and Equality (IDE), HR set clear objectives for the organisation. These are shared below as a set of recommendations for other organisations seeking to set their own inclusive recruitment objectives.
- Take on Disability Confident Recruitment Training
- Review the Application Tracking System and consider solutions for a new inclusive recruitment system, such as:
- Ensuring everyone has access to inclusive recruitment materials, including interview question banks, inclusive assessment tools, policies and guidance.
- Reviewing recruitment practices through an Independent Inclusion and Diversity Consultant
- Promoting opportunities via videos on social media, and working with the Digital Team to target a diverse audience.
Finding HR and Resourcing team partnerships that work for your organisation
Historic England work with:
- The Guardian
- ENEI
- Diverse Jobs Matter
- DiversityDashboard
- Enham Trust
- Job Centre Plus
- The Open University and Leicester University
- Evenbreak - Connecting talented disabled job seekers with Historic England
- BYP – Connecting Black professionals to opportunities with Historic England
For early career opportunities (such as apprenticeships, traineeships, placements and work experience), Historic England work with:
- Youth Employment UK
- Pathway CTM
- The Social Mobility Foundation
- The Princes Trust
- Blueprint For All. (Formerly The Stephen Lawrence Trust)
Your organisation may also wish to consider summer placement schemes for people with barriers to accessing work in the heritage sector, such as those with a disability or other disadvantaged backgrounds.
Inclusive recruitment: Best practice
- To ensure job adverts use gender-neutral language, check your posts with a tool such as Gender Decoder.
- To alleviate anxiety and give candidates the best interview experience, give candidates the option to receive interview questions before their interview.
- To ensure a diverse interview and shortlist panel, update your recruitment forms and state that sifters should be from a diverse and skills selection committee, from different grades, with knowledge of the role.
- To show that youth voices matter in your organisation, consider committing to the Youth Friendly Employer charter and aspire to hold the Youth Friendly Employer Mark.
- To show your commitment to helping close the growing opportunity gap in the wake of Covid-19, consider committing to the Social Mobility Pledge. This pledge includes recruitment in the form of adopting open recruitment practices (which promote a level playing field for people from disadvantaged backgrounds).
