Creating a world free from discrimination is the responsibility of all of us. At 33 Talent, we're passionate about fair employment practices and helping our clients build teams with diverse perspectives and capabilities. Here are some of our best tips when tackling job advertisements:
The first principle of the Tripartite Fair Employment Practices guidelines is to recruit based on merit. That means basing hiring decisions on skills, experience or ability to perform the job and regardless of age, race, gender, religion, marital status and family responsibilities, or disability. Even with good intentions, it's important for all of us to actively check our own prejudices and prevent discrimination.
1. Describe what you want in a candidate in terms of qualifications, skills, knowledge and experience.
2. Describe your values when to talk about your culture and your work environment
3. Avoid words or phrases that could be perceived to be discriminatory
Words that imply you are looking for young people (ie: youthful or high energy)
Words which favour one sex over the other (ie: physically strong or specifying a female working environment)
Asking for or requiring to disclose a particular race or religion
Asking to speak a particular language, unless it is critical for the role's responsibilities
Phrases which attract a particular nationality (ie: native English speakers, or X as a first language preferred)
N.B. Job adverts in Singapore may specify ‘Only Singaporeans’ but you should not include any statement on visa availability in the job advertisement
4. Check your unconscious bias
Unconscious bias is often perceived as gut feeling or intuition when in fact it’s our tired brains taking shortcuts to make decisions. We may favour people we feel are “like us” or have one outstanding feature which we really like. To prevent this we must first acknowledge our bias exists and then make an effort to take time to make assessments based on objective information. You can also read more about this on How to Combat Unconscious Bias During Recruitment.
There is plenty of evidence that to succeed in today's work environment companies need a diverse set of people capable of bringing different ideas and points of view to the table. This makes fair hiring not only good for our community but good for business.