Recruitment is essential for ATAP as it helps us to find suitable candidates for vacant positions and adapt to change. Investing in recruitment ensures that our workforce can contribute to achieving the Lab’s mission.

To target suitable candidates, our recruitment strategy includes best practices on diversity and inclusion to support an inclusive workplace that engages all employees.

At April’s All-to-All meeting, Division Deputy Director, Operations Asmita Patel, and Berkeley Lab’s Talent Acquisition Partner Rasool Yousufzia presented an overview of how ATAP’s recruitment process incorporates these practices when recruiting new staff.

For example, to manage bias in the hiring process, the following are considered:

• Diverse Search Committee
• Consider Equity Advisor (EA) Role when hiring for leadership roles
• Job Description vs. Posting Language
• Establishing Clear Evaluation Criteria
• Structuring Interview Questions to Support Evaluation Criteria
• Using Comprehensive Recruiting Channels
• Focusing on Qualifications, not a Target Number of Candidates

To ensure equity and diversity:

• For Candidates – Equity in Recruiting & Evaluation Process
• Among Committee Members – Equity in Participation
• Lab Culture – IDEA Statements from Candidates (this depends on the position) and/or include IDEA questions as part of the interview

For the interview and evaluation process:

• Create interview questions based on the selection/evaluation criteria so that when you go to assess candidates, you understand their qualifications as it relates to the role
• Use interview questions discussed and approved by the search committee and recruiter–do not ask off-script questions. If you do have an off-script question, obtain input from the search committee and recruiter before asking the question unless it is a technical question related to the presentation
• If a candidate is struggling to answer a question and doesn’t ask clarifying questions, be careful not to provide examples of the answers. Ask if they want you to restate or rephrase the question
• Use a rubric to evaluate candidates by using the same criteria. Asking committee members to justify their decisions will hopefully force any implicit biases out into the open
• IDEA statement to evaluate how the candidate envisions contributing to diversity, equity, and inclusion for job codes that require it

Some committee Dos’s and Don’ts include:

For further information contact:

Rasool Yousufzai (mryousufzai@lbl.gov) or Talent Acquisition Associate Aricka Thomsen (anthomsen@lbl.gov)