Reflections on the Journey Toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Q&A with Aman Brar, Jobvite CEO

With a history stretching back nearly two decades, Jobvite has long been committed to helping companies attract, engage, hire, and retain the talent that they need to grow and succeed. We pursue that mission in hopes of creating employment opportunities for all regardless of race, religion, color, gender, identity, age, ability, location or creed.

As we reflect the past few months in which calls for empathy, equality, and justice for all have been renewed around the globe, we sat down with Jobvite’s CEO, Aman Brar, to get his thoughts about how to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion through technology, services, and our own organization.

Q: What does “Diversity and Inclusion” mean to you?

In my mind, “Diversity and Inclusion” means strength. It means organizations built with the best talent regardless of race, religion, color, gender, identity, age, ability, or creed. It means Black Lives Matter. It means we need more women in leadership. It means our LGTBQ teammates are comfortable with their whole selves at work. It means equity for all.

Q: What stands in the way of D&I efforts?

Many things. Conscious bias is what comes to mind first, and rightfully so because it is the most obvious. I’m thankful overt efforts to discriminate can have swift legal, professional, and social consequences.

The more insidious barriers to diversity and inclusion involve unconscious bias. This can manifest itself in how you write a job description, how and where you market a job opening, the schools from which you recruit, how a candidate is interviewed, and much more. The intent to discriminate may not exist, but the outcome is the same—fewer opportunities for specific groups of people. Our society has deeply entrenched systems that must be pushed through, broken open, to create equity for all.

Q: So how is Jobvite seeking to foster D&I?

First, we’re focusing on our own organization. As CEO, I’m committed to doing more to foster equitable opportunities that create the diverse and inclusive company that our employees and customers deserve. In partnership with Kelly Lavin, our SVP of Talent, I am working to engage team members directly to develop a broad and sustainable approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion that manifests itself across our people, processes, and technology.

Second, we’re engaging with customers to join them on their journeys to become more diverse and inclusive organizations. Over the past few months, customers of all sizes and industries have reached out seeking our help. Our response has been to engage, listen, and share. Diversity and inclusion are not things you can introduce with the click of a button or a standalone feature. Rather, you need to commit to improving the people, processes, and technology you deploy if you are to achieve your objectives.

Put another way, D&I is a journey, and it takes a great deal of commitment, empathy, and humility to get right. The journey will be imperfect and even uncomfortable at times, but it’s the only way we can help drive lasting organizational change. We don’t have all the answers, but I do believe it is a critical journey for Jobvite and our customers to take together.

Q: So, what is Jobvite’s D&I offering?

We offer a solution which combines our technology with services to help our customers attract more diverse talent while reducing the impact of unconscious bias in the candidate evaluation process. Our services-driven approach is meant to help organizations manage the people and process changes needed to foster diversity and inclusion. Our technology, such as Intelligent Messaging with Bias Blocker, then supports that effort by de-identifying resumes and chat transcripts to ensure candidates are evaluated on their talent rather than other factors.

Our Intelligent Messaging customers already have access to Bias Blocker, but it is our responsibility to empower them to utilize it in a manner that fosters diversity and inclusion. We’re excited to partner with our customers to further develop our D&I solution in ways that prove both innovative and effective.

Q: Is D&I a challenge that’s ever truly “solved”?

I certainly hope so, but that future is likely a long way off. Accordingly, we all need to commit to and focus on the journey. How do we get better each and every day? How do we eliminate systemic roadblocks that keep so many people from great employment opportunities?  How do we build upon success and not fall back into a “this is just how we do it” mentality?

The challenge of this generation of talent acquisition leaders and technologists has never been more clear. We have to drive change. We have to push for breakthroughs. We have to lead. Some days may feel like we’re pushing the boulder uphill, but I’m hopeful that with a collective effort, we will look back with pride that we rose to the challenge and a whole lot of people, their families, and their employers benefitted from our work.