The Equity Edge: How Addressing Bias in Recruiting and Retention Drives Success

This strong debut manual from HR consultant Tardy explores how companies can attract and retain a more diverse workforce. Surveying common hiring biases, Tardy contends that assuming qualified applicants only come from competitors in the same line of work can reinforce industry-wide underrepresentation. She encourages hiring managers to get creative with how they reach applicants, such as by establishing connections with historically Black universities or partnering with churches that predominantly serve people of color to offer community training sessions on résumé writing and interview preparation. To ensure that employees from marginalized backgrounds have a fair shot at advancing within a company, Tardy recommends establishing an internal résumé database “to efficiently assess talent readiness within the company.” She sheds light on the ostensibly benign practices that fuel race, gender, and disability disparities in the workplace (hiring based on intuition comes in for particular opprobrium for its susceptibility to unconscious prejudice), and while the well-considered guidance is mostly aimed at HR professionals, Tardy also includes some useful tips for job seekers, as when she recommends asking during interviews about the difficulties the company is facing and discussing how one’s skills can address those challenges. Hiring managers would do well to check this out. Agent: Cole Lanahan, Seymour Agency. (June)