Over the past five years, NextRoll has committed to attracting and hiring underrepresented talent and has created a culture shaped by its principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
NextRoll is a marketing technology company delivering products ambitious companies use and rely on to grow their businesses. The AI-powered MarTech leader has made significant strides in defining and exceeding its diversity goals.
From 2016 to 2021, NextRoll increased its representation of women in people-management roles from 32 percent to 45 percent. Likewise, the representation of BIPOC talent in people management roles has risen from 11 percent to 35 percent. Women in sales? NextRoll improved representation from 18 percent to 38 percent.
Of course, this didn’t happen in a vacuum; but how exactly has the organization achieved impactful results?
Claudia Villanueva, Manager of Talent Operations at NextRoll, recently shared some best practices for attracting underrepresented talent and how they leverage the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform to do just that. Read on for some insider knowledge on measuring and improving diversity.
Understanding your hiring goals
Define what you mean by “DEI goals,” said Villanueva. For example, how should organizations separate the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion — and then measure themselves against progress in each of those areas?
For NextRoll, it was critical to ensure its current work environment was inclusive — and career growth opportunities were equitable — as it committed to creating a more diverse pipeline.
Specificity is vital when it comes to goal setting for hiring underrepresented talent. It’s not one size fits all. In 2021, NextRoll had different hiring goals associated with each niche focus group, including:
- Maintain the hiring rate of women in people management roles to 50% (globally)
- Increase the hiring rate of women in engineering roles to 30% (globally)
- Increase the hiring rate of women in product roles to 50% (globally)
- Increase the hiring rate of underrepresented minorities to 17% (North America)
- Increase the hiring rate of women in New Business Sales to 40% (globally)
- Increase the hiring rate of underrepresented groups (URGs) in people management to 40% (North America)
Reporting drives accountability
These diversity goals are threaded throughout NextRoll’s recruiting practice. Hiring managers at NextRoll receive monthly reports of priority roles with the diversity of the pipeline across gender, race, and ethnicity. Recruiters and sourcers leverage Eightfold’s customizable reporting dashboard, which facilitates a deeper and more relevant understanding of the organization, to flag any inequalities in representation as candidates move through the funnel.
This type of reporting allows sourcers and recruiters to derive insights into where to diversify their pipeline or address inequities in the interview process.
Villanueva remarked on the importance of reporting tools for the sourcers and recruiters on the team. With data-driven insights, the talent team is “more empowered to be a stronger talent partner to their business partners.”
Reach niche communities with targeted campaigns
“With the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform, and its campaign feature, which uses deep-learning AI to help target talent, we are highly enabled to target specific underrepresented communities,” Villanueva said.
Villanueva shared a story about NextRoll’s presence at the Grace Hopper Conference. Ahead of the event, the talent team used Eightfold to target women in engineering from its current ATS and invited them to the NextRoll booth using Eightfold’s campaign feature.
Ninety-four percent of recipients opened the email campaign invitation, with many setting up meetings at the event.
Targeted sourcing contributes to a more diverse candidate pool
Villanueva said it takes seven to nine touch points before a candidate considers employment within an organization, a familiar statistic for many talent acquisition professionals.
To attract and nurture passive candidates, AI can help build a community of talent around a particular skill or role, such as women in sales or people managers in engineering.
Eightfold’s sourcing platform sits on top of NextRoll’s applicant tracking system and has optimized its ability to reconnect with talent recruiters have engaged in the past. That includes former applicants, past referrals, and even event attendees.
Recruiters have access to a group of previously interested individuals (Talent Rediscovery) in NextRoll for when the next position opens up. This enables recruiters to start a conversation about new opportunities more easily.
Villanueva’s last piece of advice for reaching diversity goals is to take advantage of multiple streams of engaging with a diverse talent pool, from referrals, campaigns, sourcing, and events.
Read NextRoll’s customer story to learn more about its diversity, equity, and inclusion progress.
