Recruit Smarter was the first multi-sector policy initiative of its kind. The initiative brought together 46 organisations and over 300 executives and human resources professionals from across the public, private, non-government and research sectors to co-design and test ways to address unconscious bias in recruitment and develop inclusive recruitment practices.

Recruit Smarter was unique in its model of cross-sector collaborative research and policy design. This model effectively broke down the traditional silos of government policy research and development by promoting shared ownership and responsibility of the policy design and development process with initiative partners from across different sectors.

Recruit Smarter drew on the influence, expertise and shared knowledge and learnings of participating organisations to deliver innovative, high quality research findings, and develop cross-cutting policy and best practice guidelines on inclusive recruitment applicable to all sectors.

The Recruit Smarter program of work was designed to:

• Source knowledge and expertise from across sectors to collaboratively generate and design solutions to the problem of unconscious bias in recruitment;
• implement these processes in participating organisations, embedding them into real-world recruitment processes;
• evaluate the efficacy of these initiatives in improving recruitment success for job applicants; and
• broadly share and promote the findings and outcomes from the program of work to provide a resource that organisations can use to implement the findings.

The Recruit Smarter Report of Findings was released as a public resource in October 2018. The Report details the findings and outcomes of the research trials, the initiative’s unique model of cross-sector collaborative design, and includes the Best Practice Guidelines for inclusive recruitment developed by a working group of researchers and human resources professionals from 22 cross-sector organisations.

Recruit Smarter involved 46 cross-sector partner organisations who contributed to the initiative’s findings and outcomes. The Department of Premier and Cabinet Victoria was responsible for initiating the program and partnerships, and driving and coordinating the initiative’s delivery. Melbourne University designed the initiative’s research and evaluation framework and led its implementation. 44 partner organisations participated in trials, provided expertise, facilities, and resources and data.

Participating organisations, researchers, and diverse communities benefited from the research findings and insights the initiative delivered on inclusive approaches to recruitment, available through resources such as the Report of Findings, and the Best Practice Guidelines on Inclusive Recruitment.

Government benefited from the insights gained from implementing a new model of cross-sector collaboration on research and policy through the Recruit Smarter model of multi-sector engagement.

Recruit Smarter achieved three key priorities:

• Changes to recruitment, including CV de-identification, unconscious bias training, and targeted recruitment benefitted underrepresented applicants. Women, overseas-born applicants, and applicants from low socioeconomic areas benefited from CV de-identification with boosts to shortlisting, interviewing, and hiring outcomes, while applicants from priority groups were more likely to be reached by targeted recruitment and progressed further in their applications.
• Collaborative engagement by representatives from participating organisations led to the development of best practice guidelines to support diversity and inclusion in workplaces by drawing on the latest research and on-the-ground knowledge and expertise from across participating sectors.
• Knowledge Sharing Seminars drew attention to the value of diversity and inclusion, showcasing innovative approaches to recruitment, and highlighting key issues and barriers faced by jobseekers.

Organisational change – staff movements and organisational changes affected continuity of the program of work and muddied communication at times, leading to difficulties in accurately interpreting evaluation outcomes.

Sound project management was required to ensure that record keeping, administrative processes, and decisions were effectively tracked over the lifetime of the project.

Strengths and limitations of the participating organisations needed to be carefully considered when developing the program of work to ensure mutual benefit to all parties, and to avoid any potential risks to the organisation or the project.

Ensure communication across stakeholders is consistent and easily accessible, and provide regular updates on project progress. Recognise performance and delivery of outcomes, and highlight any challenges encountered to ensure they can be taken into consideration and mitigated by all stakeholders.

Engage senior leadership: Senior organisational leaders have the influence to prioritise and drive engagement, foster organisational buy-in, and allocate resources to ensure commitments can be delivered at the operational level.

Foster intra-project networks: Create opportunities for stakeholders to network and work together. This provides the project with internal drive and momentum and facilitates collaboration, innovative thinking and shared ownership of outputs and outcomes.

Present a united voice: Develop key messaging, project narratives, and agreed terminology, and review and update regularly. Ensure external facing communication is consistent by establishing agreed strategic communications protocols with partner organisations.

Don’t overcomplicate project governance: Keep project governance as simple as possible to maintain project agility around authorisation, implementation and reporting.

There is significant potential to replicate the model of multi-sector collaborative engagement used to deliver the Recruit Smarter initiative. The various insights and principles noted at 6.3 (Conditions for Success) and 6.5 (Lessons Learned) outline the conditions for successfully replicating this model to investigate, develop and deliver research and policy. Recruit Smarter was a large scale project with many participants, however the principles can also be applied to smaller scale projects with fewer actors.

Understand the partner organisations: when exploring engagements, work with organisations to understand their current and forecasted strengths and limitations. This will provide all parties with an indication of how the organisation might contribute to a program of work in an effective and mutually beneficial way. Discuss the organisation’s priorities and strategic goals for engagement, and any potential risks to the organisation or the project in their participation.

Account for programs and strategies already underway: existing work underway within organisations can cause duplication or have an unforeseen influence on the direction and outcomes of engagement.

Maintain regular intra-project communication: ensure communication across stakeholders is consistent and easily accessible, and provide regular updates on project progress. Recognise performance and delivery of outcomes, and highlight any challenges encountered to ensure they can be taken into consideration and mitigated by all stakeholders.

Foster intra-project networks Create opportunities for stakeholders to network and work together. This provides the project with internal drive and momentum and facilitates collaboration, innovative thinking and shared ownership of outputs and outcomes.

Present a united voice: develop key messaging, project narratives, and agreed terminology, and review and update regularly. Ensure external facing communication is consistent by establishing agreed strategic communications protocols with partner organisations

Sound project management is critical: Sound project coordination, record keeping, and administrative processes are critical to ensure effective tracking of responsibilities and commitments, implementation progress, and overall engagement across partner organisations.