What do mean by “diversity initiative?” To start, you cannot source or hire someone based on their race/ethnicity. We’ve already established that is illegal.

You also have to question yourself what your current workforce looks like. Do you have a lack of white people? Do you have a lack of veterans? Do you have a lack of Hispanic people?

Then ask yourself why that is? Is your recruiter not sourcing enough diverse qualified candidates? Diverse in this case for your company would mean white, veteran, and Hispanic because you are severely lacking in the current percentage of staff who are in that category at your specific company.

SCENARIO 1: If it’s a sourcing problem, you can try to increase your Hispanic candidate pool by sourcing from the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers or similar organizations. You do NOT need to be Hispanic to be a member. You can also target colleges with a high Hispanic population, but then again you can also recruit other ethnicities from there because not everyone who attends is Hispanic. For Veterans you can target job sites focused on hiring veterans, etc…. There has never been a lack of white people at the companies I have worked for, so I honestly don’t know where to look to source. But I hope you get my point.

SCENARIO 2: If your recruiter is sourcing enough “diverse” qualified candidates, then why the heck are they not getting hired? Are your hiring managers just racist? Or are they just used to hiring people from the same companies, from the same schools, that have the same diversity problems as you do. They just want a “perfect” mold of the same person who just left, and they are therefore not open to a diverse candidate.