Diversity in recruitment

The labour market for graduates is constantly evolving and job applicants are often expected to have new types of academic and non-academic skills.  How can universities ensure their students acquire the most sought-after new skills that will make them most successful in their jobs? Our Erasmus+ project (Employability Programme Development (EPD) project) aims at establishing a labour market to higher education feedback loop that will help universities to keep up to date with the new skill requirements.   

While looking for the best candidates, do employers embed diversity in recruitment, and if so, how?  This second part of the project aims to understand what the term “diversity” means for employers and employees, and what best practice allows the recruitment of the best talents while also ensuring diversity in recruitment.  We aim to do this by:

1. Organising a brainstorming workshop with employees.  The workshop took place on 8 December 2022 at the University of Reading.  
2. Conducting an online survey.  This was launched in February 2023 and you can access the survey here. You can find out more about the survey here.
3. Working with employers to analyse the effectiveness of various types of interventions.  This will take place from Spring 2023.

This project is being led by Professor Simonetta Longhi and Professor Sarah Jewell.