What is diversity recruiting, and what is still legal
Diversity recruiting is the work of widening who hears about a role and who reaches the shortlist, by changing where you look and how you describe the job. In the US it is lawful to widen the pool and unlawful to choose between candidates on a protected characteristic. That line decides every tactic below.
Hiring for diversity: the lawful lever and the unlawful one
| The move | Widening the pool | Choosing between people |
|---|---|---|
| Where you advertise | Adding schools, communities and job boards you have never used, open to anyone who sees them. | Running a posting that only one group is told about, or is told about first. |
| How the ad is written | Describing the work, the pay and the process in plain terms so more people recognise themselves in it. | Wording that shows a preference or discourages a group. The EEOC's own examples: "females", "recent college graduates". |
| Which requirements gate | Cutting requirements the job does not need, so the gate is the work rather than a habit. | Applying a looser bar to some applicants than others once the requirement is set. |
| Who gets screened | Screening everyone the widened sourcing found, on the criteria written for the role. | Advancing or holding back a person because of race, sex or another protected characteristic. |
| How finalists are picked | One scorecard, one set of criteria, applied to every finalist and defensible afterwards. | A target that functions as a gate on an individual decision. There is no diversity exception to Title VII. |
What diversity recruiting means, and what a DEI candidate is not
Diversity recruiting Changing where a role is advertised, how it is described and which requirements act as gates, so that more qualified people hear about it and reach the shortlist. It changes the inputs to hiring, not the bar.
Diversity in recruitment looks like 2 new channels added and a degree requirement dropped because the work never needed it. "DEI candidate" is not a category in law or in any hiring process: everyone in the pool is assessed the same way.
What changed in 2025, and what did not
On 21 January 2025, Executive Order 14173 revoked Executive Order 11246, the affirmative action order that had governed federal contractors for decades. Secretary's Order 03-2025 then told OFCCP to cease and desist all investigative and enforcement activity under E.O. 11246. Contractor programmes built on that order no longer have it underneath them.
Two contractor obligations survived. Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and VEVRAA remain in effect with their regulations, and OFCCP has resumed activity in both programme areas after Order 08-2025 lifted the abeyance. EEO-1 Component 1 reporting is also unchanged for employers that meet its thresholds.
Title VII itself did not move. The EEOC's guidance on DEI-related discrimination restates that its protections apply equally to all workers, and that different treatment based on a protected characteristic can be unlawful whoever is harmed. Most diversity hiring initiatives were never built on E.O. 11246 in the first place, so the plan below is unaffected.
A diversity recruitment plan in 6 steps
- Define the role by the work, not the resume shape Write down what this person will do in their first 6 months. Every requirement that cannot be traced to one of those tasks is a candidate for deletion. "Owns the payments service" survives. "Bachelor's degree preferred" has to justify itself.
- Audit where your last 20 hires came from List the source of each one. If referrals and one job board account for most of them, you now know the shape of the pool you have been fishing in. A single source above half your hires is a finding, not a coincidence.
- Add 2 channels and track them separately Two is enough to learn something and few enough to maintain. Tag applicants by source from day 1, because a channel you cannot measure will be dropped at the first budget review. How to attract diverse talent starts with a channel nobody on your team already uses.
- Rewrite the ad before you spend on it The EEOC treats an ad that shows a preference or discourages applicants as unlawful, and names 2 examples: seeking "females", or seeking "recent college graduates". Both phrases read as harmless shorthand. Both are in the regulator's own example of the problem.
- Name the must-haves and demote the rest Sort every requirement into 2 piles: the ones you would reject a strong person for missing, and the ones you would like. Most lists shrink to 3 or 4 real gates. A year count standing in for a skill belongs in the second pile almost every time.
- Fix the evaluation criteria before the first interview Agree the criteria, the weights and what a weak and a strong answer sound like while nobody has a face attached. This is how to increase diversity in recruitment without touching a single individual decision. Criteria written after the interviews describe the person you already liked.
Job ad language to check before you post
- No wording that shows a preference for, or discourages, any protected group
- Neither "females" nor "recent college graduates", the EEOC's own 2 examples
- Every degree requirement traced to work the job actually contains
- No year count used as a stand-in for a skill you could name directly
- No named pedigree employers or schools in the requirements
- Internal jargon and acronyms either explained or removed
- Benefits described so they suit more than one life stage
- The pay range and the interview stages stated up front
- A named contact for accommodation requests during the process
Diverse hiring practices that hold up, and the ones that backfire
Do
- Widen the channel mix and measure each channel separately so you learn which ones work
- Write requirements as the work, then hold every candidate to them
- Apply one set of evaluation criteria to every person in the process
- Tell applicants what the hiring process involves and ask whether they need an accommodation for it
Do not
- Leaning on referrals alone, which the EEOC treats as a barrier where the workforce is not already diverse
- Recruiting from a single school, neighbourhood or social network, which replicates existing patterns
- Letting a representation target operate as a gate on an individual hiring decision
- Running a programme that separates people by a protected characteristic, even with identical content
What the EEOC says, in its own words
Title VII "permits diversity efforts designed to open up opportunities to everyone", and gives recruiting at schools with high enrolment of an underrepresented group as an example. It also "does not provide any 'diversity interest' exception" to its rules.
How to build a diverse talent pool without filtering on people
The filter fields are skills, titles, seniority, location and employer attributes. None of them is a protected characteristic.
Sourcing is where the pool is decided, so recruiting diverse talent starts here. The Cognitive searches ~900M profiles from a one line brief, then shows the filters it inferred so you can see what is gating the search. The filter panel is split into the person and their current employer.
Hiring neurodiverse candidates and running an accessible process
- Describe the process steps in the invite, including any timed or live element
- Ask every applicant whether they need a reasonable accommodation for that process
- Accept a request made by a family member, friend or other representative
- Never ask about a disability or require a medical exam before an offer
- Accommodate the process even where you are unsure about the job itself
- Send unclear cases to the Job Accommodation Network, which is free and federally funded
Measuring it, and the diversity recruiting challenges in doing so
The number worth having in diverse recruiting is a selection rate per stage, compared across groups. The federal guidelines treat a selection rate below four-fifths, or 80 percent, of the highest group's rate as evidence of adverse impact, and expect employers to keep records showing the impact their selection procedures have. It is a ratio, not a score, and our recruiting metrics page carries the arithmetic.
Two honest limits. Nobody hands you a dashboard for this, us included: representation reporting and adverse-impact analysis sit outside what The Cognitive does, so you will build them where your reporting already lives. And a goal is not a gate. EEO-1 Component 1 applies at 100 employees, or 50 for some federal contractors, while Section 503's 7 percent utilization goal is expressly not a rigid and inflexible quota.
Hiring diverse candidates on one set of criteria
An example rubric: named criteria with weights totalling 100, fixed before anyone is interviewed.
Consistency is the lawful part of evaluation and the hardest to hold across a panel. On The Cognitive the rubric is fixed per role while the interview questions stay live and adaptive, so every person is measured on the criteria the role agreed on.
Diverse interview questions that test the work, not the background
Tell me about a time you worked closely with someone whose approach to the work was very different from yours.
The other person's approach described fairly, a specific adjustment the candidate made, and work that got finished rather than a story about personalities.
What did their approach get right that yours did not?
Describe something you made usable for a group it was failing. How did you find out it was failing them?
How the problem surfaced, who they asked, and a concrete change with a result. Bonus if they mention people they had not thought to ask.
Who told you it was a problem, and how did you hear about it?
Give me an example of a domain you knew nothing about and had to be useful in quickly.
A deliberate way of getting up to speed, use of other people's knowledge, and evidence the knowledge was applied rather than only collected.
What did you get wrong in the first 2 weeks?
Tell me about a time you told someone more senior that something was not working.
Preparation before the conversation, a clear account of the risk, and what happened afterwards. An honest outcome where nothing changed still counts.
What would you say differently now?
Describe a decision you had to make without the information you wanted.
What they knew, what they assumed, how they limited the downside, and how they checked the assumption later.
What would have changed your mind?
A requirement that is a habit rather than the work is still a filter on people. It does its filtering before anyone reads a single resume.
Diversity recruitment resources and where to go deeper
Recruiting metrics · How to source candidates · Employee referral programs · Recruitment software fit guide
Frequently asked questions
What is diversity recruiting?
Diversity recruiting is the work of widening who hears about a role and who reaches the shortlist, by changing where you advertise, how the job is described and which requirements act as gates. Recruiting diversity is about the inputs to hiring. The bar each candidate is held to stays the same, which is also what keeps the practice lawful in the US.
What does DEI candidate mean?
It is not a legal category and it is not a hiring category. No US employment law defines a "DEI candidate", and no defensible process sorts applicants into one. The EEOC states that Title VII's protections apply equally to all workers, and that different treatment based on a protected characteristic can be unlawful no matter which applicants are harmed. In practice the phrase describes a stereotype rather than a person.
How do you find diverse candidates?
By changing the channels, not the criteria. Add sources you have never used, write the ad so the work and pay are plain, and cut requirements the job does not need. That is also how to hire diverse employees without touching the bar. Recruiting diverse candidates through referrals alone will not do it: the EEOC treats word-of-mouth recruiting in a workforce that is not already diverse as a barrier to equal opportunity.
Is hiring for diversity and inclusion legal in the US?
It depends entirely on which action you mean. The EEOC says Title VII permits diversity efforts designed to open up opportunities to everyone, and gives expanding the applicant pool as an example. The same agency says Title VII provides no "diversity interest" exception, so an employment decision motivated by a protected characteristic can be unlawful. This is an outline of federal law, not legal advice.
What changed for federal contractors in 2025?
Executive Order 14173 revoked Executive Order 11246 on 21 January 2025, and Secretary's Order 03-2025 directed OFCCP to cease all investigative and enforcement activity under it. Section 503 and VEVRAA remain in effect, and OFCCP resumed activity in those programme areas after Order 08-2025. Diversity hiring strategies built on Title VII compliance rather than on E.O. 11246 are unaffected.
How do you measure diversity recruiting?
Track the selection rate at each stage and compare it across groups. Federal guidelines treat a rate below four-fifths, or 80 percent, of the highest group's rate as evidence of adverse impact, and expect employers to keep records of what their selection procedures do. There is no single DEI score. Our recruiting metrics page has the formulas and the stage definitions.
How do you hire neurodiverse candidates?
Make the process legible and ask about accommodations properly. The EEOC says employers may describe what the hiring process involves and ask applicants whether they need a reasonable accommodation for it, while asking about a disability or requiring a medical exam before an offer is unlawful. A representative may make the request. The Job Accommodation Network gives free federally funded guidance on specific cases.
Do you need a diversity recruiting certification?
No employer requirement exists for one. Diversity recruiting training and diversity training for recruiters are offered by training providers and HR associations rather than by a regulator, so the content and the value vary and you should read the syllabus before paying. Our recruiter certifications page under resources covers what recruiting credentials contain and which ones employers recognise.
Should you use a diversity recruiting agency?
An agency changes where you look. It does not change your bar, your job ad or your interview process, which is where most of the outcome is decided. The same anti-discrimination rules bind a third party acting for you, including on job referrals, so an agency cannot deliver something you could not lawfully do yourself. Fix the internal process first, then decide.
Explore: How to source candidates · Recruiting metrics · Employee referral programs · Bias and fairness