Diversity hiring checklists: Steps to build inclusive teams

TL;DR

• Anchor hiring in interview-first flows; score blind against clear rubrics.
• Standardise comms: day-0 expectations, timed nudges, feedback for all.
• Track weekly: completion, show-up, time-in-stage, conversion, representation, sentiment.
• Enforce manager SLAs and second-reader checks for borderline calls.
• Roll out with a 30/60/90 plan; iterate one fix per week.

You need more than good intentions to build a diverse team of highly skilled individuals.

This is especially true when hiring at scale, across multiple locations, and with tight SLAs. After all, small inconsistencies can quickly snowball into systemic inequality.

Fortunately, a diversity hiring checklist will turn your DEI initiatives into repeatable steps you can execute daily, measure weekly, and audit quarterly. In this article, we help you make inclusion operational via field-ready checklists for every stage of your hiring process.

The problem we’re solving in workplace culture

When it comes to high-volume hiring, even small mistakes—a missed reminder, a forgotten resume, inconsistent evaluation criteria—compound to skew outcomes.

These mistakes impact underrepresented groups the most. In the absence of a rock-solid process, recruiters default to what they know. The result? The best person is rarely hired.

A diversity hiring checklist solves this by embedding fairness into your everyday workflow.

Instead of relying on individual managers to remember best practices, you standardise the steps that matter: structured interviews, blind evaluation, feedback for all, and timely communication.

That’s exactly what we offer at Sapia.ai. Our platform’s interview-first evaluations remove resume proxies. As such, every candidate has the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities in an inclusive manner, which makes fairness felt and creates a sense of momentum from the beginning of the hiring cycle.

How to self-assess your diversity efforts (3-minute diagnostic)

Before you dive into our diversity hiring checklists, take stock of where you are. This quick, three-minute diagnostic will help you evaluate your hiring process and identify areas to improve.

You’re green If…

Do you use an interview-first hiring workflow? If so, do interview invites trigger automatically during the application stage for 100% of candidates? Then you might be in green territory.

Of course, there’s more to building a diverse applicant pool than sending structured interviews. You should also use blind, rubric-based evaluations—no names, photos, or resumes until competencies are scored. This will make sure your recruitment process is fair and balanced.

Finally, ask yourself, “Do we give feedback to every candidate post-interview?” More than that, are interview metrics easily accessible to your team? They should be able to pull up dashboards that show completions, show-ups, conversions, and representation by stage.

You’re amber If…

You use an interview-first hiring workflow, but interview invites only send to some applicants. (Or you only send interviews after screening resumes.) If this sounds familiar, you might be amber.

Teams that fall into this category care about diversity, equity, and inclusion. But they’re inconsistent in their approach to diversity hiring. As such, they don’t always host blind reviews. Managers lack SLAs, so decisions age in limbo. And applicants often feel discriminated against.

Basically, these teams are on the right track, but they still have a lot of work to do.

You’re red If…

You don’t know what “interview first” means, or simply don’t care. Your entire hiring process is ruled by inconsistent resume evaluations that allow unconscious bias to sneak in.

You don’t have a central cadence for reminders, scheduling, or feedback either. As such, qualified candidates slip through the cracks and you wonder where the “good people” are. Oh and you have zero equity visibility until the end of the month or quarter.

If the above paragraphs ring true, you’re in the red. You need to redesign your hiring process for diversity and effectiveness. The sooner you can do it, the better off you’ll be.

The diversity hiring checklist

Here it is: the diversity hiring checklist!

Each of the five stages below includes concrete actions you can take immediately, whether you’re a one-person talent acquisition team or you manage hiring across a global organisation.

Stage 1—Define

First, list desired outcomes and competencies. When you do, separate the “must-haves” from the “nice-to-haves” to avoid credential inflation that might screen out diverse candidates.

Next, craft five to seven structured questions that map directly to the competencies you’re looking for. Then add scoring rubrics so every interviewer evaluates applicants consistently.

Don’t forget to pre-approve reasonable accommodations copy for all postings. And assign clear owners for each stage of your hiring workflow. For example, TA Ops owns process, hiring managers own decisions, HRIT owns data, and People Analytics owns equity measurement.

This stage is automated when you use Sapia.ai’s hiring platform. Our Job Analysis Studio helps you create role-specific competency frameworks, then build chat interviews from there. And it ensures your JDs and interviews are inclusive for all groups. 

Stage 2—Attract

Use plain language in your job ads. That way, everyone understands what the role is, the competencies you’re looking for in the perfect candidate, and how to send an application.

You should also highlight inclusive benefits and growth signals, and scrub prestige proxies. Where someone grew up or went to college almost never impacts their job performance.

When you’re happy with your job ad, post it to mainstream job boards and targeted communities that reach underrepresented groups. Just make sure your application process is mobile-first. Candidates in shift-based roles and/or without desktop access will drop off otherwise.

Lastly for this stage, include a Day-0 info block that details your desired timeline, stages, privacy summary, and accommodation process. Transparency builds trust.

Stage 3—Select

At this point, you need to auto-invite every applicant to a chat interview as soon as they send in their application. Interviews should be mobile-friendly, asynchronous, and under 15 minutes.

When reviewing chat interview results, conduct a blind first pass. That way, you’re not influenced by demographic information, and can score candidates accurately based on your rubric.

We also suggest setting expiry-aware reminders via SMS and email. Each reminder should trigger at set intervals to assist job seekers who juggle multiple commitments. But they should pause after interview completion so as not to annoy a potential future employee.

Speaking of interview completion, send feedback to everyone who applies for your open roles. Said feedback should be concise, strengths-oriented, and delivered immediately. This will help you create a diverse applicant pool and keep your talent community engaged for future roles.

Stage 4—Decide

It’s time to generate ranked shortlists. Just make sure there’s a rationale to your selections that exposes competency evidence to managers. (If you follow the above steps, you’ll be golden.)

Next, add a diverse decision touchpoint, AKA a second reader for borderline candidates. This step will reduce unconscious bias and help you connect with minority groups.

Remember: most hiring managers are busy people. Because of this, implement manager SLAs and one-tap actions to avoid stagnation. You don’t want competitors to scoop up top talent.

Lastly, review an equity snapshot by stage—broken down by brand, store, or region—to spot adverse trends. Doing so will help you track diversity through all recruitment channels.

Stage 5—Offer to start

Last but not least, share pay bands, shift expectations, and progression paths. In other words, tell potential hires what to expect if they win the role and are employed by your company.

Build an offer-to-start pack that includes a document checklist, device-friendly forms, and reminders at T-48h and T-24h. That way, new employees can hit the ground running from day one. And capture accommodations pre-start and escalate them automatically if there’s silence.

These things will streamline your onboarding process and create an inclusive work environment.

Printable mini-checklists

The checklist above will help you achieve your diversity initiatives—if you implement the steps, of course. To help you do that, we’re including printable mini checklists here:

Inclusive job descriptions (10 Checks)

• Outcome-first headline
• Essential vs optional
• Inclusive benefits
• Accommodation line
• Readability scan
• Jargon scrub
• Location/shift clarity
• Salary range or band
• Mobile preview
• Translations?

Structured interview process (8 Checks)

• 5–7 questions
• Scoring rubric
• Examples (R/A/G)
• Time guidance
• Candidate instructions
• Privacy note
• Accessibility options
• Interviewer prompt sheet

Candidate communication tips (8 Checks)

• Day-0 invite
• Reminder #1 scripts
• Reminder #2 scripts
• Completion confirmation
• Next-step explainer
• Decline with feedback
• Re-engagement template
• Accessibility contact

Manager decision strategies (6 Checks)

• SLA timer visible
• Shortlist rationale
• Approve/advance one tap
• Conflict flags (shift/availability)
• Escalation path
• Notes captured to system

Diversity hiring metrics to track

How do you achieve your DEI initiatives? You implement a plan, track your results, and identify areas for improvement. Here are five metrics you should monitor on a regular basis:

• Completion rate: What percentage of applicants complete chat interviews? Analyze by site and role and look for trends week-on-week to learn where candidates drop off.
• Show-up rate: What percentage of applicants participate in live interviews? Track expired invites to make sure your candidate engagement and reminders are on point.
• Stage conversion rate and time-in-stage: What percentage of applicants advance to future stages of your hiring process? How long do they spend in each stage? Answering these questions will help you identify bottlenecks and ensure SLA adherence.
• Representation by stage: Do you have diverse candidates at every stage of the hiring funnel? By tracking representation, you can spot disparities and work towards equity.
• Candidate sentiment: What do previous applicants think about your recruitment process? Use NPS surveys to learn candidates’ thoughts and assess fairness.

If possible, run a weekly stand-up with leaders to review metrics, agree on one fix, and ship it within seven days. This cadence makes DEI initiatives an ongoing effort, not a quarterly project.

Avoid these diversity and inclusion pitfalls

Even well-intentioned diversity initiatives can backfire. Here are four pitfalls to avoid.

• Resume-first screening: This approach introduces bias and kills completion rates. Employment gaps and unconventional paths could disproportionately affect minority groups, and underrepresented otherwise top-quality candidates.
• Process sprawl: Do you have a different hiring process for every store? Many variants create inconsistency. Standardise your core workflows while maintaining flexible comms.
• Silence after interviews: Job seekers want to know how their interview went. If all they hear is silence, they’ll become skeptical of your company and disengage.
• Unowned metrics: Who is in charge of diversity and inclusion? If your answer is, “No one,” you have a problem. Let team members own metrics so they can improve them.

How Sapia.ai fits your diversity hiring checklist

Sapia.ai is the easiest way to hire brilliantly and fairly.

First, our platform automatically sends chat interviews to every candidate. There are no resume gates or proxies. All candidates get a chance to demonstrate their abilities, in their own words.

Just as important, Sapia.ai workflows are powered by blind, structured scoring and produce automated shortlists, with explainable scores and insights for every candidate. The result? Your screening process is free of unconscious bias and helps you to make more objective progression and hiring decisions.

Sapia.ai also includes features to boost productivity and cut no-shows. For example, with our platform, you can send SMS and email reminders on autopilot. That way, more candidates participate in chat interviews. We also include self-scheduling capabilities to maximize completion of face to face or phone interviews later in the hiring process.

Finally, Sapia.ai uses powerful AI technology to deliver non directional feedback to all applicants. This builds goodwill and keeps your talent community engaged for future roles. We also offer easy-to-understand dashboards to track important hiring and DEI metrics in real time.

Book a demo of Sapia.ai today to see our industry-leading recruitment platform in action.

A 30/60/90 plan to build an inclusive work environment

You don’t need to overhaul everything at once. Start small, prove value, then scale.

Days 0–30—Prove the basics

Pick one high-volume role. Publish the competencies you’re looking for and questions you want to ask candidates. Then switch to an interview-first hiring process, launch Day-0 communications with job seekers, and automate reminders. Lastly, set up a dashboard to study metrics. If all goes well, you can use these first 30 days as a proof of concept.

Days 31–60—Remove bottlenecks

You’re on the path to ethnic diversity. Now it’s time to optimize your hiring processes to better connect with underrepresented groups. First, add SLAs and one-tap reviews to remove bottlenecks caused by busy managers. Then activate AI-powered feedback so all candidates learn about their strengths and weaknesses. Lastly, start weekly equity snapshots. When you’re satisfied, train one regional lead to champion the process and support other hiring managers.

Days 61–90—Expand and localise

Ready to expand your reach? Start by localising content for priority languages. This will enable you to reach a broader range of candidates. Then tighten rubrics based on what you learn. Next, start extending to more sites. With each one, add your offer-to-start checklist to ensure consistency across locations. Finally, report wins to leadership and secure resources to scale further, including employee resource groups and interview panels focused on inclusion.

Develop a fair hiring process

A diversity hiring checklist makes inclusion operational by offering consistent steps and measurable outcomes. The result? A candidate journey that feels fair because it is fair.

Remember: The best recruitment workflows are anchored by interview-first evaluations, mobile access, blind scoring, and feedback for everyone. These aren’t “nice-to-have” features. They’re core concepts that help hiring teams build a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

Thanks to tools like Sapia.ai, you can increase diversity, fill leadership roles with untapped talent, and create an inclusive organisation. Book a demo of Sapia.ai to learn more.

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About Author

Barb Hyman

CEO & Founder