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Johnny Matthews: My journey promoting diverse hiring!

  • - Written by SeeMeHired.com's Johnny Matthews

    How I found my passion for diversity

    I love to travel, and every time I reach a new destination it's about the people I meet and the culture they share rather than the sights. I am always fascinated by the people and engage in conversations around aspects of their life, community and culture.

    On one of my trips to the Dominican Republic I chatted to a couple of local timeshare promoters, firstly I tried to get away quickly however I spent two hours not viewing properties but listening to each of their life stories.

    The two individuals could fluently speak four languages and were using their skills to earn commission from tourists attending Sales Sessions. I was amazed that with no formal language or sales training the skills that the individuals possessed.

    I have always been goal orientated and set out to become a Director of an organisation. I worked hard and achieved my goal in my Thirties. When you are so focussed on achieving a goal you have set yourself there is a period of reflection and for me a bit of disappointment that I wasn't feeling the fulfilment I was expecting.

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    I reflected on my journey and asked the question "Why me?", how did I achieve this, how did it feel too easy and why am I not surrounded by the people I found on my travels that I felt that held more skills than me.

    My journey was interesting for one main reason, I felt I wasn't well educated!

    I needed a new goal and that goal was to enable people with far better skills than me reach their goals by exposing their skills and not worrying about academic achievements if they did not have the opportunity to gain formal qualifications.

    That was the start of my journey in creating what's is now SeeMeHired.com

    Understanding Unconscious Bias

    First of all I started to research barriers to employment and how to expose skills. I quickly began to understand some barriers in recruitment decisions are made mostly in the unconscious brain. I needed to understand how I personally could have unconscious bias and how to control it within myself first.

    Many people have different learning styles and can define unconscious bias in many ways. For me I read a book "The Chimp Paradox by Professor Steve Peters" An excellent read, and this helped me understand that there is a part of my brain that stores danger memories. This part of my brain functions a fraction of a second before my logical brain can make a decision and keeps me alive. An example could be that if my hand was near an open flame I would quickly retract my hand from the danger without thinking.

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    I always try to translate insights into my life and how they can affect my decisions.

    Here is my example of how I could hold an unconscious bias.

    Now I am going to really simplify the situation in Northern Ireland for translating my personal understanding on how I could possibly hold an bias.

    In Northern Ireland there was a period in the past known as "The Troubles" During this time there was a segregation between the Protestant and Catholic communities. The Troubles are now behind Northern Ireland, a place where I live in and love dearly.

    During that time parents would warn their children not to wander into Catholic or Protestant defined areas depending on their community background as that could start conflict and present danger. In your Chimp Brain that repeated messaging starts to store as a danger without you having to think or process it.

    How that could later translate into possible unconscious bias?

    So for example, if I was from a specific community and my mother had continued to associate an area as danger this could then translate in my unconscious brain. In my Chimp Brain if I read a CV from someone with a school listed in an area I was told explicitly not to enter, my Chimp Brain could associate that with danger even though there is no relationship between the two.

    My mother had me associate a community area as possible trouble for me and unconsciously it could affect my decision making process without my conscious Brain knowing it.

    A very simplified version of unconscious bias but this is how I learned that my brain could hold bias without me processing it.

    It's all about skills

    Circling back to my professional journey, I achieved my goal without any real formal qualifications. I managed this by focussing my CV on the skills that I gained both inside and outside the working environment and then translated them into projects that I had led or been involved with.

    My CV was presented in a way that showcased the specific skillset, how it was utilised and the measurable outcome. By supplementing my CV with projects it took the interviewers away from focussing on academics and more focussed on reading about my achievements.

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    This is where skills can translate into transferrable skills for an organisation. You now see more often required criteria being filtered with "Or Relevant Experience" There is a need for people to grow more confident about their skills and not just qualifications.

    How are skills transferrable?

    A great example I use - A Newspaper Printer was struggling to get resource to operate a night shift post on the printing press. They were searching for specific qualifications around Printer experience and Mechanical Engineering. Thinking outside the box an employee suggested looking for "Factory Bakers" rather than specifically Printers.

    Raised eyebrows -"A Baker?"

    They explained that both industry's products have the shelf life of a day. A Baker works nightshift, operates machinery and more importantly has the skills to assess progress, problem solve and escalate issues. The Baker works in the same environment as the Printer, If a process gets held up, and not rectified by a certain time the product will not hit the shelves in time.

    The employee was right if you look at skills the potential talent pool widens.

    Thought process and technology build

    If we gain skills through our passions and not just formal qualifications, and there is unconscious bias in our daily decision making how can I achieve my new goal?

    By creating a platform that hides any bias in a CV/ application it allows employers to match their jobs based on skills, rather than pure academic selection. This can begin the process of creating a more equitable hiring process.

    I joined forces and strengthened the team with professionals from Recruitment, IT and HR.

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    From research we needed to understand how do we build technology that was strong enough to compel organisations to adopt new processes easily and engage candidates through technology that they are used to using?

    We created our Ecosystem of Source- Engage - Select and Hire, ensuring that we had created a USP for each stakeholder.

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    Creating function with ease of use

    As a team we developed technology accessible to candidates in web browsers, IoS and Android platforms.

    Some Key Features

    • Distribute jobs far and wide quickly to share with as many people as possible
    • Manage a company's brand, show video content, pictures and describe the culture
    • Post jobs directly to the company's corporate website
    • Sign up as a "Diversity Ambassador" to enable masking of candidates and bias indicators
    • Every applicant submits data in the same format ensuring the focus is on the strength of their application in an equal format.
    • Defined shortlisting scoring including skills matching to maintain standardisation.
    • At interview stage we introduced scorecards ensuring once again that each candidate is treated in the exact same format.

    My future challenges

    From having the initial goal of helping people achieve their goals by removing barriers I personally feel I have just reached basecamp and still looking up at Mt Everest ready to climb it.

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    Grow Ambassadors

    My target now is to grow the number of companies using our Diversity Module on the platform.

    It's a step change to eliminating bias and promoting diversity.

    I am proud of the SeeMeHired team and the companies that have become "Diversity Ambassadors"

    These simple positive steps are changing candidates experiences in the hiring process.

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    Networking Post Covid

    This picture represents the power of having meetings about workplace skills and diversity. During a research visit to Philadelphia, The City representatives helped me discover their challenges.

    Jim Kenney Mayor of Philadelphia then brought a workgroup to Belfast from Philadelphia.

    I am looking forward to more face to face meaningful discussions progressing skills and equality globally.

    This is my personal journey, from reflection to action and now traction. There are many people passionate about skills and equality like me that work hard to progress the agenda.

    It has taken me four years to reach what I call "Basecamp" Those who are starting that journey hang in there, reaching this milestone finally feels like a sense of achievement.

    For those who think about equality and skills but don't know how to take actionable steps to implement get in touch, feel free to like, share and comment. I would value some insights to your journey.

    For those people looking to change their hiring processes, quickly and easily book a meeting and let's discuss it. Me or one of the dedicated team members at SeeMeHired would be delighted to hear from you!

    Thanks for taking the time to read.

    Kindest, Johnny

    Book a demo HERE or connect with Johnny here

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