Successful diversity recruitment occurs when an action plan is supported by competent staff. Consider the following scenario that illustrates what occurs when competence lags behind the action plan.

The best qualified candidate for a vacant engineering position in your company is an African American woman. The human resource office is excited that she accepted the interview. Jim, the human resource chief officer, meets with her for an initial interview. He really wants her to like him and the company. Jim knows that he is not prejudiced, but is uncomfortable because he has little experience interviewing African American candidates. He does not want to say or do something that is considered insensitive.

Jim is so anxious that he cannot maintain eye contact; he makes errors when providing the simplest information about the company, and maintains a safe distance from the interviewee. He is not surprised when she does not take their offer to return for the next stage of interviews.

An interview feedback survey sent to her and returned confirmed his suspicions. She was suspicious about the company’s preparedness for a diverse workforce. The initial interview had supported her suspicions, according to her statements in the survey.

How can someone like Jim appear more prejudiced than they really are? One might think that Jim is really more prejudiced than he thinks, but research evidence argues the contrary. While prejudice still exists in America, most appear to be less prejudiced than their behaviors suggest.

How can someone be less prejudiced than they appear? The problem is that most Americans simply do not know how to do the “intercultural thing.” They are liberal, but have learned more about what they should not do in intercultural contact than how to make the interactions go smoothly.

One result is that poor intercultural competency makes diversity recruitment difficult. Below are ten things you need to keep in mind when interviewing people who are different from you.

1. The liberal-minded person may not be the best person to do the interview.

2. People will not be able to effectively interview members of groups they have prejudices toward.

3. Liberal people who report smooth intercultural interactions are the best interviewers.

4. Many people of color, women, and gay/lesbians assume the people in traditionally monocultural organizations are prejudiced.

5. Interviewees will not likely notice differences between liberal-minded people with poor skills and highly prejudiced people.

6. The liberal interviewer who is not confident in her or his intercultural skills need training to increase their interviewing effectiveness.

7. Poor intercultural interviews occur when a poorly skilled liberal or high prejudiced 
person is interviewing someone of a group other than their own.

8. Assuming a color-blind perspective, i.e., believes treating the interviewee of a different cultural group similar to members of their own group is the key to equality, will cause more harm than good.

9. A liberal-minded person who is unaware that she or he does not know how to do the intercultural thing will do more harm than good.

10. A person who is central to the success of the recruitment initiative may experience too much social anxiety due to poor intercultural skills to be effective.

Based in part on: Devine, Patricia, and Kristin Vasquez. “The Rocky Road to Positive Intergroup Relations,” Confronting Racism, ed. J. Eberhardt & S. Fiske (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Pub 1998). If you like this article, learn about our on-line course “Inclusive Recruitment” by Lindsay Thomas.