When the City of Boulder prioritized diversity recruitment managers realized they had a significant pipeline challenge. This presentation contains key elements of a diversity and recruitment strategy for the city.

1. DIVERSITY
AND
RECRUITMENT
S T R AT E G Y A N D TA C T I C S

2. DIVERSITY AS THE DRIVER
• The US, according to 2015 estimates is 39% of color, and growing in diversity
• Diversity and opinions about the nation came to the fore in the 2016 election
(Bloomberg)
• Employers are restating their commitment to diversity through leadership-issued
statements (Bloomberg)
• 39 cities and 364 counties were identified by the New York Times as having Sanctuary
ordinances
• Silicon Valley focused on diversity and recruitment after scrutiny
• https://www.fastcompany.com/3064508/one-ceo-shares-how-hes-creating-diversity-in-
silicon-valley

3. DIVERSITY DEMOGRAPHICS
People United States Colorado Boulder City,
Colorado
Boulder
County,
Colorado
Denver city,
Colorado
Denver
County,
Colorado
White alone, not Hispanic
or Latino
63.7% 70% 83% 79.4 52.2 52.2
Black or African American
alone
12.6 4.0 0.9 0.9 10.2 10.2
American Indian and
Alaska Native alone
0.9 1.1 0.4 0.6 1.4 1.4
Asian alone 4.8 2.8 4.7 4.1 3.4 3.4
Pacific Islander/Hawaiian 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Two or more races 2.9 3.4 2.6 2.7 4.1 4.1
Hispanic or Latino 16.3 20.7 8.7 13.3 31.8 31.8
101.4% 102.1% 100.4% 101.1% 103.2% 103.2%
Census.gov

4. DIVERSITY WINS BIG, WHEN
YOU DO IT RIGHT
• Dallas after the police shootings
• Recruitment plan to bring in activist
community
• “The tragedy in July resulted in big support for
the department and a huge increase in
applications to join the force — especially
after Brown's call to the community to support
the police, join the department and be a force
for change.” NBCDFW
The Boulder challenge
“At least five Boulder Valley high school students have
been expelled in the wake of the suicide last month of a
student who led a Nazi-themed group chat on
Facebook that advocated killing African-Americans and
Jews.” Denver Post
“Facebook is not alone in minority representation. Miley
criticized Google's (GOOGL, Tech30) decision to build
a campus in downtown Boulder, Colorado, which has a
population that is 88% white.” CNN.com
Google’s tech staff is only 1% black clearcompany.com
“’It’s the Boulder liberal attitude versus the KKK,’ says
Derrick Jones, a black professor at Naropa University
living in Boulder. He’s trying to decide what’s worse.”
Boulderweekly.com
2005 – three hate crimes against blacks in a three-day
period. “’Again, we have silence from the City Council
on this issue, but again we're speaking about the prairie
dogs and how much we're going to spend on them,’
Thomas said.” Bouldersucks.blogspot.com

5. A DYNAMIC, DIVERSE
RECRUITMENT PLAN CAN
TRANSFORM THE DIALOGUE
African Americans are 16% less likely to be invited to job interviews
• Developing a diverse candidate pipeline
• City manager’s commitment to diversity
• Targeting campaign – where will jobs be posted (both regions as well as what recruitment
vendors)?
• The way jobs are written
• The way recruitment questions are written
• Deep commitment to training
• External website
• Include diversity recruiter on interview panels
Diversity Recruitment Marketing
Best Practices Checklist Tracey de Morsella

7. A PORTRAIT OF A DIVERSE, AND
DIVERSITY AWARE CITY
WORKPLACE
Responsive
employees
Diverse management
team
Accessible community
From
“My employee told
me I was being racist
so I told him, ‘go talk
to Human Resources,
because that’s not
me.’”
To
“I know my perspective
is limited by my
background. Tell me your
experience and how I
might work better with
the team.”

8. AFFLUENT AND BLACK, AND
STILL TRAPPED BY
SEGREGATION THE NEW YORK
TIMES
Chris Rock
“My neighbor is a dentist.”

9. • http://www.socialexplorer.com/6f4cdab7a0/explore
City of Boulder population 107,349 (2015)
white 89,100, POC, 18,249.
To come in line with US numbers, if the total population grows to
150,000 , then 36,201 new residents would be people of color and
6,450 would be white.

10. A POSITIVE PLAN TO
SUCCEED
• Metrics to measure success
– Pipeline development
– App plan
– Percent of app pool
– Percent of round 1/prescreen
– Percent of round II/interview
– Percent of total employees
– Percent of manager/director
– Percent of Deputy Director
In addition to pipeline development,
evaluate what criteria your organization is
using to select candidates. If awards,
recognition and career success are the
driving selection criteria, your diversity
strategy will fail. It will invariably be a white
male that has received the most grants,
recognition and career successes. Add
diverse opinions and values to your
selection criteria, design work to rely on
divergent thinking, and add materials to
your diversity recruiting materials to help
applicants prepare for the interview
process.

11. RECRUITMENT THAT WORKS
• LinkedIn – provides access to active and inactive applicant pool, is its own social network
for professionals, allows targeting by demographic groups. Highest use by potential
applicants. Denver has 6 recruiting seats and a greater than $100,000 annual spend
through LinkedIn.
• Monster – has an internal advertising agency that can promote our jobs to diverse
candidates through online magazines and communities in their diversity network. Ad spend
is per view, which does not guarantee clicks to your job.
• Indeed – has multiple portals and high data on reach. Promotion is per click rather than per
view, however click-thru rates are in the 20-200 range.
• Diversity.com – African American owned, high visibility in diversity employment searches.
• City Recruiter position – hire a recruiter responsible for copywriting, management of
outside services, design of diversity and recruiting pages, recruitment video production and
representing the city brand to applicants.

12. OFFERS FROM PROVIDERS
Offers were presented by LinkedIn, Monster, Career Arc, diversity.com,
employdiversity.com, glassdoor, indeed, Vermilion and Zip Recruiter. If you would like a
personalized assessment and negotiation with service providers for building a consistent
and resilient diversity recruitment platform contact me through LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-murdock-829aaa5/