Excerpt from an interview emphasizing the importance of starting diversity efforts early so progress can compound over time. The speaker notes that underrepresented candidates prefer workplaces where they see people like themselves, recommends proactive measures (unconscious bias training, mindful interview processes), and suggests dedicating a person to focus on diversity work.
So a lot of our attitude about it is just if you start early, it'll be a lot easier later on. When you're starting and you're already Facebook or Google or Amazon sized and you say, oh, you have a diversity problem. You have to hire thousands of people to move the needle. And I think one of the things that's clearest about diversity is people from underrepresented groups want to work at a place that already has people like them. They don't want to be the first person in the door representing that group. And so if you just make a little bit of progress, again, that's something that I'll compound and build over time. They'll help teach you about your biases and help you fix your processes and become more mindful about it. And then, of course, there are just some proactive things you can do, like unconscious bias training, thinking about your interview processes, and how to set candidates up for success. And again, a lot of that is just the hard work. And I highly recommend having a person who's sort of fully focused on that.
