Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

At Ashby Jenkins Recruitment, we understand and value the importance of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. We were the first agency in the sector to introduce a completely anonymised submission processes across all the roles we recruit for, helping to remove unconscious bias at shortlisting stage. Alongside this, we are the founders of the Small Charity Equality, Diversity and Inclusion networking group, a group we set up to provide free resource sharing amongst small charities without established HR functions.

All of our consultants receive ED&I training as part of their induction process and annual training from that point forward. We also undertook the sector’s first-ever ED&I survey in 2020 and pledged to run this annually to track improvements and the long-term commitment of the sector to achieving equality.

We want to work with you to make your recruitment processes more inclusive and have included a snapshot of best practice below or you can download our full document with tips here.

Recruitment Best Practice:

  • Anonymised CVs and supporting statements at submission stage
  • Remove ‘Degree Educated’ from the job description entirely unless it is legitimately needed
  • Always disclose salary and avoid using ‘competitive’ or “negotiable” – Use neutral language in your job adverts. Use tools like an online gender bias decoder to help you with this
  • Have a diverse interview panel to reflect your organisation and ensure candidates feel comfortable
  • Share interview questions the day before the interview, this helps support neurodiversity
  • Use positive action wording in your job adverts to encourage applications from under-represented groups
  • Look at branding and imagery on your website, ensuring it’s inclusive

ED&I Blogs

  1. 2021 ED&I Survey Report
  2. 2020 ED&I Survey Report
  3. We See You. We Hear You.
  4. Our Journey So Far – small charity ED&I networking group
  5. Webinar Series
  6. Commitment to Diversity
  7. Anonymised CVs – what they are and how does it affect your recruitment?
  8. Why and how you could engage the Muslim Community with Fundraising

Small Charity ED&I Networking Group

As part of our Commitment to Diversity, we created a small charity networking group in 2020 to create a platform to support those individuals and organisations who needed it. This is still an area in its infancy across the sector and we are confident that our support, knowledge, and passion can benefit charities as a whole.

As a group, we meet quarterly to discuss various topics and trends covering ED&I. But most important for us and the reason we set up the group was to allow small charities without HR teams to share their policies and improve best practice – something we are achieving.

This group is chaired by Waseema Ibraimo, our EDI representative. Since creating the group, we now have members from 18 different charitable organisations who attend. If you would like to register your interest in joining this group, please email Waseema – [email protected]