COULD WE ALL BE DOING MORE TO CUT OUT DISCRIMINATION?

By Rachel Geddes, Business Principal at Mortgage Advice Bureau

Qandor member Rachel Geddes is Business Principal and a Mortgage Adviser at Mortgage Advice Bureau on Lombard Street in the heart of London. In this article, she gives tips on how to be impartial in order to get the best candidates working for you.

When I started out in the financial industry over 15 years ago, the world felt a different place to what it is now.

However, given the recent events around the unjust murder of George Floyd by an American state police officer, the Black Live Matters movement has triggered serious questions about whether we’re doing enough across all corners of the globe to cut out racism and prejudice.

I’m fortunate enough to have grown up in a diverse community where race, colour, gender or sexual preference was never a second thought for the people I surrounded myself with. As a young child and into my teenage years, there was never a thought in my mind that anyone could be judged for anything other than being themselves.

I entered the finance sector in my early 20s and it soon became apparent that being young and female wasn’t the norm for this industry. I hit the ground running and quickly picked up a senior mortgage adviser role and as I looked for my next opportunity, interviews felt more like an interrogation. I’d be quizzed on how I’d arrived where I was in my career, as opposed to two human beings having a conversation about whether I’d be suitable for the role.

It’s those experiences during my upbringing and early days of my career which motivated me to ensure that when it came to running my own business, I’d always give people equal opportunities.

This is why I truly believe we can all individually make changes in our lives to bring about equality and arrive at the world we want to be in.

Best person for the job

Choosing the ‘best person for the job’ is a phrase we hear often, but are employers really practising what they preach? I can hand-on-heart say that in my mortgage advice business, we absolutely only hire the best person for the job.

As standard practice, for every CV we receive, I ask the recruiter to leave the name blank on the CV. I simply want to look at their experience, suitability for the job role and what they can bring to the business.

This automatically eliminates any underlying preconceptions I could have about the individual, whether it’s the way they look, their name or gender. We live in a world now where the first thing many employers do is hop on social media to check out a candidate. In some cases, this means we’re prejudging what people do in their spare time vs. what they can deliver for a business before the interview has even started.

In my team of eight mortgage and protection advisers, we have a broad range of ages and people from all walks of life, yet this was only pointed out to me recently by an industry peer. It’s not something we’ve ever looked to engineer; it’s naturally happened because we’re picking the best people for the job and those that fit with the wider ambitions of the business. On the flip side, we’ve not made a concerted effort to hire people from different backgrounds because that’s something we feel is the ‘right thing to do’ – that’s also not solving the problem of discrimination, merely hiding it.

Getting the most out of people

From an employer perspective, interviews can be lengthy processes if you fail to be strict with yourself. Before starting out on any recruitment, know what gap you’re trying to fill, the skills you need and, most importantly, personality and culture fit within the business.

If you know a candidate is looking to progress to a management role, can you offer that? Is your business scaling up in a way that allows people to progress with the right support and development? Ask these questions before starting out and avoid a ‘blanket recruitment drive’ because that’s what you think you need.

If I’m bringing somebody in for an interview, or in the current climate doing an interview remotely, they’ve already wowed me with their CV. I narrow the candidates down to three with the intention of hiring all of them because I think they can bring something to the business. I conduct interviews informally because I believe that gets the best out of people and gives me more of an indication about their personality and what they want from their career which, in my opinion, are the two most important factors in recruitment.

The COVID-19 lockdown has forced many employers to conduct interviews over the phone or via video which, in my experience, has taught me a lot about potential candidates. 75% of our business is conducted over the phone or initially starts with a phone call, so I can instantly get a feel for their mannerisms and how they keep conversations flowing with potential clients. Ultimately, we’re in a business where providing the quality advice to clients is key, and if the adviser can gain a customer’s trust over the phone, this puts them in a great position.

You can train people skills and teach them systems, but you cannot change their personality. Always ask candidates key questions such as what they would like to be doing in the next three to five years and match up whether that fits with your business plans. Recruitment is expensive but it can be even more costly when you get it wrong.