Inclusive Recruitment Checklist for 2025: A Practical Guide for HR and Hiring Managers

Everything you need to know to make your recruitment more inclusive, from the big benefits to our inclusive recruitment checklist...

Inclusive recruitment is no longer just a buzzword – it's an essential. 

However, there are concerning gaps. According to CIPD, while 67% of UK organisations say they follow objective assessment criteria when hiring, only 28% train their interviewers on legal inclusivity obligations. 

If you're looking to adopt best practices and sustainable strategies for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in recruitment, this guide is here to help. 

If you’re a HR Director or hiring manager looking to attract top talent and improve your employer brand in a sustainable way, read on.

What Is Inclusive Recruitment?

Inclusive recruitment is a hiring process that actively removes bias and fosters fairness at every stage – from sourcing and engaging candidates to interviewing, assessing, and onboarding. When done right, inclusive hiring goes beyond compliance checkboxes and genuinely improves the diversity of your workforce.

Inclusive recruitment is a key part of boosting DE&I in the workplace:

• Diversity: Fostering a workplace culture that respects and appreciates individual uniqueness.
• Equity: Addressing systemic barriers that disproportionately affect certain groups, to create a level playing field.
• Inclusion: Creating an environment where all employees feel welcomed, respected, and valued. 

Despite 61% of UK employers having a formal DE&I policy, only 32% of organisations feel they are 'very or extremely active in recruiting more diverse candidates'. Meanwhile, 30% are not active at all. So, there's an untapped opportunity here for competitive advantage. 

Benefits of Inclusive Recruitment 

Diverse working environments boost employee satisfaction and improve business outcomes in key areas: 

• Innovation: Inclusive companies are 1.7 times more likely to be innovation leaders. 
• Business Decisions: Inclusive teams make better business decisions twice as fast as non-inclusive teams. 
• New Markets: Diverse companies are 70% more likely to capture new markets. 

In the fast-paced, ever-competitive FMCG and consumer product markets, diverse teams are a critical asset. 

Your 5-Step Inclusive Recruitment Checklist

Follow this five-step inclusive recruitment checklist to avoid missing anything essential:

1. Assess Your Job Descriptions: Screen your job descriptions and ads to ensure they're free of jargon and gendered language, and aren't unnecessarily prohibitive.
2. Diversify Candidate Sourcing: Use a wider variety of sources, including LinkedIn and specialist job boards, and proactively look for talent from underrepresented backgrounds. 
3. Assess Candidates Inclusively: Ensure multiple people are involved in the decision-making process to remove bias, offer reasonable adjustments, and provide flexibility when needed.
4. Remove Bias From Candidate Selection: Introduce unbiased recruitment techniques to your selection processes, including anonymous shortlisting and competency questioning, so you can compare candidates in a like-for-like way without bias.
5. Elevate Your Employer Brand: An inclusive employer brand will attract more diverse candidates to your business. Follow our six-step process for creating an inclusive employer brand.

These steps will help you ensure that inclusivity is prioritised at every stage of the recruitment process. 

To ensure your efforts stay on track, be sure to define key inclusivity metrics, monitor them, and adjust your strategies as needed. 

Solutions to 3 Inclusive Recruitment Challenges

There are some common roadblocks organisations might hit when it comes to implementing or improving DE&I in recruitment.

Here's what they are, and the practical steps we can help you take to overcome them...

1. Overcoming Unconscious Bias

We all have unconscious biases, including affinity bias, halo effect, and confirmation bias, which will inevitably affect our objective decision-making. 

Here's how Advocate Group can help: 

• Our fully anonymous shortlists and LiveList functionality allow you to compare top candidates based solely on experience, potential, and ability.
• We conduct comprehensive behavioural and psychometric analyses to assess cultural alignment without bias. 
• Our internal diversity ambassadors can deliver workshops to your teams to enhance their understanding of unconscious bias in recruitment. check out our session at Jägermeister HQ, delivered by our very own DE&I advocate Aiden Wynn. 

2. Improving Talent Pool Awareness

Remember: you can't hire what isn't there. So, it’s important to have an in-depth understanding of the talent available to you.

That’s why we’ve made substantial investments into big data solutions that map entire markets based on tailored criteria. These can include demographics, experience, and location.

This allows us to uncover niche talent – particularly valuable if you’re seeking underrepresented skillsets in fast evolving sectors! Think plant-based foods or eco-friendly packaging.

Armed with these insights you can make informed decisions that lead to a truly diverse pipeline and give you an edge over competitors.

3. Boosting Employer Brand

A strong employer brand that showcases inclusivity will naturally attract top talent. It also gives you the opportunity to highlight your commitment to inclusivity if your organisation isn’t yet as diverse as you would like it to be.

However, communicating your employer brand naturally and effectively can be a challenge.

That’s where we come in. With our internal marketing team, we’ll work with you to create: 

• Video content that highlights real stories of your organisation’s inclusivity in action.
• Dual-branded campaigns, including video content, brand spotlights and social media posts that share your DE&I journey.
• A newsletter feature in Advocate Insights, which reaches 20K+ engaged consumer product professionals every month.

Making Your Recruitment More Inclusive

Ultimately, whatever your sector or size, inclusion begins with practical steps and reliable data.

Here at Advocate Group, we combine market-leading technology – including LiveList functionality and market mapping – with expert human insight and forward-thinking outreach strategies to deliver:

• Anonymous, diversity-focused shortlists.
• In-depth demographic insights.
• Employer brand support and promotion.
• Access to underrepresented, tough-to-find talent.

Ready to level up your inclusive recruitment strategy?

We’re here to help at every stage – from executive search to entry-level hires across FMCG, consumer products, and beyond.

Get Expert Inclusive Hiring Guidance

By following this inclusive recruitment checklist and leveraging the right expertise, you'll be well on your way to becoming a DE&I leader – one that top talent wants to work for and stay with. 

Do you have questions about your DE&I recruitment strategy? Let’s talk!

We’d love to help you build a recruitment process that is inclusive, equitable, and sustainable in the long term.

Get in touch today or follow us on LinkedIn for more expert insights on inclusive recruitment.