diversity and inclusion

Something for the weekend: Global PR and digital marketing agency Team Lewis has torn up the recruitment rule book in a bid to tap into a more diverse and inclusive workforce by scrapping the CV in favour of something a bit more exciting and modern, inviting applicants to sum up their life’s ambition in just one word – but don’t apply if that word is “idle”.

The initiative is aimed at helping the agency, which employs more than 500 staff members across 24 offices in North America, Europe and Asia, attract and retain younger, more diverse candidates from a range of backgrounds. The company believes that by ditching the CV and looking for applicants with different life experiences, like those who attended the university of life or have not had any previous agency exposure, it will broaden its talent pool. It's clearly realised that there's plenty more fish in the sea.

The move was prompted in part by a survey the organisation commissioned in conjunction with HeForShe, a gender equality initiative created by the United Nations. The study of Generation Z attitudes toward work found that only 20% of this cohort would work for an employer that didn’t share their values, and 47% said that if two candidates had the same qualifications, they would support the role going to the “diverse candidate".

Sound intriguing? All applicants have to do is go to teamlewis.com/ER, where they will be asked to use just one word to describe who they want to be and attach a link to their LinkedIn page. Team Lewis will then contact applicants to discuss their ambitions and see if they might suit one of the more than 100 positions available with the company across the globe.

Here at Employee Benefits, we bring lots of creativity and life experiences to the job, including one who worked in a helium factory but didn't like being spoken to in that tone and another who worked in computers but couldn't hack it. Being modest wordsmiths ourselves, the idea of summing us up in one word could not be easier - bwrite.

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