Career Development Office - Recruitment Policies and Best Practices

Employer Terms and Conditions

General Recruitment Guidelines

To ensure the quality of our services and to best assist law students, alumni, employers and other users of our services, the Career Development Office has established guidelines for recruiting activities. Our goal is a framework for facilitating a positive environment of effective and professional relationships between employers, students, and staff supporting employer recruitment across campus. We want a welcoming and inclusive environment free of harassment or discrimination and want to work with employers committed to equity, diversity, inclusivity and Indigeneity actions. Queen’s Law maintains an open employer recruitment practice that aligns with current provincial and national regulations. In Canada, most provincial law societies and other regulatory bodies have rules and regulations regarding recruitment.

For example, in Ontario:

https://lso.ca/becoming-licensed/lawyer-licensing-process/articling-candidates/finding-a-placement

Only employers and organizations who are legally allowed to operate in Canada (or for international opportunities, who are legally operating within the relevant jurisdiction) and comply with all relevant federal and provincial employment legislation may participate in recruitment events and services for Queen’s Law, for example:

Ontario Employment Standards Act

Ontario Ministry of Labour Guidelines

Ontario Human Rights Code

The Career Development Office reserves the right to determine which organizations are invited to attend career events and sessions, which postings will be approved for listing in the online job posting service and to forbid or suspend an employer/recruiter from participating in any of our events and/or services based on complaints and/or the behaviour contrary to our guidelines. The fact that Queen’s Law permits an employer or organization to participate in such events and services does not constitute an endorsement of that employer or organization. It is not the role of the Career Development Office to monitor the general recruiting or operational practices of companies. However, it is our role to monitor any recruiting activities done in collaboration with Queen’s Law, and we will investigate any situation upon receipt of a student, staff or employer complaint regarding specific recruitment practices or treatment of students and refer the matter accordingly.

Students, if you encounter any problems or concerns with employers/job opportunities, please contact the Career Development Office.

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigeneity Commitment and Actions

Queen’s University Career Services encourages all employer partners to commit to the following diversity and inclusion actions:

Consciously provide interns and employees with educational opportunities to develop diversity and inclusion competency.
Take action to create an increasingly diverse and inclusive workforce by engaging in continuous organizational self-assessment aimed at decolonizing company traditions and practices.
Implement equitable opportunities for historically underrepresented individuals and groups to participate in organizational change within your company despite position or authority.
Expand opportunities for your company’s senior leadership to understand the experience of historically underrepresented employees by centering their voices and incorporating their feedback into organizational decision-making.

We appreciate your commitment to and agreement with our Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigeneity Commitment and Actions. If employers do not meet the commitment and actions, we reserve the right to decline employer access to recruitment activities. We also welcome additional conversation if you have questions or concerns.

For support for building diversity and inclusion actions within your campus recruitment activities, please see Best Practices for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigenization (EDII) Recruiting with Queen’s University.

Employers utilizing the services provided by the Queen’s Law Career Development Office must abide by these Terms and Conditions. Queen’s Law Career Development Office reserve the right to refuse any person’s or organization’s use of this service.

If you have any questions about these recruitment guidelines, please contact Julie Banting, Director at Queen’s Law Career Development.

EDII Best Practices

Best Practices for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigenization (EDII) in Student Recruiting with Queen’s University

Queen’s University is committed to recruiting processes that support diversity, equity, and inclusion. These guidelines offer best practices to consider when recruiting at Queen’s, helping to foster meaningful engagement with a variety of students and offer an inclusive recruiting process.

Queen’s Principles for Campus Recruiting

To ensure all organizations recruiting students and graduates through our career offices use recruiting practices that are open, accessible, and inclusive with respect to many aspects of diversity including ethnicity, gender, race, sexual orientation, ability, and socioeconomic status.
To provide supports for our employers about best practices for recruitment with an EDII lens, specific to student and new graduate populations, from engaging with students and posting jobs to interviews.
To communicate our policies and procedures when engaging with students (on-campus or virtually) and coordinating processes for receiving and responding to disclosures of inappropriate incidents involving discrimination, harassment, or sexual violence with recruiters.

We have consulted with across faculties, the human rights and equity office, and student services units to develop the following recommendations for how to review your practices to best support students from equity-deserving backgrounds and to contribute to your goals for improving equity and inclusion in your organization.

EDII Best Practices through the Recruitment Cycle

Every organization is different, but the following are principles and practices that can apply across a wide range of organizations.

Representing your organization, culture and EDII practices on your web site and social media

Students will review your website, social media feeds and news releases prior to your info sessions or networking events.

Ensure strong and visible commitment to EDII by the organization’s leadership: prominently post a statement of commitment by the organization’s president/CEO on a diversity web page; outline Employee Resource Groups; create a diversity news feed; celebrate events that promote EDII; release public statements on diversity; and post video clips on your website of your organization’s leaders discussing diversity.
Feature a diverse work force on your communications including visible and non-visible underrepresented groups. Feature various employees through profiles or video including representation of senior leadership. The visibility of individuals from underrepresented groups in prominent roles positively influences students. Consider a video that encourages students to self-identify, sharing the benefits and importance of self-identification from champions within the organization.
Ensure there is an informed and welcoming education and outreach specialist for students. Be prepared to address questions related to EDII from students.
When stating the organization’s commitment to EDII, use strong examples or have a plan to back it up. Be specific about why this is important to your business. Avoid general, blanket statements.
Portray senior leaders (all leaders – not just those who self-identify as women) at the workplace balancing having a family and/or pursuing interests and hobbies outside of work. This demonstrated the organization’s commitment to work/life balance in practice which is important to many students.

Posting a Role to Attract Diverse Candidates and Encourage Inclusion

Advertise roles broadly: Although recruiting through core student groups and associations can be helpful in developing a targeted candidate pipeline, these groups do not always reflect the broader student body. Ensure that you are promoting your organization across a variety of platforms and associations.

Post only the qualifications, experience, abilities, and skills necessary for the job.

Be inclusive of all genders using unbiased and ungendered language. For example, use the term “all genders” vs. “women and men”. Steer away from traits typically viewed as masculine and use the pronoun “them” instead of “him” and/or “her.”

Communicate content that will de-mystify any pre-conceived notions of the job. For example, to target more women in finance or engineering, focus on the types of work/problems solved on the job, the broader purpose that roles serve, work-life balance, culture, and transferability of skills.

Add key verbiage for attracting underrepresented groups. Be inclusive. For example, ensure your posting is open to everyone and you can add that you encourage people who belong to underrepresented groups to apply. If you have access to an EDII expert, have them review your posting.

If you are collecting data on applicants who identify as members of underrepresented groups, ensure you provide the proper privacy notice of the purpose of collection, how the data will be used and who has access to it. Be sure to offer a definition of each group and then ask if the respondent self-identifies as a member of that group. Options should be inclusive (e.g., male, female, gender neutral and/or non-binary) and each question should provide the option to not respond.

If you are not getting a diverse enough applicant base, extend the application deadline, or review the ad more critically for potential barriers/language and re-post it.

Ensure job postings highlight diversity of skills required (e.g. critical thinking, communication). Point students to resources or best practices that they can use to develop these skills.

Interviewing to Eliminate Bias

Ensure there are members of underrepresented groups and/or equity experts on the hiring committee. Provide mandatory EDII training for all interviewers that includes instruction on identifying and combating unconscious, implicit, overt, and any other kinds of bias.

Evaluate candidates based on a pre-determined rubric that matches the skills and qualifications required on the job description and ranks the selection criteria. Retain rubric on all candidates. Ensure the same rubric is applied to all candidates.

Ensure that candidates who are not shortlisted in the process are treated with courtesy and respect by providing responses as swiftly as possible.

When inviting candidates to interview, state that the organization will support and provide any accommodation needs. Ensure these accommodations are provided for those candidates that have requested it. If the interviews are on-campus work with the campus career centre to facilitate. The Queen’s Accessibility Hub provides Accessibility guidelines for events and meetings.

If you want to interview in person, consider coming to campus (once public health rules allow) – this will eliminate inequities of access for students relative to the cost and time for travel (most students though not all are in Kingston). If interviewing off-campus consider covering the costs for candidates to interview in person (i.e. travel and accommodation).

Offer interview information to the candidate in advance such as the types of questions, length of interview and interviewer names or positions.

Further Resources: