There are many It’s an advantage to having a diverse workforce, but, as Beta founder James Nash points out, you can’t simply take your homogenous workforce, add diversity, move and hope for the best.
Often, there’s something subtle that gets in the way of diversity in startups: companies rely on employee referrals to begin with, but if the make-up of a startup isn’t already diverse, referrals won’t change that.
This is for startups. In the world of venture capital, things are much clearer: A warm introduction is the only way to get ahead of investors in many venture capital funds. This is great for people who are already hooked on the startup ecosystem, but you don’t have to search for very long to realize that this isn’t a very diverse group of people.
“We love hearing from you. The best way to reach us is through someone we know mutually.” Venture capital company website
For many companies, employee referrals are one of the main ways to attract new talent. All of this is fine until you stop thinking about the new employee who is likely to know best. It doesn’t take many rounds through this particular mill to end up with a relatively homogeneous group of people with similar educations, socioeconomic backgrounds, and values.
If that’s what you’re improving on, great! I did well. If not, maybe it’s time to stop being lazy and ask why warm introductions are such a common practice.
My question has always been: what are you improving with referrals? If you take a moment to think about it, I bet you’ll unearth some uncomfortable unintended consequences.
Let’s talk about what we can do about it.
status in VC
If you’ve read any guides about startups or fundraising (including my own, though I also try to cover cold emails and cold intros), you’ll find that you need a “warm intro” for a VC meeting. Looking at the above in parallel with recruitment, this is a problem.