to writing an Equitable (Good Food) Job Post, is: don't include an Equal Opportunity Employment statement - make your post an Equal Opportunity Employment statement.

When we rethink the entire premise of an EOE it expands beyond one component of a job description to a pervasive quality that leads to an all-encompassing reality.

Sound utopian? Audacious vision is necessary when change is made in incremental movements, spread out over time.

Which brings us to the Second Step to writing an Equitable Job Post: reduce (or even eliminate - more on that below) your Job Requirements. 

There is a paradox in weeding out candidates. It seems like limiting the pool of applicants is essential, and yet...limiting is the key word. The process of reducing your candidates down can leave out those with skills and qualifications that are not necessarily less valuable, they just don't happen to be on the list - including intangible but essential qualities like passion, work ethic and loyalty. In this case, expectations of what we want get in the way of what could be possible. 

We have nothing against expertise or excellence. But the fact is, there are as many different ways to be smart and successful as there are humans on the planet. We ourselves have fallen into the trap of looking great on paper, and giving credence to traditional measures of success. Between our own experiences in the workplace, and running a job posting service for ten years, we've seen that there are better ways to do things beyond the systems already in place. 

Our best examples come from the folks who post jobs with us, or whose work we come across through research and word-of-mouth. We couldn't possibly make this point better than Greyston Bakery, a Yonkers, New York business that is so much more than a brownie bakery. Greyston 'replaces scrutiny with trust' through an Open Hiring process. That's right: no resumes, no interviews, no background checks. Although their model might not work for everyone, we see it as a revolutionary example of what happens when we take an existing process and rethink it.

We hope you'll learn more about what Greyston is up to, and consider how it could impact your own hiring process. In the meantime, here's our list of how to make your Job Requirements more equitable:

1. Weed out the number of ways you're weeding folks out. We see job posts that ask only for someone with a passion and willingness to learn. We also see posts with a list of requirements that takes up more space than any other aspect of the job description. In just one example of why less can be more, research shows that women are less likely to apply for a job if they don't meet every requirement in the list. Ask yourself if it's essential to the day-to-day work of the job, and if the answer is 'no' or 'maybe', strike it off the list. You can always add it back, but chances are, you won't miss it, and neither will your next team member. 

2. Asking for a clean driving record and/or a clean background check has become common enough as to seem unremarkable. Some positions - for example, a role as a delivery driver, or in a position that works directly with small children - are required to include this as part of their insurance requirements. But you might be surprised how often these requirements are mentioned, even if the job doesn't require either of those tasks.

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander writes, "Nearly every state allows private employers to discriminate on the basis of past criminal convictions. In fact, employers in most states can deny jobs to people who were arrested but never convicted of any crime."

Given the number of people reentering the workforce after being imprisoned, eliminating all of those candidates for the fact of their imprisonment is not only punitive, it doesn't make good business sense. A formerly incarcerated individual might be the most dedicated employee you have yet to hire.

3. There is a deceivingly simple shortcut to reducing the number of requirements in your job post: if they contradict one another, take out one (or both). How many times have you read a job description that asks for someone to thrive at taking initiative and working by themselves and excel at being a team player? If you've read Quiet by Susan Cain, you know that introverts and extroverts can't always be cleanly divided into one camp or another, but sometimes the emphasis on a variety of qualities waters down the possibility that you'll find someone who truly excels at one particular thing.  

4. Look at superlatives as red flags. It's not that we shouldn't hold people to high standards, but that focusing on perfection often narrows your view of an individual. Not only do you risk missing a vision of the whole human you hope to work with, but a lot of negative qualities can hide behind a flawless exterior. At Slough Farm in Massachusetts, we were impressed with a simple but poignant qualification: under a short list of job requirements, they wrote, 'unafraid to ask for help or ask questions'. When you write your next job post, ask yourself what's behind the drive for superlatives, and consider a requirement that addresses that directly, rather than seeking a 'perfect' solution. 

In the words of writer and civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander: "Work is deemed so fundamental to human existence in many countries around the world that it is regarded as a basic human right." Making your job post more equitable means making it more human.

We are here to help. Questions? Roadblocks? Pain points? Please reach out.

. . .

In our ongoing work to provide resources for Writing an Equitable Job Post, we invite you to get in touch if you have thoughts on any areas of a job post you'd like us to delve into. In the coming weeks, we look forward to covering Compensation and Application details. 

In food, justice, and food justice, 

Dor + Tay

photo by Clay Williams for GFJ Stories