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Inclusive Hiring Practices

The Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion highlights a few of the benefits of inclusive hiring:

“Inclusive hiring practices promote equal employment opportunities, improve the workplace environment, and promote the inclusion of diverse perspectives and experiences, particularly for candidates and employees with marginalized identities. Additionally, inclusive hiring fosters creativity, innovation, and problem-solving abilities
by bringing together employees with a range of backgrounds and perspectives.”8

“Inclusion is about the collective. It is about creating a culture that strives for equity and embraces, respects, accepts and values difference.”9

The following are suggestions on inclusive hiring practices that Firms and human resources professional may want to consider or adopt:

1. Self-assessment & maintenance

  • Review existing policies, practices and procedures: On a regular basis, look at your policies, practices, and procedures. Determine if there are any gaps in how you recruit and retain underrepresented groups. Ask yourself: where can you improve? What do you do well already
  • Stay Current: Pay attention to how Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (“DEI”) is evolving, including best practices.
  • Identify systemic barriers: what are institutional-level policies, practices or values that block or create unequal access to employment?
  • Examine unconscious bias: an attitude, stereotype, motivation, or assumption that results from life experiences. Everyone has unconscious biases, for example, gender, culture, race or ethnicity, age, and language. “Decisions made based on unconscious bias can compound over time to significantly impact the lives and opportunities of others who are affected by the decisions one makes.” (CRC)

2. Job Postings

  • Use plain language: seeking abilities or skills, rather than experience and that is inclusive and free of terms implying bias, gender, or age.
  • Highlight DEI Commitments: If reflective of your Firm, include statements about DEI commitments, policies or practices.

Law Society of Alberta Guidance on Job Postings
Rules 50, 50.1 and 50.2 of the Rules of the Law Society of Alberta govern the academic requirements for prospective members of the Law Society of Alberta with Canadian common-law degrees, Canadian civil law degrees (LL.B. and J.D.) and non-Canadian law degrees. Specifically, Rule 50(2) provides that the academic requirements for admission as a student-at-law are met when the applicant has qualification equivalent to the requirements of a LLB or JD from a faculty of common law at a Canadian University and their non-Canadian law degree and legal practice is evaluated by the Federation of Law Societies’ NCA.

It is important for Firms to recognize both Canadian law degrees and accreditation through the NCA process in their job postings. It is suggested that Firms use inclusive language in their job postings as it relates to academic requirements for candidates. For example, to require that applicants have a law degree from a “recognized Canadian law school,” without also noting that candidates who have completed an equivalent program approved by the NCA or have received their Certificate of Qualification, limits the potential applicants and may exclude ITLs from applying.

Firms are encouraged to contact the Law Society of Alberta’s Office of the Equity Ombudsperson for more information.

3. Hiring Committees

  • Training: Hiring committee members should be trained on DEI, anti-racism, inclusive communications, and unconscious bias.
  • Screen Questions: Ensure all interview questions are appropriate for an applicant to answer.

4. Interview

  • General information: Advise candidates in advance how long the interview will be, who will be interviewing them, and the types of questions they will be asked. Hiring committee members should introduce themselves, keep their cameras on (look at the camera), and microphones on mute when not speaking.
  • Hiring Committee: Ensure the hiring committee members all understand selection criteria before they screen applications. You might use a written evaluation matrix.
  • Location and time: Choose an interview location that has low ambient noise. Consider time zones and time of day when scheduling interviews.
  • Standardization: Where possible and if appropriate, consider using the same structured process and questions for each candidate.
  • Types of Questions: Choose specific questions over open-ended questions that beg the candidate to sell themselves. For example, instead of asking “What are your strengths?”, ask “Can you tell me about a time when you were able to complete a project ahead of schedule?”
  • Bias: Avoid affinity bias, which favours candidates who are similar to the interviewer. Be aware of what you mean when you say someone “fits” or not.
  • Technology: When considering virtual interviews, keep in mind that not all candidates have access to updated technology or private living spaces. Ensure the candidate knows who they can call if they have technical difficulties. Also ensure the hiring committee members know how to use virtual technology.

Hiring Decisions

  • Accommodation: Ensure hiring committee members are aware they cannot hold a candidate’s need for accommodation against them.
  • Artificial Intelligence: Note that the use of artificial intelligence to screen applications may result in qualified candidates being disqualified.

Inclusive Hiring Practices Resources:
Dr. Pragya Agarwal, “Here Is How Bias Can Affect Recruitment In Your Organisation,” Forbes,
19 October 2018 Here Is How Bias Can Affect Recruitment In Your Organisation (accessed 22
December 2025)

Iris Bohnet, “How to Take the Bias Out of Interviews,” Harvard Business Review, 18 April 2016 How
to Take the Bias Out of Interviews (accessed 22 December 2025)

Canada Research Chairs, Creating an Equitable, Diverse and Inclusive Research Environment: A
Best Practices Guide for Recruitment, Hiring and Retention (accessed 22 December 2025)

Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, “Inclusive hiring practices: Toolkit for transforming
hiring practices to attract and retain diverse talent” (November 2023) Toolkit - Inclusive hiring
practices - EN - Final, [CCDI] (accessed 22 December 2025)

Jennifer Kiesewetter, “A Look Into the Benefits of Standardized Interview Processes,” Cangrade,
(no date) A Look Into the Benefits of Standardized Interview Processes - Cangrade (accessed 22
December 2025)

Charlotte Lytton, “AI Hiring Tools May be Filtering out the Best Job Applicants” BBC, 16 February
2024, AI hiring tools may be filtering out the best job applicants (accessed 22 December 2025)

Dr. Katie Maras, “What to do when interviewing an autistic person for a job,” University of Bath, (no
date) What to do when interviewing an autistic person for a job (accessed 22 December 2025)

8Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, “Inclusive hiring practices: Toolkit for transforming hiring practices to attract and retain
diverse talent” (November 2023) Toolkit - Inclusive hiring practices - EN - Final, [CCDI] (accessed 22 December 2025)
9Ibid.