We want to hire based on skills and merit, not on skin colour, religion, gender, or any other unrelated characteristics. So, we aim to fill our hiring pool with a very diverse set of people, and then judge them all equally, trying as hard as we can to remove bias from the process.

Our main approaches to diverse and inclusive hiring:

1. Put a tonne of energy into building a very diverse pool of candidates for any role.
2. Actively support people from minority groups, to ensure they feel ready, and are equipped to go through the hiring process.
3. Try really hard to eliminate all bias from the hiring process, continuously.

Building a hiring pool

Often people in minority groups don't feel as confident to apply. In many cases they also didn't have the opportunities that others got. Posting a role online and 'waiting for diversity to come' is not good enough for us.

So we want to actively work to make sure they are applying, even if they may not think they are ready. Many people, especially from minority groups, pre-reject themselves, by convincing themselves that they're not ready or they are not good enough. That's for us to decide together, so we want to engage early and make sure they're talking to us even if they are not sure.

There are many ways to tackle this, but a couple of approaches we already have in mind to start with include:

1. Engage with established communities (where they exist) to talk about Beyond and our role openings
2. Actively look for candidates who are changing career from other fields (they often will bring along fantastic adjacent skills too)
3. Look for candidates with non-traditional backgrounds eg. no university degree
4. Offering 1:1 time time to discuss open roles, expectations, and light mentoring.

Flexible working times

We know that some times are not suitable for young families who need to support kids, do school pick ups, take a sick kid to the doctors etc. So, we focus more on getting things done rather than being online all the time.

We aren't really bothered about how you arrange your day. Your time is your time, and you're free to organise yourself according to what suits you.

We do have catch-ups from time to time, but we're generally very light on meetings and we're always flexible in case someone can't make it. We try to create workflows and processes that support asynchronous style of work as much as we can, rather than forcing everyone to be available synchronously.

Supporting minority groups

Interview processes are nerve wracking for anyone, but when you have been treated unfairly in the past, you may experience a whole different level of anxiety. We all know that nervous candidates struggle to showcase themselves and demonstrate their strengths.

We want to help candidates prepare for the interview and selection process by making sure they know what to expect, how to prepare, and in general just feel welcome.