Creativity And Intention Are Necessary to Fight The ‘Lack Of Diverse Talent’ Myth

A popular theme among many of these initiatives was a call to hire and promote more diverse candidates, especially Black professionals. Despite these outward-facing positions, there is still clearly a long way to go, as the belief that there is a “lack of diverse talent” remains regardless of its inaccuracy.

Stagnant Processes

“It’s no secret that the industry as a whole has struggled historically with issues of what I’ll call representational diversity,” Melvin says. “I have been doing this about 15 years and when I look across the street, it looks very, very similar to when I first started.”

“I don’t believe that companies walk around saying, ‘Oh, boy. We don’t want to hire someone Black or Hispanic.” I think more than anything else they say they do,” Carrington says. “They gingerly put forth an effort to do it. What I mean by that is the companies want diversity to happen without changing much.”

“It’s easy to take from companies that only recruit diversity focus at a lower level because those people come in and see there’s no one in front of them. When they see there’s no one in front of [them], they don’t make plans to stay,” Carrington says, noting that “there are more who could be considered if companies focused directly on doing it,” but that companies are “focusing on the wrong thing.”

“There are aspects about these approaches that make a lot of sense and that work, but I felt that we were still running into issues actually diversifying our workforce,” Melvin says.

Melvin was fortunate enough to have more of a vision of how his career could progress when he started at Morgan Stanley, as he worked for two Black managing directors when he was hired. To ensure that such a situation can occur elsewhere in the company, Melvin, along with several other managing directors in the division, spearheaded a new initiative at Morgan Stanley in 2020: the Morgan Stanley Experienced Professionals Program.

To recruit for the program, Melvin and his colleagues did more digging than is usually completed in the traditional process, including spreading the word through external recruiters, partnering with experts in the diversity space and drilling down in their own networks. This more aggressive recruiting process was pared with a much wider scope. Rather than searching for candidates with specific industry experience, the program looked for successful professionals across industries, including consulting, legal, government work, nonprofits, education, science, technology and more.

Nearly 800 individuals applied for the program. Candidates were then evaluated by a cross-business unit of representatives at Morgan Stanley, after which 100 candidates were selected for interviews. Of those 100, 55 went on to the final interview stage and 20 were eventually hired for the program, starting Feb. 1. The program includes six weeks of intensive financial services training followed by eight-week rotations to find the right specialty for each new employee.

Creative solutions like the Morgan Stanley Experienced Professionals Program are the key to not only improving hiring practices but tearing down the lazy excuse that diverse talent is hard to find.

While the program primarily recruits at the entry level, Melvin hopes that by creating more opportunities, there will be more successes and a greater chance at advancement, ultimately leading to a more diverse workforce up and down the organization.

Beyond creating programs, companies also need to be intentional and make diversity improvement efforts a core part of business. They need to see diversity as an investment, Carrington says. That means getting leadership not only behind these initiatives but actively involved, especially in siloed industries like financial services.

“Companies don’t see diversity as an investment. They don’t have the long-term vision of what they need to do in order to make diversity real and a part of their everyday business,” Carrington says, suggesting that diversity efforts could be tied to the bonus pay of senior leaders to further incentivize progress.

Unfortunately, patience also is a virtue that must be practiced. While initiatives like the Morgan Stanley Experienced Professionals Program show that action can be taken quickly and results can be expected in a matter of months, more long-term progress requires a sea change beyond just one company. Carrington, who has seen the ups and downs across four decades in executive recruiting, believes that there will continue to be an ebb and flow, but he also believes that 2020 will be an inflection point. During the last 12 months or so, his company received more than 90 unsolicited calls from companies looking for help with hiring diverse candidates, which was up from about 15 to 20 such calls the year before. But it will take more than phone calls to create real progress on what Carrington calls a “march of 1,000 years.”