Best ways to go for AA avoiding ad scams along the way.

It's a familiar pitch.

"We're just calling to confirm your advertisement in our publication," the caller says, an advertisement that will express your commitment to affirmative action and help recruit minority, women and veteran job candidates.

The caller claims your company has

Are sales pitches like that legal? Most telephone solicitors make sure to stay on the right side of the law. But that doesn't mean buying an expensive advertisement in an obscure publication is an effective way to further your company's EEO goals. An ad that says, "We support diversity" doesn't necessarily show the company's convictions, just its willingness to spend money freely.

A publication may have the words "EEO," "minority," "black" or "Hispanic" in its title, but that doesn't mean it's a legitimate tool for recruiting minority or women job candidates.

Clearly, it takes more than advertising to recruit such candidates, but what are the best ways to reach women and members of minority groups?

FIND GOOD OUTREACH TARGETS

George Henderson, author and chairman of the department of human relations at the University of Oklahoma, suggests that if you are looking for minority candidates, a good place to start is with historically black colleges.

"It's always helpful to ask the department chairs at these colleges and to maintain close contacts," Henderson says. "Another way is old-fashioned networking--contacting individuals who are ethnic minorities and women and asking them to make recommendations."

If they are willing to provide the time and energy, Henderson recommends getting leads from a human rights organization such as the Urban League, which has offices throughout the United States.

These efforts are "far more helpful than simply placing an ad that, most often, potential candidates do not read," he says.

Dawn S. Hyde, president of Berkshire Associates Inc. in Columbia, Md., which helps companies prepare affirmative action plans, agrees.

The Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program emphasizes targeted, innovative and effective action-oriented affirmative action programs, she said, and "We don't think it's effective to advertise in a couple of publications; that's hardly targeted outreach."

Instead, she urges human resource professionals to "figure out your goals and go to organizations that can help you."

CREATE EFFECTIVE AA PLANS

To carry out an effective affirmative action program, Berkshire Associates suggests that human resource professionals

* Identify needs and target populations.

* Determine the priority of needs and the focus for the program.

* Make initial contacts with community support and other external recruitment and training organizations and gather information.

* Develop one or more results-oriented programs, deciding what actions will be taken, who will be involved, how and when actions will be accomplished. Focus on skill requirements and needs of the targeted population.

* Review policies on work schedules to determine if options such as flexible work scheduling, compressed work weeks, job sharing or part-time scheduling are needed to increase program and participant success.

* Invite program representatives to tour the organization, visit with staff members, and learn about both employment opportunities and the organization's requirements for success.

* Select organizations for outreach and support.

* Select a diversity of organizational contacts and recruiters, including employees outside the HR department.

* Get management approval and support. Train managers to value diversity in the workplace.

* Develop a retention program to foster organizational loyalty.

* Use defined procedures for monitoring and follow-up and require the addition of alternative procedures and revisions as needed to make sure objectives are accomplished.

USE AN OUTREACH DIRECTORY

Berkshire Associates has compiled a tool to help find the right candidates: Outreach and Recruitment Directory: A Resource for Diversity-Related Recruitment Needs, but Hyde says the directory is not yet comprehensive enough.

"We have more than 400 resources but that is just the up of the iceberg, and a lot of those are geared to lower-level jobs," she says. "We're looking for help to expand beyond the Mid-Atlantic area and to make the directory more comprehensive."

Although the directory is a work in progress, Hyde sees it as useful to HR professionals, particularly since it is available both as a hard-cover book, organized by state, and as software.

"Say you are looking to fill a certain professional position, you can look under the index for a particular job type or location or you can click into the database and it will sort through for you. You can cue in by state or by target population such as women. You can find organizations that are specific for women or organizations that offer career development or mentoring. With the database, it's simple to use and you can add your own resources. We said, 'Let's try to make it easy for organizations to do outreach.'"

Even a database may not be as easy as just ordering ads when they're offered, but "if you just put an ad in some paper, you are not going to get anywhere unless you inadvertently hit gold," Hyde says. "Sure, it's easy to just throw money at the situation, but it doesn't bring anything to you in return. It may help your image, but it doesn't bring anybody to you."

INSIGHT

Between now and the year 2000, 85 percent of new entrants into the U.S. workforce will be females, minorities and immigrants. By the year 2000, more than half of all workers will be over age 40.

Source: Berkshire Associates Inc.

Stephenie Overman is senior writer for HRMagazine.