Ensuring an Inclusive and Accessible Recruitment Process

VF Corporation in EMEA continues its three-year partnership with myGwork to connect with diverse graduates and prospective candidates for internships and employment opportunities. In this interview, Daria Rozycka discusses how VF is making its recruitment process more inclusive and what they look for in candidates.

Please state your name, the name of the company you work for and your role within the organisation.

I'm Daria, and I work for VF Corporation. I joined the company two years ago as an intern in the recruitment team. In my full-time role, I now specialise in early talent and engagement. 

When recruiting graduates, what do you look for?

At VF, we recruit two intakes of interns each year. Interns don't need to have any prior experience. We pay close attention to the attitude and motivation of candidates. We look for ambitious individuals who are driven to learn and eager to develop their skills. We believe in the growth mindset and that most hard skills can be learned! But these skills can only be learned if you are motivated enough.

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How important are diversity and inclusion when recruiting a new professional?

Diversity is extremely important to us, especially in our recruitment efforts. VF is a global business that unites diverse brands with diverse products and a diverse customer base! Therefore, we want to build diverse teams that reflect this.  

By hiring diverse people, we can enrich our teams, brands and products and grow together.  

How do you ensure you receive diverse graduate candidates?

We've teamed up with organisations and networks that help us to connect and share opportunities with diverse candidates.  

For the past three years, we've collaborated with myGwork, our strategic partner for diverse candidates. We work together in various ways, from sharing job openings and publishing articles to attending their training sessions and participating in conferences. We also participate in their recruitment sessions and online events so that LGBTQ+ candidates can discover internship and employment opportunities at VF. 

How do you make sure the recruitment process is inclusive?

We remove gendered language in job descriptions and applications and ensure that candidates can identify themselves with their pronouns on application forms. We included an introduction to our diversity Employees Resource Group (ERG) on all landing pages dedicated to candidates. 

We want our interview process to be comfortable and accessible for all candidates, so we accommodate their needs and preferences. For example, if they prefer a phone call, video call, or in-person interview, we will arrange this.

In our interviews, we don't just ask the same questions to every candidate. We tailor our interview format to get to know the candidate and their experience. It doesn't matter if they don't have professional experience - we want to know about their soft skills and motivation!

If the hiring process requires the candidate to do a task or assignment, we're not looking for the right answer or perfection. Instead, we look at how they approach their work and understand their thought process! 

Does your organisation have an LGBTQ+ network? How important do you think that is? 

 
Yes! We currently have several focus groups that anyone at VF can join. There is the VF Pride Group for LGBTQ+ employees and allies. There is the EIN (EMEA Inclusion Network), which supports underrepresented individuals, plus the Empowerment of Women and ACE (Attract, Connect, Engage) groups.

These groups exist to network, spread awareness and promote diversity.  

Are you a graduate interested in applying for an internship at VF? Internship applications open in November, with a start date in April 2024. Visit the Careers page to stay up to date!