How the rapidly growing Hive Diversity app is connecting students with big companies that put equality and inclusion at the forefront of recruitment

• Hive Diversity, which launched in October, is a virtual recruiting platform that wants to match diverse students to employers with a focus on equality, diversity, and inclusion.
• It’s already partnered with big-name companies including Accenture, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the owner of Jimmy Choo.
• Its founder Bryan Slosar spoke to Business Insider about Hive, which was founded with students in mind.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The killing of George Floyd in May awoke a major socio-political movement across the globe. As the Black Lives Matter movement gathered momentum across the world, major companies were quick to respond and issued statements supporting activists.

But despite the push to take positive action, some major employers have come under fire recently for not prioritizing diversity in the workplace.

Black staff at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative say they are ‘underpaid, undervalued, and marginalized,’ while Salesforce employees have spoken out about the company’s slow progress in improving workplace diversity. And then there’s UPS, which only overturned its ban on delivery staff having beards and diverse hair styles in November.

Hive Diversity is a virtual recruiting platform that wants to drastically improve the situation.

The platform connects employers with a focus on EDI (equality, diversity, and inclusion) with eager-to-learn college students from under-represented communities.

Hive was founded in October 2020 by Byron Slosar, who spent the last 15 years in the careers industry.

He first thought up the concept in 2015. He was working at Tulane University when a young trans student who knew Slosar was part of the LGBTQ+ community approached him asking for career advice. The student told Slosar he wanted to work at a company where he could be his "true self" and feel at home.

Five years later, Hive has launched, and it's growing rapidly. The company works with more than 2,000 students from more than 225 American universities.

Some of this is rapid growth thanks to its network of more than 200 student ambassadors, who encourage their peers to join the scheme. And some of it is because of Hive's big-name partnerships.

For its first cycle, Hive has partnered with 24 companies including Accenture, Atlantic Records, Saks Fifth Avenue, Steve Madden, and Capri Holding Limited, which owns the fashion brands Versace, Jimmy Choo, and Michael Kors. The companies all put an emphasis on diversity, and are working with Hive to ensure their recruitment processes reflect that.

Read more: Nasdaq needs SEC signoff for its game-changing rule on board diversity. Here's a look at how it could play out.

What sets Hive apart from other recruitment platforms is that it was built with the students in mind, not the companies, Slosar told Business Insider.

One of his key ideas was to gamify the platform. Students have to complete five levels of courses based on their personal and professional development, including videos, text, and quizzes related to preparing for job interviews and thinking about career goals. Undertaking these gamified tasks keeps them engaged and shows their commitment to employers, Slosar explained.

Convenience is also an important driver for the company. Students can do the lessons on their phones via the Hive app, meaning they're not tied to a schedule like other careers classes, Slosar explained.

Another way Hive has adapted to its college userbase is through its resume builder, Slosar told Business Insider. Its website includes a patent-pending resume builder which, unlike many others, is mobile compatible. Students are provided with a template with resume formatting, so that they just have to fill out the content, meaning the focus is on them and their skills rather than how well they can format a resume.

Hive provides students with more than just the opportunity to apply for jobs, Slosar explained. The partner companies put on virtual information sessions through Hive, where students can ask questions about different career paths and speak to recent graduates about their experiences. Through this, Hive focuses on meaningful engagement between talented students and prospective employers, Slosar said.

Though students get a lot out of Hive, they don't pay to join. "They pay by putting the work in," Slosar told Business Insider. Employers also benefit from recruiting through Hive, Slosar explained.

Whereas most employees get EDI training on the job, students registered at Hive undertake an EDI module before being employed.

In addition, partner companies get aggregate data on students "following" them on the site, such as their locations, courses, and interests, which they can then build into their recruitment strategies.

Accenture, which is one of Hive's partner companies, said that workplace diversity can help create a wider culture of equality. The company is collaborating with Hive Diversity "because they complement our purpose of combining human ingenuity with technology to serve a greater good," Joseph Taiano, managing director of marketing & communications at Accenture, told Business Insider.

One of Hive's core beliefs is that a student is worth much more than just their grades. The recruitment process focuses on the values that a student's skills, interests, and background can bring. It uses this information to connect them with like-minded employers.

By focusing on students, from freshmen to recent graduates, Slosar hopes to create systemic change by procuding an organic pipeline of talent in the future, he told Business Insider.

He also hopes Hive will help democratize the workplace by removing hurdles such as money and personal networks from the job-seeking process.