Opening Doors

Opening Doors Events Autumn/Winter 2025

For more information on Opening Doors, visit Opening Doors Hub or contact natalie.anderson@bitcni.org.uk.

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Opening Doors Key 1: Opening Doors Through Partnerships | Thursday 4 September 10:00 - 11:00 AM | Online

Discover how your organisation can create partnerships that will connect untapped talent to your jobs.

Partnering with organisations that support people into employment is the first of the five key commitments of the Opening Doors campaign.

Exclusively for Opening Doors signatories, join us for a webinar where you will learn more about actionable strategies for tapping into a diverse talent pool through community partnerships or non-profit organisations. Effective collaboration can take various forms, including through work insights, work placements, training support, or volunteering.

Key Highlights:

• The critical role, community partnerships play in expanding access to underrepresented talent.

• The value that partnerships can bring to businesses.

• Key steps to ensure effective relationships, with key insights shared from Opening Doors community partners.

• Success stories demonstrating the impact of inclusive recruitment through partnerships.

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Inclusive Hiring of refugee and Ethnically Diverse Talent | Wednesday 17 September 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM | In-Person

Location: AMS 6th Floor, The Ewart, 3 Bedford Square, Belfast, BT2 7EP

This in-person peer learning forum will bring together Opening Doors signatories and partners to share knowledge, challenges, and best practices around the inclusive recruitment of refugees and ethnically diverse talent.

In partnership with EMEEN and JoinHer, this event will bring together Opening Doors employers and partners in a collaborative learning space, where they can explore how to build equitable pathways into employment for refugee talent, strengthen organisational practices, and contribute to social impact. This event will explore:

• How to understand the unique barriers refugees face in the labour market and explore practical solutions

• Clarity around legal considerations and educational equivalencies

• Shared experiences and lessons learned from organisations already recruiting or supporting refugee candidates.

• How to promote a culture of belonging and psychological safety for ethnically diverse talent in the workplace

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Opening Doors Key 2: Show Candidates you are Committed to Inclusion | Tuesday 30 September 10:00 - 11:00 AM | Online

Join us for a practical and insightful webinar designed to help employers showcase their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the recruitment process.

This session will cover:

• Building an inclusive employer brand: Learn how to communicate your organisation’s DEI values through job postings, career pages, and social media.

• Creating an inclusive candidate experience: Explore strategies to make every stage of the hiring process, from application to onboarding, inclusive and accessible.

• Showcasing DE&I initiatives: Gain tips on highlighting workplace diversity programs, employee resource groups, and success stories that resonate with diverse candidates.

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Designing Accessible Hiring Processes: Making Recruitment Processes More Accessible | Tuesday 7 October 10:00 - 11:00 AM | Online

Gain insight and guidance around how to make recruitment processes more accessible to disabled candidates.

Attendees will gain practical guidance on how to identify and remove common barriers in recruitment processes, from job design, website accessibility and advertising to application, assessment, and interview stages.

The session will explore:

• What accessibility means in recruitment

• Inclusive job descriptions and person specifications

• Accessible formats and communication methods

• Adjustments and flexibility during interviews and assessments

• Partnering with disability organisations to connect with skilled candidates with disabilities.

• Best Practice examples

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Opening Doors: Inclusive Hiring for Social Impact | Tuesday 14 October 10:00 - 11:00 AM | Online

Explore the barriers that prevent talented individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds from accessing job opportunities.

Despite progress in workplace diversity, class and socioeconomic background often remain overlooked in conversations about inclusion. This webinar will explore how employers can play a pivotal role in advancing social mobility through recruitment practices that recognise and value potential.

We’ll share practical strategies to widen access, level the playing field, and share guidance on how to develop a more inclusive recruitment process that helps people thrive, regardless of background or circumstances.

What we’ll cover:

• What social mobility means and why it matters in recruitment

• Common barriers faced by candidates from lower socioeconomic backgrounds

• How to spot and mitigate class-based bias in recruitment

• Practical steps for creating socially mobile recruitment pathways

• Case studies and best practice examples from leading employers

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Opening Doors Key 3: Recruiting with Inclusive language | Wednesday 29 October 10:00 - 11:00 AM | Online

Perfect for HR professionals and hiring managers, this session provides actionable tips to make your job descriptions more inclusive and effective.

In this session, you will learn:

• The Power of Inclusive Language: Understand how word choice can impact perceptions and encourage applications from underrepresented groups.

• Structuring Job Descriptions for Clarity: Gain tips on outlining roles, responsibilities, and qualifications to ensure accessibility and transparency.

• Avoiding Unconscious Bias: Learn how to identify and eliminate biased language or requirements that may unintentionally exclude candidates.

• Highlighting Your Commitment to Inclusion: Discover how to showcase your organisation’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) values in job postings.

• Creating Accessibility: Get practical advice on ensuring job descriptions are accessible to individuals with disabilities, including formatting and readability tips.

This webinar is ideal for HR professionals and hiring managers from Opening Doors Signatory organisations looking to create job descriptions that resonate with candidates from all backgrounds and abilities.

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Actioning Inclusion: Cultures That Support Ethnic Diversity at Work | Wednesday 5 November 10:00 - 11:00 AM | Online

This interactive webinar will explore how behavioural science can be harnessed to design inclusive workplace cultures that support, attract, and retain ethnically diverse talent.

Research shows that humans will unconsciously assess whether we will succeed in an environment by whether we feel like we will belong or not. People will opt-out of environments where they feel like they won’t (or don’t) fit in.

This is why diversity without inclusion leads to what is known as ‘the revolving door’. People come into an organisation but leave quickly, and so organisations end up spending lots of resources identifying and recruiting diverse talent but fail to retain them.

Join us for a practical 45-minute webinar that will explore how behavioural science can help organisations build more inclusive cultures for ethnically diverse talent. We'll move beyond awareness to focus on small, evidence-based actions that lead to meaningful, lasting change. This session will explore:

• How behavioural science can uncover and disrupt bias

• Practical ways to design inclusive systems and behaviours

• Real-world examples of culture change in action

• Simple tools to apply in recruitment, progression, and everyday team dynamics

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Opening Doors Key 4: Focussing on essential skills over qualifications and experience | Wednesday 19 November | 10:00 - 11:00 AM | Online

Exclusively for Opening Doors signatories, join us for a workshop that redefines recruitment, by focussing job descriptions on the essential skills needed to succeed in the role rather than qualifications and years of experience.

Perfect for HR professionals and hiring managers from Opening Doors signatory organisations, this session provides actionable tips to make your job descriptions more inclusive and effective.

Gain insight on:

• The business case for skills-based hiring

• How to get started on creating skills-based job descriptions

• How to incorporate skills-based hiring into a recruitment strategy

• Examples of best practice

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Neurodivergence in Recruitment: inclusive approaches and shared learning | Wednesday 3 December 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM | In-Person

This in-person peer learning forum will bring together Opening Doors signatories and partners to explore practical, evidence-based approaches to attracting, assessing, and supporting neurodivergent candidates.

Delivered in partnership with NOW Group and Autism NI, this interactive session is ideal for Opening Doors signatories working towards building more accessible and equitable hiring practices with neurodivergent candidates in mind.

Attendees will leave with actionable strategies to take back to their organisations and have an opportunity to make connections with community partners committed to supporting neurodivergent talent to thrive in work. What we’ll cover:

• Rethinking website accessibility, job descriptions, assessments, and interview formats

• Making reasonable adjustments meaningful and effective

• Creating a supportive candidate experience

• Learning from real-world case studies and peer practice sharing

Location to be confirmed

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Opening Doors Key 5: Prioritise Accessibility and Eliminate Bias | Wednesday 17 December 10:00 - 11:00 AM | Online

This session aims to provide actionable steps employers can take to ensure their application processes are accessible and will challenge implicit bias, in order to attract diverse talent effectively

Exclusively for Opening Doors signatories, join us for a transformative webinar that guides employers on creating fair, accessible, and inclusive recruitment strategies.

Learn how to:

• Ensure Accessibility: Adapt job postings, application processes, and interviews to accommodate diverse candidates, including those with disabilities.

• Identify and Eliminate Bias: Recognise and address unconscious bias in hiring decisions to foster a more equitable recruitment process.

• Promote Inclusivity: Build a recruitment strategy that attracts candidates from all backgrounds while showcasing your commitment to diversity and equity.

This session is ideal for employers within Opening Doors signatory organisations seeking to enhance their hiring practices and build diverse, high-performing teams.