To address the inequality in our workplaces we need to radically rethink the recruitment process

“Be the change you want to see in the world”. Rarely has the phrase often attributed to Gandhi meant more in the workplace than since the Harvey Weinstein furore broke. The scandal resulted in a domino effect of professions having the lid lifted on the appalling sexual harassment women experience simply by working in environments where powerful men believe they can behave with impunity.

There is universal hand-wringing, condemning the dreadful state of affairs that some men imagined had improved since the Mad Men-era, but many women knew had simply become less overt. Complaining, reporting and whistle-blowing often lead not only to nothing happening, but worse: victim-blaming to the detriment of female careers, leaving perpetrators untouched as patriarchal hierarchies close ranks: Fox News, the Weinstein Company, Hollywood, glossy magazines, the music business, restaurants – the list lengthens daily.

“How to change this terrible situation?” runs the refrain. The consensus is that the answer is obvious: we need more women (and people of colour) in senior positions – in fact, all ranks. This greater diversity of power would in turn change the workplace culture. Sound plausible?

This exact same conversation about diversity (but not, in truth, harassment) raged when I was editor of Campaign, the advertising industry’s bible 20 years ago. It rages still, more violently. Although there are now a few more women at the top of the ad industry, if anything it has become less diverse by background.

White, mostly male, middle-class university graduates have superseded the Geordie working-class art school kids or post room trainees of old. You may not need two hands to count the people of colour in senior roles. Advertising is hardly unique. Factor in the ticking time bomb issue of gender pay gap disparity, set to explode into our consciousness next April when all larger companies must publish their figures – and it’s clear little has changed.

The recruitment industry’s model is broken. There is consensus on the need to have greater diversity, but little understanding that this will not be achieved through fishing in the same old graduate recruitment pools and endlessly promoting “people like us” via mirror-recruiting, CV apartheid and unconscious bias. The same names get headhunted repeatedly until eventually their children get first jobs. Nepotism is ubiquitous.

This dire situation is made more acute in the context of Britain’s widening “talent gap”. According to the Office for National Statistics there are currently 695,000 unfilled vacancies, up from 438,000 in 2012. The increase alone has cost the economy £7bn a year in lost consumer spending power. And it’s getting worse. Some 600,000 baby boomers are reaching retirement age annually. Unfilled vacancies could number as many as 3.1m by 2050. There are critical shortages: in education, engineering and technology. Brexit will not be helping. Remarkably, although 72 per cent of British companies claim to have been affected by the talent shortage, only 36 per cent have a plan in place to combat it.

What if there was not actually a talent shortage, but rather an “opportunity gap”? Many potential recruits lack the access via personal, educational or work networks to that first foot on the ladder or transformative career move. They did not attend the “right” school or university, lack the polished CV, do not have the option of a parental contact’s internship.

They may be from ethnic minorities, or female returnees to the workplace over the age of 50; they could be ex-offenders, women from marginalised backgrounds or even “first in the family” graduates in higher education. How to give them access to opportunity? One new solution is online mentoring, connecting the unconnected with those in work who can make a difference to their careers.

National Mentoring Day today coincides with Black Cat Day. It’s National Sausage Week from Monday. You get the picture. We can dismiss such commemorations as meaningless, or risk ridicule by trying to imbue them with meaning. Our own effort to improve and disrupt the jobs recruitment marketplace, Connect Mentors, is launching today to try to introduce those with skills but without access to the world of work through mentoring. It’s been a long time coming.

Stefano Hatfield is editorial director at Connect Mentors, a unique online mentoring programme backed by insurance companies Brit and Canopius which starts today. Twitter: #closethegap