Metsä Group uses a recruitment method that is unusual in both Finland and France. Since November 2022, the forestry and paper group has been recruiting mainly on the basis of anonymous applications. This recruitment method, which aims to reduce prejudice and discrimination, is now used in over 80% of Metsä's 700 annual recruitments.
On these anonymous CVs, candidates' personal data such as name, age, gender and school are masked during the selection phase. The aim is to ensure that the most suitable candidates reach the interview stage and are selected for the job, whatever their personal characteristics.
"We welcome people from a variety of backgrounds and life situations. We believe that the best ideas are born in diverse teams, and that anonymous recruitment is an excellent way of increasing the diversity of our working community." says Susanna Tainio, Vice President Recruitment and Human Resources Development at Metsä Group, which employs around 9,500 people in some 30 countries, in a press release.
Anonymous recruitment will also be gradually introduced for apprenticeships and summer jobs.
More women hired at Metsä Group
But what are the results of this type of recruitment? Metsä only indicates that the proportion of women among new recruits is 17% higher than in 2021. But this increase is also the result of an active gender equality policy on the part of the group. In fact, it aims to increase the proportion of women in Group management to 30% by 2030.
"One important result is that our employees are now more aware of equality issues. Anonymous recruitment forces you to think about your prejudices. We hope that our example can also encourage others to develop recruitment methods that improve equality." says Susanna Tainio.
