By Ouraphone Willis, Director of Diversity Recruiting, UnitedHealth Group

Ouraphone Willis

Ouraphone Willis

At UnitedHealth Group, building a diverse team of high-performing employees is key to achieving our mission of helping people live healthier lives and making the health system work better for everyone. As our customer base and businesses evolve, our recruiting strategies and tools evolve right along with them, combining tried-and-true methods with new ideas that give UnitedHealth Group a competitive edge.

One of the ways UnitedHealth Group meets the challenges of recruiting and retention is through the efforts of talent community managers. Part of the talent acquisition marketing team, they attract, engage, and educate targeted professionals in order to build “talent communities” from which recruiting teams can fill open jobs. Today, UnitedHealth Group employs eight talent community managers who seek diverse and military candidates to fill open positions across all areas of the business.

Talent community managers use a variety of marketing tools and tactics to build diverse talent pools, including social media, search engine optimization, online content creation, relationship marketing, virtual career events, online chat sessions, employee referral programs, podcasts, videos, and more. These tools, designed with the flexibility to meet our changing business needs, help UnitedHealth Group provide a high level of interaction with potential candidates.

Talent community managers, and the robust marketing tools they use, have been very effective for UnitedHealth Group. In order to support the growth of a diverse talent community, the talent community managers have written employee profiles, created diversity-related video content, enlisted company leaders to contribute to a monthly diversity blog, and hosted a “Twitterview” (an online interview format hosted on Twitter) with leadership on diversity and inclusion. These activities offer an already engaged talent pool a place to gain insight into UnitedHealth Group’s culture and a lens through which other job seekers can view the company.

“Our talent community managers have enhanced our diversity recruiting efforts and our online brand reputation. We have seen a dramatic increase in our careers website traffic and grown our talent communities across all functions,” said Ouraphone Willis, director of diversity recruiting at UnitedHealth Group. “The UnitedHealth Group careers website (http://careers.unitedhealthgroup.com) provides candidates with information about UnitedHealth Group and our job openings. It features information about our diversity commitment through blog posts from our executives, and highlights our partnerships with organizations such as the National Society of Hispanic MBAs, National Black MBA Association, AARP, and Reaching Out MBA.”

At UnitedHealth Group, diversity is about differences that reach far beyond gender and ethnicity. Teams that reflect a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and beliefs are best equipped to produce the innovations that drive business. UnitedHealth Group is always on the lookout for people whose résumés reflect accomplishments beyond the parameters of the health care industry. As the talent community managers and the recruiting team reach out to potential employees, whether it is face to face or via high-tech tools, the message is consistent: At UnitedHealth Group, your ideas can come to life in ways that touch the lives of millions. This is the place to do your life’s best workSM.