Partnering with Inclusion Crowd transforms EDI into a strategic advantage for recruitment agencies. Acting as an extension of your team, we provide the expertise, training, and support to help you attract top talent, secure high-margin contracts, and deepen client relationships.
Why Inclusion Crowd is the Perfect Partner for Recruitment Companies
In today’s recruitment landscape, clients expect more than just a staffing solution—they demand genuine, effective commitment to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). As a recruitment company, you need to stand out not only by sourcing top talent but by offering greater value, attracting high-margin business, and proving your impact. That’s where Inclusion Crowd comes in.
We specialise in helping recruitment companies thrive in a competitive market. By partnering with Inclusion Crowd, you’ll be equipped to:
1. Attract and Retain Top Talent for Your Own Team
Diverse, inclusive workplaces attract high-caliber employees who are engaged and invested in long-term growth. Inclusion Crowd helps you build an internal culture that draws in top recruiters who are motivated to excel, reducing turnover and increasing stability for your clients.
2. Win and Retain High-Margin Business
Clients today are willing to invest in partners who align with their values and drive real, measurable impact. With Inclusion Crowd as your EDI partner, you gain a powerful differentiator—our Licence to Recruit certification. This certification not only demonstrates your commitment to EDI but also positions you to attract premium clients who prioritise diversity as a business value.
3. Source Exceptional Candidates for Clients
Inclusion Crowd’s expertise enables you to widen talent pools, ensuring you reach highly qualified, diverse candidates who bring a wealth of perspectives and skills. This added value gives your clients access to top talent they may not have reached on their own, enhancing their satisfaction and making you their go-to recruitment partner.
4. Add Greater Value for Your Clients
As your EDI partner, Inclusion Crowd doesn’t just help you meet client expectations—we help you exceed them. Our programmes and consultancy offerings allow you to bring a complete, impactful EDI strategy to your clients, building their trust and loyalty. By addressing EDI needs in-depth, we help position you as a strategic advisor, not just a recruiter.
Failing to prioritise EDI can put your business at risk. Without a genuine commitment to diversity, recruitment companies may:
With Inclusion Crowd as your EDI partner, we work as an extension of your team, providing expert support to manage the added value, training, and consultancy that modern clients expect. A joint approach allows you to focus on your core business—sourcing and placing talent—while we handle the EDI strategy. This means:
Together, we’ll help you drive growth, strengthen client relationships, and secure your place as a leader in modern recruitment. Partner with Inclusion Crowd and turn EDI into your agency’s most powerful asset.
Gain the support you need to attract top talent, win high-value clients, and elevate your EDI strategy. Together, we’ll drive measurable impact and set your agency apart in a competitive market.
1. Measurable Results and Data-Driven Impact
2. Brand Strengthening and Market Differentiation
3. Internal Capability Development and Retention
4. Long-Term Client Relationship Growth
5. Sustainable and Scalable EDI Practices
6. Profitability Through EDI Solutions
7. Dedicated Support and Expertise
As a HR leader, you’re at the forefront of driving Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) within your organisation. Yet, translating these values into everyday operational practices is a complex challenge—especially when operational teams may struggle to see EDI as a core driver of business success.
Securing buy-in from operations often means demonstrating how EDI aligns with their goals, from boosting productivity to enhancing team cohesion and innovation. But without the right support, EDI efforts can easily stall.
Partnering with Inclusion Crowd makes it easier to:
By partnering with Inclusion Crowd, you can confidently drive EDI from strategy to execution, securing buy-in across departments and positioning your organisation as a leader in inclusion. Ready to transform EDI into a competitive edge that aligns with every part of your business? Discover how Inclusion Crowd can support your goals.
If you're in charge of sales, you know that clients today expect more than just great products and services—they’re looking for partners who reflect their values, including a strong commitment to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI).
Demonstrating genuine EDI expertise can set your team apart, helping you win high-value clients and build long-lasting relationships.
With Inclusion Crowd’s Licence to Recruit certification, we support your sales goals by:
Transform EDI from a compliance checkbox into a sales advantage. Find out how Inclusion Crowd can help you win more high margin business.
We understand you’re focused on growth, profitability, and building a resilient, high-performing organisation. But in today’s market, EDI (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion) is more than a "nice-to-have"—it's a strategic asset that can transform your business.
However, without the right partners, EDI can remain a superficial initiative, lacking the operational traction needed to drive true value.
With Inclusion Crowd we understand:
Don’t settle for EDI talk without action. Partner with Inclusion Crowd to ensure you deliver real, operationally aligned EDI impact.
Recruitment companies today face the challenge of adding real value for their clients while attracting the widest, most diverse talent pools. But becoming an expert in Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) can feel overwhelming. That’s where Inclusion Crowd comes in.
By partnering with us, you gain the EDI expertise to:
Let’s turn EDI into your competitive edge.
Get in touch to explore how Inclusion Crowd can support your growth.
When you work with external recruitment companies, you need partners who genuinely understand and value Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI)—not just ones who talk the talk. With Inclusion Crowd’s Licence to Recruit certification, you gain the assurance that your recruitment suppliers are not simply “checking the EDI box” but actively integrating these principles into their hiring practices.
The Licence to Recruit holds companies to a high standard, ensuring they:
In today’s competitive landscape, partnering with underperforming recruitment companies isn’t an option. Make sure your recruitment suppliers are trusted, certified, and truly adding value with Inclusion Crowd’s Licence to Recruit.
As a Finance Director, you’re focused on maximising ROI and ensuring every initiative drives measurable impact. In today’s landscape, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) isn’t just a compliance box to tick—it’s a powerful driver of profitability, talent retention, and operational efficiency.
However, without the right expertise, EDI efforts can fall flat, lacking clear metrics and financial justification.
With Inclusion Crowd, you gain partners who deliver tangible EDI value:
Invest in EDI with confidence. Discover how Inclusion Crowd’s can make EDI a valuable, measurable asset for your organisation.
As an L&D professional, you’re dedicated to building skills and capabilities that drive growth and innovation across your organisation. In today’s workplace, mastering Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is critical—not just for compliance, but for creating a thriving, high-performing team culture.
However, developing the right EDI skills can be complex without the right tools and resources.
With Inclusion Crowd's tailored EDI training solutions, we can help you:
Make EDI a core component of your L&D strategy. Learn how Inclusion Crowd can support your EDI learning goals and strengthen your team’s capabilities.
As a risk manager, ensuring your organisation’s resilience and reputation is a top priority. With clients and stakeholders increasingly scrutinising Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) practices, overlooking EDI can expose your business to reputational, financial, and compliance risks.
Aligning with trusted EDI-certified partners minimizes these risks, ensuring your organization remains competitive, compliant, and trusted.
With Inclusion Crowd, we help you manage EDI-related risks by:
Reduce your EDI-related risks with confidence. Learn how Inclusion Crowd can protect and enhance your organization’s reputation and resilience.
As a hiring manager, your goal is to attract and retain top talent, but creating a truly inclusive, high-performing team can be challenging. Candidates today are looking for workplaces that value diversity, equity, and inclusion (EDI).
If EDI isn’t part of your recruitment strategy, you risk missing out on the best candidates, damaging your team’s performance, and ultimately falling behind competitors.
With Inclusion Crowd, we support hiring managers by:
Set your team up for success with trusted EDI-certified recruitment partners. Learn how the Licence to Hire from Inclusion Crowd can elevate your hiring strategy.
Maximise the value, visibility, and accountability of your external recruitment partners, while embedding fairness, transparency, and risk protection across your supply chain.
A structured programme to help in-house TA, HR, or Procurement teams build consistent, performance-driven, and DEI-aligned relationships with external recruitment suppliers. Covers governance, collaboration frameworks, conflict of interest management, and supplier performance tracking.
This offer turns recruitment supply management into a strategic, data-informed, DEI-aligned system.
This is about moving from vendor management to trusted talent partnerships.
You're trusting them with your brand.
What do they really stand for?
We help you choose, challenge, and partner with recruitment suppliers who are more than just “compliant.”
They’re credible.
1. What is your own company’s diversity like?
Can you provide data on the diversity of your internal team at all levels, including leadership positions? If a recruitment company isn’t diverse internally, how can they truly deliver diversity to their clients?
2. Do you have a structured DEI plan, and can you share it with us?
A real DEI commitment comes with a clear, structured plan. Ask if they have a formal DEI strategy that they are actively following and can demonstrate current vs expected performance.
3. How do you target and attract diverse candidates?
Ask them about their methods. Do they actively engage with diverse talent pools or just rely on broad, traditional recruitment channels? How intentional are they in reaching underrepresented groups?
4. What is your candidate drop-out rate, and how do you address it?
A high drop-out rate could indicate a lack of inclusivity in the recruitment process. Ask them to provide data on candidate drop-out rates and explain how they manage these situations.
5. How do you ensure inclusive job advertising?
Ask them for examples of job advertisements they’ve placed and whether they use inclusive language to attract diverse talent. Can they provide evidence of how they tailor job ads to appeal to different demographics?
6. What DEI training have your recruiters undergone?
Ask for specific examples of DEI training their staff has undergone. Are employees equipped to recognise unconscious bias? Do they have the skills to engage meaningfully with candidates from diverse backgrounds? More importantly, is this training a one-off initiative or part of a broader, ongoing commitment? What you should be looking for is inclusion being woven into onboarding, continuous professional development, and a requirement for all people management and leadership positions. This should be embedded as a core component of the company's long-term training strategy.
7. Can you provide evidence of DEI in your recruitment outcomes?
Ask them to provide statistics on their placements. How diverse are the candidates they’ve successfully placed in roles, and can they back this up with hard data?
8. What is your gender pay gap and ethnicity pay gap?
If they don’t know their own pay gaps, that’s a red flag. Any recruitment company serious about DEI should be transparent about these metrics and actively working to address any disparities.
9. How do you ensure the culture of your clients is inclusive?
It’s not just about placing diverse candidates; it’s about ensuring they succeed. Ask them how they assess the inclusivity of their clients and how they ensure diverse candidates are set up for success.
10. What’s your approach to long-term DEI commitments with clients?
DEI is not a one-off exercise. Ask them how they work with clients over time to track progress, ensure continued commitment, and embed inclusivity into long-term recruitment strategies.
Recruitment companies today face the challenge of adding real value for their clients while attracting the widest, most diverse talent pools. But becoming an expert in Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) can feel overwhelming. That’s where Inclusion Crowd comes in.
By partnering with us, you gain the EDI expertise to:
Let’s turn EDI into your competitive edge.
Get in touch to explore how Inclusion Crowd can support your growth.
When you work with external recruitment companies, you need partners who genuinely understand and value Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI)—not just ones who talk the talk. With Inclusion Crowd’s Licence to Recruit certification, you gain the assurance that your recruitment suppliers are not simply “checking the EDI box” but actively integrating these principles into their hiring practices.
The Licence to Recruit holds companies to a high standard, ensuring they:
In today’s competitive landscape, partnering with underperforming recruitment companies isn’t an option. Make sure your recruitment suppliers are trusted, certified, and truly adding value with Inclusion Crowd’s Licence to Recruit.
As a HR leader, you’re at the forefront of driving Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) within your organisation. Yet, translating these values into everyday operational practices is a complex challenge—especially when operational teams may struggle to see EDI as a core driver of business success.
Securing buy-in from operations often means demonstrating how EDI aligns with their goals, from boosting productivity to enhancing team cohesion and innovation. But without the right support, EDI efforts can easily stall.
Partnering with Inclusion Crowd makes it easier to:
By partnering with Inclusion Crowd, you can confidently drive EDI from strategy to execution, securing buy-in across departments and positioning your organisation as a leader in inclusion. Ready to transform EDI into a competitive edge that aligns with every part of your business? Discover how Inclusion Crowd can support your goals.
We understand you’re focused on growth, profitability, and building a resilient, high-performing organisation. But in today’s market, EDI (Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion) is more than a "nice-to-have"—it's a strategic asset that can transform your business.
However, without the right partners, EDI can remain a superficial initiative, lacking the operational traction needed to drive true value.
With Inclusion Crowd we understand:
Don’t settle for EDI talk without action. Partner with Inclusion Crowd to ensure you deliver real, operationally aligned EDI impact.
As a Finance Director, you’re focused on maximising ROI and ensuring every initiative drives measurable impact. In today’s landscape, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) isn’t just a compliance box to tick—it’s a powerful driver of profitability, talent retention, and operational efficiency.
However, without the right expertise, EDI efforts can fall flat, lacking clear metrics and financial justification.
With Inclusion Crowd, you gain partners who deliver tangible EDI value:
Invest in EDI with confidence. Discover how Inclusion Crowd’s can make EDI a valuable, measurable asset for your organisation.
As an L&D professional, you’re dedicated to building skills and capabilities that drive growth and innovation across your organisation. In today’s workplace, mastering Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is critical—not just for compliance, but for creating a thriving, high-performing team culture.
However, developing the right EDI skills can be complex without the right tools and resources.
With Inclusion Crowd's tailored EDI training solutions, we can help you:
Make EDI a core component of your L&D strategy. Learn how Inclusion Crowd can support your EDI learning goals and strengthen your team’s capabilities.
If you're in charge of sales, you know that clients today expect more than just great products and services—they’re looking for partners who reflect their values, including a strong commitment to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI).
Demonstrating genuine EDI expertise can set your team apart, helping you win high-value clients and build long-lasting relationships.
With Inclusion Crowd’s Licence to Recruit certification, we support your sales goals by:
Transform EDI from a compliance checkbox into a sales advantage. Find out how Inclusion Crowd can help you win more high margin business.
As a risk manager, ensuring your organisation’s resilience and reputation is a top priority. With clients and stakeholders increasingly scrutinising Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) practices, overlooking EDI can expose your business to reputational, financial, and compliance risks.
Aligning with trusted EDI-certified partners minimizes these risks, ensuring your organization remains competitive, compliant, and trusted.
With Inclusion Crowd, we help you manage EDI-related risks by:
Reduce your EDI-related risks with confidence. Learn how Inclusion Crowd can protect and enhance your organization’s reputation and resilience.
As a hiring manager, your goal is to attract and retain top talent, but creating a truly inclusive, high-performing team can be challenging. Candidates today are looking for workplaces that value diversity, equity, and inclusion (EDI).
If EDI isn’t part of your recruitment strategy, you risk missing out on the best candidates, damaging your team’s performance, and ultimately falling behind competitors.
With Inclusion Crowd, we support hiring managers by:
Set your team up for success with trusted EDI-certified recruitment partners. Learn how the Licence to Hire from Inclusion Crowd can elevate your hiring strategy.
Clients increasingly expect recruitment firms to provide diverse candidates and demonstrate inclusive hiring practices. They want more than just a shortlist of qualified candidates—they want candidates who reflect the rich diversity of society.
But here’s the disconnect: Most recruitment agencies fail to deliver. While they might champion DEI in their marketing, their actual delivery often falls short. This has left clients frustrated, confused, and increasingly skeptical about which recruitment partners they can trust.
Many HR leaders have no way of determining whether their recruitment provider is truly committed to DEI or if it’s just performative.
At Inclusion Crowd, we recognise that it’s nearly impossible for clients to compare recruitment providers on their DEI efforts. That’s why we created the Licence to Recruit Certification Mark—the most in-depth analysis of DEI within recruitment agencies. It’s essentially a DEI credit score for recruitment firms, giving businesses a clear, evidence-based way to separate the talkers from the doers.
Our Licence to Recruit assesses agencies on six core pillars:
"Cultural fit" is corporate for
"reminds me of me."
"Cultural fit" is corporate for "makes me comfortable enough to keep pretending meritocracy exists."
Companies celebrate Black History Month with social media posts scheduled by an all-white marketing team reporting to an all-white board
"We value different perspectives" translates to "as long as those perspectives come with identical conclusions."
Your inclusive language guide has 50 terms for gender identity and zero terms for class consciousness.
They're tracking microaggressions while macro-oppression gets a performance bonus.
ERGs: Where marginalized employees get the privilege of doing two jobs while being paid for one.
"Thanks for leading our Black ERG! Here's a water bottle with our logo on it. No, we can't discuss your salary."
The perfect DEI strategy: Make underrepresented groups do twice the work to feel half as welcome.
Diversity hiring goals: Corporate for "We'll find someone different-looking who thinks exactly like us."
Exit interviews: Where companies collect the truth they'll never act on from people they've already lost.
Corporate DEI awards: Trophies for making the minimum effort look like the moon landing.
Diversity statements: The corporate equivalent of "I have Black friends" but with graphic design.
They track diversity metrics with the precision of NASA but call the pay gap "too complex to quantify."
The only thing more exhausting than discrimination is sitting through another training about it led by someone who's never experienced it.
Somehow I need both "executive presence" and to "be more authentic," which just means "be yourself but not like that."
Your inclusive language guide has 50 terms for gender identity and zero terms for class consciousness.
They're tracking microaggressions while macro-oppression gets a performance bonus.
ERGs: Where marginalized employees get the privilege of doing two jobs while being paid for one.
"Thanks for leading our Black ERG! Here's a water bottle with our logo on it. No, we can't discuss your salary."
The perfect DEI strategy: Make underrepresented groups do twice the work to feel half as welcome.
Diversity hiring goals: Corporate for "We'll find someone different-looking who thinks exactly like us."
Exit interviews: Where companies collect the truth they'll never act on from people they've already lost.
Corporate DEI awards: Trophies for making the minimum effort look like the moon landing.
Ed is an internationally renowned thought-leader and a seasoned senior commercial lead. He specialises in blending a deep commitment to fostering a more diverse and accepting world with a practical approach to operational excellence and organisational performance.
Ed serves as the CEO of Inclusion Crowd, the Queer Led Global Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Consultancy. Additionally, he founded the International Inclusion Think Tank, Inclusion.Earth, further solidifying his reputation as a leading advocate for equality.
Ed grew up as a gay Catholic in Northern Ireland during the height of the Troubles. These lived experiences drive him and provide him with a unique insight into conflict resolution, change, negotiation, and the transformative power of inclusion. This perspective has undoubtedly shaped his leadership style and unwavering dedication to promoting unity and understanding.
Through his work Ed continues to be a driving force in the pursuit of a world where diversity is celebrated, acceptance is universal, and psychological safety is paramount. His passion for inclusivity and the practical application of his beliefs make him an extraordinary catalyst for positive change, inspiring those around him to join the movement towards a more equitable and harmonious global community.
Cynical Statement: "DEI isn't fair."
Truth Bomb (Building on Agreement): "Bingo. You're already halfway there. You care about fairness. We care too. And you're right, hiring someone who isn't as good at the job as another candidate because of their skin colour, their sexuality, or any other protected characteristic is not only wrong, it's illegal.
The law is clear: candidates must be of equal ability before considering underrepresentation. So, if that's your fear, that DEI means sacrificing competence for the sake of appearance, we're on the same side.
What DEI actually tackles is why the 'best' talent pool so often looks so… well, un-diverse. It's about dismantling the unfair barriers that prevent brilliant people from even getting to the starting line, regardless of who they are."
Truth Bomb (Focusing on Access): "You're right, giving a job to a less qualified candidate solely based on a protected characteristic, is pretty much illegal and, frankly, undermines the whole point.
The clue's in the name: discrimination is the problem we're trying to solve, not replicate. What we're actually focused on is the fundamental unfairness of who even gets a shot at the job.
Did that underrepresented candidate see the advert? Was it posted in places they frequent? Was the job description riddled with unconscious bias that made them think, 'that's not for someone like me'? Was the interview panel a mirror image of itself, potentially missing the nuances of their experience?
We're not trying to shoehorn less capable people in. We're trying to fix the rigged system that means brilliant people are never even in the room to compete in the first place."
Truth Bomb (Acknowledging Past Inaction): "Fair point. Let's be brutally honest: for too long, 'DEI' has been more talk than action, a lot of noise with frustratingly little impact on the ground.
We agree. And that's precisely why now is the time to ditch the lip service and get serious. If previous attempts felt like a fleeting trend, that's a damning indictment of inaction, not a reason to give up.
It means the fundamental inequalities are still there, stubbornly refusing to budge. So, yeah, maybe it has felt like a fad. But the need for genuine equity and inclusion isn't going anywhere. Let's stop the fleeting trends and start building something that actually lasts and delivers real change."
We cut through the noise to show you what’s really broken.
We expose the systems, behaviours and decisions killing trust and credibility
No more training your way around the problem.
We rebuild broken leadership, recruitment, and performance systems, with clarity and commercial logic.
Change that doesn’t shift metrics isn’t change.
We embed accountability and measure the real impact, on trust, performance, and your bottom line.
The UK’s only IPO-certified, independently governed standard for inclusion within Recruitment
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