Building diverse tech teams is critical to an enterprise’s long-term success. While increasing diversity in tech is a complex, systemic challenge, there are basic, effective ways to make your company more welcoming to underrepresented candidates.

There’s no magic bullet to increasing the diversity of your technology organization, but Visa’s vice president and head of HR business partners, Samuel Tam, has a few recommendations for small changes that can have an impact.  

“Something as simple as the way that you write your job descriptions can really impact your recruiting approach,” he said during a recent Rise and IGNITE interview alongside Albrey Brown, VP of strategy at hiring platform Joonko, an Insight Partners portfolio company. For example, in the past he’s used software from writing platform Textio to “help us refine the language of our JDs,” to make them more appealing to underrepresented candidates, he said. “That was incredibly helpful.”  

Tam also recommends that tech leaders pay attention to the details: Even “something as easy as having your email signature link to your employee value proposition” – which should tout a commitment to diverse teams – can affect how candidates (and current employees) feel about your firm.  

Similarly, he urges leaders to make their firm’s current diversity stats – and future aspirations – easy to find: “Be honest and transparent and open with these goals, and how you’re tracking and measuring them,” he said.  

“Even if they’re not where you want them to be,” Joonko’s Brown added. “If you’re not upfront, that’s going to raise more questions than answers. I think that underrepresented candidates understand that no one is good at this: If you’re proactive throughout the process about sharing your diversity numbers, then it at least says ‘Hey, this company is self-aware.’” 

You can watch Tam and Brown’s full conversation here.