Finance and consulting remain sectors where homogeneity among hires - in terms of social background, gender, or academic path - has long been the norm rather than the exception. Things are changing, but at very different speeds depending on the company. For a candidate from an underrepresented background, understanding what has genuinely changed helps target applications more effectively and read through surface-level messaging.
Why diversity has become a recruitment issue in finance
Large financial groups and consulting firms face a dual pressure on this topic. On one hand, growing regulatory and societal pressure - notably through professional equality indexes and representation requirements in governing bodies. On the other, a business pressure: repeated studies show that diverse teams make better collective decisions, an argument HR departments now use as much as the ethical one to justify their policies.
This doesn't mean the transformation is complete. Recruitment in finance and consulting remains structurally shaped by hiring pipelines concentrated on a limited number of schools and profiles, which mechanically limits the diversity of applications received even before the selection stage.
Measures put in place by companies
In practice, several types of measures have become widespread in large groups and firms in recent years:
Anti-discrimination training for recruiters and managers involved in interviews, aimed at limiting unconscious bias linked to appearance, accent, or a candidate's name.
Partnerships with associations and schools outside the usual recruitment network, to widen the pool of applications beyond the traditionally targeted pipelines.
Internal mentoring programs for underrepresented profiles already on staff, to support their advancement toward senior positions and not just their initial hiring.
Numerical representation targets, particularly on gender balance in leadership positions, tracked and published in the CSR reports of many listed groups.
The AFMD (French Association of Diversity Managers) 🔗, which brings together more than 180 organizations committed to these issues, notably helps structure inclusive-recruitment training standards - a useful indicator for assessing whether a company's approach goes beyond simple communication.
The anonymous resume and selection bias: what has changed
The anonymous resume, often presented as THE solution to recruitment bias, actually has a chaotic legislative history in France. The requirement to review resumes anonymously for companies with more than 50 employees, introduced in 2006, never received its implementing decree. Since the law of August 17, 2015, Article L. 1221-7 of the French Labor Code 🔗 makes this practice simply optional: information provided by a candidate "may be reviewed" under conditions preserving anonymity, without any obligation to do so.
Even more surprising: a trial run by the French national employment agency (Pôle emploi) between 2009 and 2011 among volunteer companies showed a counter-intuitive effect - anonymization sometimes widened the gap in interview access rather than closing it, partly because it prevented recruiters from consciously compensating for a bias they were actually trying to correct. This result partly explains why the anonymous resume remains rarely used in France, including in finance, despite its positive image with the general public.
💡 To learn more: beyond the anonymous resume alone, how a company communicates about its commitments also shows through its employer brand - our article on employer branding at large corporates details the signals to watch to tell a genuine commitment from a communications exercise.
Programs dedicated to underrepresented profiles
Several types of targeted programs have developed alongside general measures:
Scholarships and support programs for high school and university students from social backgrounds far removed from selective tracks, often through partnerships between top schools and financial-sector companies.
Graduate programs with explicit diversity targets or quotas, which structure part of recent-graduate hiring at major banks and consulting firms - an entry path our article on graduate programs covers in more detail.
Dedicated professional networks, which organize targeted networking events and connect candidates from underrepresented backgrounds with recruiters and mentors already working in the sector.
International volunteer assignments (VIE) open to diverse profiles, an entry path our article on VIE recruitment covers in detail, and one that remains underused by many candidates.
How to honestly assess an employer's commitment
⚠️ Warning: a careful candidate can tell a genuine commitment apart from surface-level communication by looking at a few concrete signals rather than just the stated intentions on a careers page.
- The actual composition of leadership teams, available in annual reports or public organizational charts, gives a far more reliable indication than a homepage slogan.
- The existence of numerical indicators tracked over time (professional equality index, promotion rates by category) rather than one-off commitments made without follow-up.
- Feedback from former employees or interns from underrepresented backgrounds, via review platforms or personal networks, remains a valuable and often more honest source of information than official communication.
- The presence of structured, documented programs (mentoring, manager training) rather than a single one-off event once a year.
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