How to answer interview questions about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
TL;DR
If you're asked about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in an interview, you don't need to have dealt with a dramatic discrimination case or led a major EDI initiative.
Think about your everyday experience:
Equality: How have you made sure people were treated fairly and given fair opportunities?
Diversity: How have you recognised that people have different experiences, perspectives, needs or ways of working?
Inclusion: How have you made sure people could participate, contribute and understand what was expected of them?
The three can overlap, so focus less on finding a perfect EDI example and mor on identifying situations where your actions helped people to be treated fairly, recognised differences or participate effectively
Then be ready to explain what happened, what you did, why you chos that approach and what the outcome was.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), can come up in interviews, particularly involving leadership, management, public service or working with different groups of people. The difficulty is that EDI questions can feel quite abstract.
You might understand what equality, diversity and inclusion mean, but still wondering what actual example you're supposed to give.
You don't need an example where someone was obviously discriminated against or where there was a major EDI issue. In a lot of roles, EDI is demonstrated through the everyday decisions you make, the way you communicate with people and the way you make sure people have a fair opportunity to participate.
What does EDI mean?
Equality, diversity and inclusion overlap, but they aren't the same thing. A useful way to think about them is:
Equality: Am I treating people fairly?
Diversity: Am I recognising that people are different?
Inclusion: Am I making sure people can participate and contribute?
Equality: Am I treating people fairly?
Equality is about fairness. Depending on your role, you might have influence over things like training, responsibilities, opportunities, feedback, support or performance.
You might demonstrate equality through the way you:
make decisions based on relevant factors rather than personal preference
give people fair access to opportunities and development
apply standards and expectations consistently
give people the support they need to meet those standards
make sure personal characteristics or assumptions about someone don’t unfairly influence your decisions
challenge unfair treatment when you see it
You don’t need to have a situation where someone was obviously being discriminated against to demonstrate this.
For example, imagine two members of your team both want an opportunity to develop a particular skill. Equality would involve thinking about how you make that decision fairly, instead of just giving the opportunity to the person you know best or the person you naturally get on with.
Think about your own experience
Ask yourself:
How do I decide who gets opportunities?
How do I allocate responsibilities?
How do I give feedback?
How do I deal with performance or standards?
How do I make sure I'm fair to people I know well, people I don’t know as well, experienced people and less experienced people?
Have I ever challenged something that I felt was unfair?
You might already have an example without having thought of it before as an equality example.
Diversity: Am I recognising that people are different?
Diversity is about recognising that the people you work with bring different backgrounds, experiences, characteristics, perspectives and ways of working.
This doesn’t mean you have to constantly think about people’s race, gender, religion, sexuality or other characteristics. It also doesn’t mean that you have to work in a visibly diverse team before diversity becomes relevant.
Diversity can be relevant whenever you recognise that people are not all the same, and avoid assuming that one approach will work for everyone.
For example, people might differ in:
how they communicate
how they learn
their previous experience
their confidence
their cultural or personal background
how comfortable they are speaking in a group
how they respond to different types of training or feedback
Think about your own experience
Ask yourself:
Where have I noticed that people have different ways of learning, communicating or responding?
Have I ever had to understand someone’s different perspective or circumstances?
Have I ever changed my approach because someone was different from me?
Have I ever recognised that someone needed a different type of support?
Again, you don't necessarily need to have consciously thought "I'm demonstrating diversity". You might have just noticed that someone needed a different approach and responded to it.
Inclusion: Am I making sure people can participate and contribute?
Inclusion is about what you do to make sure people can participate, contribute and feel able to be themselves within the team or organisation.
For example, inclusion could involve
making sure everyone has the opportunity to contribute
adapting how you explain or demonstrate something
checking that someone has understood instead of assuming they have
creating opportunities for people to ask questions
making sure someone’s communication needs don’t prevent them from participating
challenging behaviour that makes it difficult for someone else to participate
Imagine you're running a meeting and notice that two confident people are doing most of the talking. An inclusive approach might involve creating space for quieter colleagues to contribute instead of just allowing the discussion to be dominated by the most vocal people.
Or imagine you're training someone and realise that the way you've explained something is not helping them understand. Changing your explanation, demonstrating it differently or checking their understanding could also demonstrate inclusion.
Think about your own experience
Ask yourself:
How do I make sure people can understand what’s happening?
How do I make sure people can ask questions?
How do I make sure people can contribute?
Have I ever changed how I communicate or train so that someone could participate more effectively?
Have I ever noticed that someone was being left out and done something about it?
How do equality, diversity and inclusion connect?
The three concepts can happen at the same time, which is why they can sometimes feel difficult to separate.
Imagine you’re delivering a training session and everyone needs to achieve the same required standard.
You might approach the situation in three ways:
Equality
You make sure everyone has a fair opportunity to learn and achieve the required standard.
You give everyone access to the same training, information and opportunity to practise.
If someone needs additional support to reach the required standard, you give them that support rather than letting them fall behind
Diversity
You recognise that the people in front of you are different.
One person may have years of experience, while another is quite new. People might have different ways of learning, communicating or processing information.
You don’t assume that because something makes sense to you, it will automatically make sense to everyone else.
Inclusion
You then put that understanding into practice to make sure everyone can actually participate in the training.
You explain the task clearly, demonstrate what you want people to do, check understanding and create the opportunities for questions.
If someone struggling with the way you have explained something, you adapt your approach.
If one or two confident people are doing all the talking, you create opportunities for other people to contribute.
It’s the same training session, but you’re looking at the same situation from three different perspectives:
Am I giving everyone a fair opportunity?
Am I recognising that the people I’m working with are different?
Am I making sure those differences don’t prevent people from participating and contributing?
What if you can't think of an obvious EDI example?
This is where I see a lot of people getting stuck in interviews.
They assume they need a dramatic story involving discrimination, conflict or a major organisational initiative. But EDI isn't just about what you do when there's an obvious problem.
It can also be demonstrated through everyday choices you make about how you treat people, how you communicate, how you make decisions and how you create opportunities for other people to participate.
So if you're preparing for an interview and an EDI question is making you worry because you "don't have an example", look again at your everyday responsibilities. You might already be demonstrating equality, diversity and inclusion. You just need to recognise it and explain it clearly.
A simple way to prepare
Instead if trying to memorise an answer to every possible EDI question, think about two or three situations from your own experience and ask yourself:
What was happening?
What did I notice about the people involved or the situation?
What did I do?
Why did I choose that approach?
What was the outcome?
What did I learn?
You can then use your example to answer different types of questions. For example:
Tell me about a time you demonstrated equality - you might focus on how you made a fair decision
Tell me about a time you demonstrated inclusion - you might focus on how you helped someone participate or adapted your communication
How do you promote diversity within a team? - You might talk about recognising different perspectives, experiences or ways of working and making sure those differences are valued.
You don't need to force an example into the word the interviewer has used. Instead, understand what the interviewer is trying to assess and choose the part of your experience that demonstrates it.
Want support putting this into practice?
Understanding what an interviewer is really asking is one thing. Knowing how to draw on your own experience, choose the right example and communicate it clearly without overthinking every word is another.
If you find yourself second guessing what interviewers actually want to hear, worrying that your answer isn't "good enough, or struggling to talk about your experience without sounding rehearsed, coaching can help.
My Interview Success Programme combines structured preparation, practice and personalised feedback to help you understand your own experience clearly, communicate your value, handle unexpected questions and feel more confident being yourself in interviews.
Not ready to commit to a full programme yet?
My mini-coaching session is a great way to experience coaching. We'll take a real interview challenge you're dealing with, explore what's getting in the way and work out a practical next step you can use straight away.
About me
Hi, I'm Beverley, Confidence and Communication Coach
I've always been a little shy. As a kid, speaking up felt scary and even when I tried to speak up, it felt like I was trying too hard and ended up misunderstood. That feeling of being overlooked or not heard followed me into my career.
Interviews were a big part of that. I could be really nervous, but I learned how to manage those nerves, think clearly under pressure and actually perform well in an interview rather than letting nerves decide how I came across.
My career in HR gave me another perspective. I interviewed candidates and was part of conversations about who to hire and why, so I saw first hand what hiring managers were really listening for beyond a candidate just having the right experience.
Over time, through HR and coaching, I learned how to communicate clearly, hold my ground, and make my voice count. Now, I help others do the same.
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