Dear Hiring Managers & Talent Coordinators: Let’s Talk Icebreaker Activities

On the first day of one of my internships, I, along with about 5 other students were asked to share our name, school, hometown, and spirit animal. A few days later, this question was reused with over 300 students working at the company. As people laughed and said their spirit animal was a dog because they’re active, or Kanye West because they’re confident, I thought to myself, “it’s 2019, and this is still happening?”.

In the few years since this happened, Canadians have been asked to look more closely, and pay attention to the words we say and how they affect others. In 2021, this has been more apparent than ever with the introduction of the Day of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. As settlers, and individuals who live and work on unceded Indigenous territory, it is more important than ever that we recognize our history, acknowledge how we contributed, and begin to take action.

I know these hiring managers and talent coordinators have made real efforts to increase diversity and equality for students, and I have seen first-hand how many organizations are committing to developing a team of employees who represent the clients they serve. While this is commendable, it’s not enough to leave inclusion out of the conversation. Trivializing terms such as spirit animal and reducing them to be a funny question during an icebreaker activity is not inclusive of Indigenous culture, in which spirit animals represent ancestral relationships. In the words of Renee Gokey, a Teacher’s Services Coordinator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., “spirits aren’t just a generic way of saying somebody likes an animal.”

Hiring managers and talent coordinators need to retire these types of icebreakers, and look at what they’re really trying to get students to do. Is it to allow students to show off their personalities and get to know each other better? Here are some of my suggested alternatives if you need some inspiration for inclusive icebreakers everyone can be included in answering:

1. What’s your most-used emoji?

2. If you could have one superpower, what would you want it to be?

3. What’s something on your bucket list?

4. What’s your favourite time of the day and why?

5. If you could see one movie/read one book/listen to one song for the first time again, which would it be and why?

6. If you could visit Mars, would you?

7. What goals do you want to accomplish before you graduate?

8. If you could talk to animals, what would you ask them?

9. If you could write a book that was guaranteed to be a best-seller, what would your book be about?

10. What place, real or fictional, would you love to visit?