How to Reduce Unconscious Bias in Recruitment

Diversity and inclusion are top of mind for many organisations, and research suggests that increasing diversity in the workforce is a priority for 85% of employers. In spite of this, many organisations fail to consider a potential root cause of diversity issues: unconscious bias in recruitment.

Stop hiring on gut feeling

According to Indeed, more than 1 in 4 employers say gut feeling is the main reason for hiring someone.

The problem with this is that, as humans, our reactions are 99.9% subconscious. Our brains receive 11 million pieces of information every second and in order for us to function, they take mental shortcuts that lead us to those ‘gut feeling’ decisions. Sometimes mental shortcuts work rather well. But other times they lead to unconscious cognitive biases that distort our thinking and cause us to make irrational decisions.

In recruitment, this is a big issue. Most people know that conscious acts of discrimination are unlawful in the workplace. But unconscious bias can also lead to discrimination.

For example, research has shown that job applicants with names associated with an ethnic minority are discriminated against in recruitment and have worse outcomes than their counterparts with ethnic majority names. This is despite them being equally as good, e.g., Department for Work and Pensions (2009); Weichselbaumer (2016).

Tackling unconscious biases through recruitment processes is essential. Here, we’ll describe four common types of unconscious bias in recruitment and tips on how to overcome them (hint: it’s not through anti-bias training!).

Four common types of unconscious bias in recruitment

The Halo Effect

This is the tendency to let a candidate’s good qualities erase the perception of their less attractive qualities.
Example: immediately liking a candidate you meet to interview because they’re very polite and well-dressed, and not seeing that they don’t actually have the skills needed for the role.

Similarity bias

This is the tendency to be naturally drawn to, and ultimately prefer, people who are like ourselves.
Example: being drawn to a candidate because they went to the same school as you, and they also support Spurs.

Recency bias

This is the tendency to place too much emphasis on the experiences that are most recent in your memory.
Example: remembering and favouring the candidates who were interviewed most recently.

Group think bias

This is where the unconscious desire for harmony in a group results in irrational decision-making.
Example: discussing candidates with the hiring panel and agreeing with the loudest, or most senior person in the group on who the best candidate to hire is.

How to reduce unconscious bias in recruitment

To remove bias from assessment, you need to change the processes you use. Delivering anti-bias training isn’t effective and telling people not to be biased doesn’t work (if you think it does, that’s a bias).

Here are six tips for simple changes you can make to your assessment processes, to help reduce the impact of unconscious bias in recruitment:

1. Use anonymous recruitment

Our anonymous recruitment feature removes names and email addresses from CVs and applications. This eliminates the bias associated with seeing a candidate’s name at the shortlisting stage.

2. Use a mix of assessment methods

Tactically pick a few assessment methods to evaluate your candidates. For example, try adding a work sample test in addition to your interviews. Or, for jobs that require specific skill sets, add one or two job knowledge questions as screening questions.

When you rely on one method only (e.g., interviews), you’re more likely to be swayed by bias and unconsciously base your hiring decisions on something other than the candidate’s actual ability to do the job.

Adding a work sample test, for example, increases the likelihood of you being able to objectively assess whether a candidate could actually perform the role.

3. Involve a diverse group of people in hiring decisions

Having multiple assessors on a hiring panel should result in more accurate evaluations of candidates, as your own subjectivity will be levelled out. Where possible, the hiring panel should also be diverse, or you may fall into the trap of always hiring people who are similar to you and ‘fit’ with the group.

Technology company Cisco found that using diverse panels increased the odds of making it through the interview process by 50% for Hispanic women and 70% for African-American women.

4. Agree on clear assessment criteria and use a marking framework

It’s really important to agree on what you’re assessing candidates against (note: this should be based on the core skills needed for the job, not things like whether or not they have a degree) and how you’re going to mark candidates against the assessment criteria.

When designing a marking framework, focus on keeping it simple and easy to use. A 1-5 scale, for example, may work well. Creating example answers that would score a ‘2’ and a ‘5’ for the task or question is also a good idea.

By focusing on assessment criteria and using a marking framework, you’re less likely to let bias creep into your decisions or be influenced by just one or two things that a candidate says or does. You’ll also be able to more accurately compare candidates.

5. Take notes during interviews

Make sure each panellist takes notes during an interview, or immediately after it. You should take notes for every question to help you remember each candidate in full.

 6. Score candidates individually before discussing them

Finally, each panellist should score the candidates separately against the agreed criteria before coming together to share scores.

Want to hire with anonymous recruitment? Post a job today.