How Unconscious Biases Seep Into the Hiring Process (And How to Avoid It)
This story has been adapted from an article published by Velocity Global featuring Siege Media
Let’s face it: we’ve all felt nervous jitters on the way to a job interview or while waiting for the phone to ring for a phone screen. Landing your dream job can seem hard enough as it is, but for marginalized groups, there are sometimes additional hurdles to clear before the offer letter ends up in your inbox.
Unconscious sexism, racism, ageism, or other biases by the recruiter can make it challenging for good candidates to get the job they want. These biases can make it so recruiters gravitate toward or away from a candidate based on how they look, act, think, or live their lives.
Fostering a welcoming work environment for everyone should be a top priority for business leaders. To help identify and remove unconscious biases from your hiring process, keep reading for a starter guide to diverse recruitment.
What are Hiring Biases?
Usually, recruiters aren’t purposefully prejudiced toward certain candidates. But that doesn’t mean unconscious biases (biases that are inherent and aren’t always obvious) won’t impact the hiring process.
1. Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is a common unconscious bias that can impact everything from hiring to meeting your friend’s new boyfriend. It’s when we nitpick someone’s personality to confirm our beliefs or focus on certain aspects of their personality that provide evidence for what we already thought—even if it’s baseless.
Ex: let’s say you’ve always felt that left-handed people are more creative than right-handed people. If you’re hiring for a design position, you might find yourself gravitating toward one candidate, solely because they’re left handed—even if they’re the weaker candidate.
2. Horns Effect
The horns effect is another bias that’s easy to develop. Have you ever met a new acquaintance who said something that put you off, and you were never quite able to recover from it enough to enjoy their presence? That’s the horns effect. It’s when you let one aspect of a person—no matter how small—impact your entire perception of them.
Ex: let’s say a candidate arrives at their interview with a stain on their collar, and your impression is that it makes them look lazy and disorganized. Even if they nail their interview, your negative perception of them may make you unable to see them as a fit for the position.
3. Affect Heuristics
Sometimes, a bad day can ruin your whole mood. It may also make you biased! Just like a bad day may make you crave sweet foods, extra drinks at happy hour, or a scream-along with your favorite song, it might also impact the interpersonal decisions you make.
Ex: say you got into a fight with your partner on the way out the door before going to an interview. Once there, you might not like the candidate you’re interviewing solely because of your own bad mood—not because they did or said anything wrong.
4. Affinity bias
It’s always nice to have something in common with someone you meet. Commonalities can give us talking points, kinship, and excitement. But if we’re not careful, having something (and even something small) in common, can make us biased toward certain people.
Ex: you might see on someone’s resume that they went to your alma mater. As a result, you might see them more favorably than you see other candidates going for the role (and you might even assume they’re smarter)!
5. Nonverbal Bias
People who are empaths or who are perceptive may put a lot of thought into nonverbal cues and ways of communicating. But if not given appropriate space and context, this can manifest into a bias toward some people who are giving off a nervous or awkward vibe solely because of the pressure of a job interview.
Ex: you might think someone who stands up straight and has a strong handshake is more confident and a better fit for the role than someone who slouches and is more meek. However, you should still make sure to listen to both candidates and get a feel for their personalities and qualifications before coming to a conclusion.
How to Remove Bias From Hiring
The first step to removing biases in your hiring process is acknowledging them. From there, you can take the steps necessary to remove them from your recruitment funnel to the best of your ability.
Implement Blind Hiring Practices
Blind hiring means removing anything that isn’t related to a job from a candidate’s resume. This can include things like alma mater, education, race, gender, and age, giving the recruiter the ability to focus solely on the candidate’s qualifications.
Tip: There is technology available to help remove personal information from resumes. You can also implement blind hiring by conducting screening interviews via chat service instead of phone or video.
Train Your Management and Hiring Team
Diversity training can go a long way in helping your hiring team (and yourself!) to notice when unconscious biases are impacting recruitment. In these training sessions, you’ll not only learn the many benefits of workplace diversity, but also how to foster it and make everyone feel welcome.
Tip: There are agencies that work specifically in diversity training and leadership coaching—consider hiring one to do a session for your company.
Rewrite Your Job Postings to Emphasize Diversity
A good job description will be key to acquiring good applicants. And for many, things like gendered wording might be a turn-off (it’s been proven that job postings that use “they” instead of “he or she” receive more applications.) Rework your job descriptions to use more inclusive language and also emphasize your commitment to inclusion.
Tip: In your mission statement, write out some ways you foster and value a diverse community in your office.
Finding the right people for your team is a difficult process, but removing roadblocks like unconscious bias can help you uncover the best talent. Use the strategies above to increase your applicant pool, and appeal to more candidates, which will ultimately help create an impactful, long-lasting workplace synergy for everyone.
