Identifying unconscious bias in the workplace isn’t easy. By its very nature, we aren’t entirely aware of our biases or how they affect the hiring process. However, it’s essential that we try to recognize and reduce these biases to ensure that our teams are diverse and varied.
What the Experts Say About Hiring Biases
There’s a major misconception about laws and culture regarding discrimination. While it’s true that it’s illegal to judge a candidate based on their sex, gender, age, or race, hiring managers still do it. Hiring based on conscious and unconscious bias is still widespread.
Culturally, there are many industries, businesses, and job titles that “aren’t meant” for certain people. About 53% of Americans feel that women won’t achieve parity (equality) with men in top executive business positions. Only 4% of women are CEOs, so in a way, they’re correct.
What we see affects our cultural norms, so if we don’t see women in leadership roles, we assume they can’t lead. If we don’t see men in nursing roles, we think they aren’t empathetic.
How to Mitigate Unconscious Bias in the Hiring Process
Managers have to try to learn to de-bias their hiring practices and procedures. Here are a few ways the human resources department can combat unconscious biases in recruitment.
Seek to Understand
Before you start a mass hiring campaign, you need to try and understand your biases and where they come from. For example, we assume that hiring an older man or woman will limit the time they’ll spend at the company, but they’re actually more likely to stay for stability.
Ageism may have been helpful when the average life expectancy was 40, but now it’s well into the 80s. There are positives to hiring someone older, like experience.
HR managers should ask themselves why they wouldn’t hire a specific group or demographic and then seek out potential candidates online that fit in that group. Awareness training is the first step to unraveling bias because it lets us recognize that everyone has them.
Rework Job Descriptions
Women are less likely to ask for raises than their male counterparts, and it isn’t because they’re less confident. It’s likely because they have more to lose, as women are often paid less than men in similar roles and are often the primary caregivers. They don’t want to risk getting fired.
A woman’s caution affects the business in two ways: 72% are more likely to look for another job than negotiate their salary, and they are more likely to suffer from a reduction in productivity.
The onus shouldn’t be left to employees. Employers should offer a competitive salary, neutral word choices in job descriptions, and remove gendered-based phrases altogether. Not only will you attract more candidates across the board, but you’ll also hire more qualified employees.
Blind Resumes and Tests
You need to level the playing field by ensuring you’re focusing on your candidate’s talents and qualifications, not their demographic characteristics. Even something as simple as a non-white name can limit a candidate’s callbacks, and that simply isn’t fair for you or the candidate.
The easiest way to judge a candidate’s resume without bias is by using Applicant Tracking Systems. This way, you’ll only see their experience, qualification, word choices, and education.
HR should also create work sample tests to indicate future job performance. You can then compare the test results of each candidate without focusing on factors they can’t control. A person’s age, race, or gender has almost 0 impact on whether or not they’ll succeed in the role.
Structure Your Interviews
When interview time arrives, it’s pretty tempting to opt for a non-traditional or non-structured interview format to get a better feel for a candidate. However, a structured interview makes it easier for you to benchmark candidates based on how they answered all included questions.
You should do your best to ask the same questions to every candidate to reduce subjectivity. Still, your biases may creep in, especially if you’re still working on identifying them.
A human-based interviewing approach is still possible if you consult an interview panel. If you add an array of unique opinions and outlooks, you’ll be able to get a different perspective on a candidate. This ensures your intervening process is more diverse and informed.
Consider Likability (If Applicable)
Not every role needs to be staffed by the most charismatic individual, but they still need to fit in your company culture. That doesn’t mean that you get a free pass to hire people you instantly gel with. After all, we’re more likely to hire candidates that remind us of ourselves.
Hiring managers and HR staff really have to consider if liking the candidate actually matters. If they do their job and do it well, it shouldn’t matter if you’re completely incompatible.
One way to notice this unconscious bias is to give candidates a likability score. Then, see how you rated the candidates that you didn’t like. If there’s a major discrepancy, that’s something you’ll need to work on. Likeability should only matter for sales and customer service positions.
