Ways To Reduce Unconscious Bias In The Hiring Process
Although we can’t see unconscious bias, we can see the effects of it. There’s a lot more to it that meets the eye. Despite best intentions, unconscious hiring bias can cloud the judgment of even the most well-meaning recruiters.
Unconscious bias in the recruiting process can have far-reaching and harmful effects on both companies and individuals. When left unaddressed, these biases can result in the underrepresentation of certain demographic groups. Unconscious bias limits people’s access to opportunities that they should be rewarded with. This limits the potential for new ideas and creativity within the workforce. It also has a financial impact for your company as it hits the bottom line and your profitability. We should all want to produce a fairer & more inclusive society.
One of the most effective ways to create a more inclusive workplace is by reducing unconscious bias in your hiring process. In this article, we'll uncover some tried and tested methods. We’ll cover why including unconscious bias tactics in a company’s culture is so important for your company, common mistakes to avoid, and practical steps to create a more inclusive workplace. Plus, we'll introduce you to some valuable technological features, specifically features that have been added to Applicant Tracking Systems. These are proven to further help your company in achieving their D&I targets!
Embracing Unconscious Bias Reduction as a Cultural Pillar
Creating a culture of unconscious bias reduction starts at the top. Company leaders must set the tone by actively engaging in bias awareness and reduction efforts. Their commitment sends a strong message throughout the company: addressing bias is not just a need, but a shared responsibility. When leadership consistently champions these efforts, it encourages all employees to participate. This drives change from grassroots to the executive level.
Another cultural value that company leaders should aim to cultivate is trust. Creating a high trust environment is key when aiming to reduce unconscious bias, because this means that junior to senior level staff feel confident enough to challenge one another’s thinking in a professional manner. Questions like “Why did you make that decision?” or “What led to the promotion of this individual?” become more common. This fosters a culture where people think harder when making decisions that might be impacted by unconscious bias.
To include unconscious bias reduction into your company culture, ongoing education and training are important and should be open to all employees. Training should focus not only on the basics of recognising unconscious bias, but also practical strategies for addressing it in everyday work situations. These include interactive workshops, diversity and inclusion seminars, and open dialogues. This allows employees to share experiences and insights, fostering understanding and empathy. Additionally, monitoring and measuring progress through metrics and feedback methods can ensure that unconscious bias reduction stays a priority, making your company evolve in a more welcoming direction.
Hiring mistakes you could be making that affect your D&I efforts
Over-Reliance on Existing Networks:
Do you tend to depend on your existing professional networks when looking for new hires? We all spend too much time in our own tribes. While personal networks can be good sources of talent, relying on them too much can limit the pool of candidates. This lessens the diversity of thought and experience within the company.
The diversity within your existing teams also has an effect on your staff’s thinking when referring candidates or sharing job postings. For instance, imagine a sales team in a company consists mostly out of young males. When a sales position opens up, staff might naturally think of referring other young males or sharing the job posting with them. In reality, this demographic has a higher probability of already having opportunities to a similar position in the past.
Unconscious Bias During Interviews:
A common issue in interviews is a preference for familiarity. Unconscious biases play a big role during interviews when you unknowingly lean towards candidates who share similarities with you. Interviewers should be trained to avoid questions that might encourage candidates to elicit answers about things that are irrelevant. If you ask a candidate how their weekend was, their response might set up assumptions about them, leading to unconscious bias. Meanwhile, this question has nothing to do with the role.
Biased Job Adverts:
Job adverts often hold subtle biases or language that may discourage candidates from diverse backgrounds. Certain word choices or phrases can create barriers and deter potential applicants from underrepresented groups, even if they have all the listed qualifications and skills. It’s less common for companies to use biased terms nowadays, but some might not realise that they’re doing it. E.g. Describing a role or company culture as “fast paced and dynamic” might inadvertently lead to describing a more male-centred culture.
Lack of Awareness:
Many people are opposed to unconscious bias training. They say it simply doesn’t work. Doing an unconscious bias training course doesn’t solve unconscious bias, but it does make the delegate more aware and conscious of where it comes from. It also gives them tactics to minimise unconscious bias. This is similar to an anti-bullying policy in schools: Just because it’s there, doesn’t mean there’s no bullying. However, that doesn’t eliminate the importance of a policy.
Ignoring Inclusive Decision-Making:
Business owners sometimes overlook the importance of involving a diverse panel of interviewers in the hiring process. This can lead to decisions made by a homogenous group, limiting differences in perspectives considered during candidate assessment.
Inclusive decision-making not only reduces unconscious biases but also ensures that the final selection aligns more closely with the values of diversity and inclusion, enriching the workforce with a broader range of experiences and backgrounds.
Improving Your Hiring Process
Improving your hiring process should be the starting point when it comes to promoting diversity and inclusion in your workplace. To start, consider standardising your screening criteria. Begin by setting up clear and objective criteria for assessing candidates. This could include defining the specific skills, qualifications, and experience needed for the role.
Use these standardised criteria to assess all applicants consistently, checking that each candidate is assessed based on their qualifications rather than subjective impressions.
Another important step is using structured interviews. Instead of relying on unstructured conversations, standardised interviews that pose the same set of questions to all candidates can help minimise bias.
Lastly, keep checking your recruitment pipeline for potential bias. Analyse data, including demographic information about applicants and hires, to spot any differences.
If you’re not getting the results you want at the end of the process, you’re not hiring enough diversity. For example, if you want to bring in older talent but only seem to be getting in new talent, ask yourself – at what point do I lose the older talent? A thorough look at your pipeline will help you pinpoint where your diversity twists.
Make use of D&I data & features through technology
If you’re on the hunt for technology that not only lessens the burden of reducing unconscious bias when hiring, but also strengthens your workforce with features like free training and insights, you should consider an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that focuses on D&I as a foundational pillar. Here are some features to look out for:
CV and Application Form Anonymisation
Anonymising CVs and application forms helps ensure that your initial screening is based only on qualifications, rather than personal information that could lead to bias. This feature makes for a fairer assessment of candidates from various backgrounds.
D&I Reporting Dashboards
Data is your ally in making informed decisions. Use D&I reporting dashboards to capture and process diversity data throughout the hiring process. Analysing this data helps you spot areas for improvement and track your progress.
D&I Benchmarks
Benchmarking your D&I efforts is important for setting realistic goals and measuring your progress. Benchmarks enable you to compare your company's diversity metrics with industry peers. This also helps you compare applicants and hires to the demographic of your area.
Application Highlighting
Application highlighting is a tool that allows recruiters and hiring managers to quickly identify applications that need further adjustments, or those that meet the necessary hiring thresholds. These applications are visually flagged. This simplifies the management of candidate data and helps prioritise candidates based on their qualifications and fit for the role. It makes it easier to focus attention on candidates who align with diversity and inclusion goals or who may need additional consideration.
Free D&I Training
Equip your hiring teams with the knowledge and skills they need to foster inclusivity. Free D&I training helps your team in understanding the importance of creating an inclusive workplace and addressing biases.
If you’re looking for an ATS that meets all of the above criteria; have a look at the hireful ATS. You can also watch their interactive demo here.
In conclusion, embracing inclusion and reducing unconscious bias when hiring is not just about checking boxes. It's about realising that we should all do our part to create a fairer society where talented people have access to opportunities. When addressing unconscious bias by hiring for your culture, seeing and correcting common hiring mistakes, and improving your hiring process with technology, you help contribute to an environment that’s fair for everyone.
Author
Adrian McDonagh, co-founder of hireful
Adrian founded hireful in 2005, ran his first workshop in 2009 and hasn’t been seen back at hireful HQ since. Adrian loves training almost as much as he loves working out how best to utilise recruitment websites like Indeed, Glassdoor and LinkedIn. Over the past 10 years, he’s trained over 10,000 HR professionals gathering insights and feedback.
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