4 Cognitive Biases That Hijack Your Hiring Decisions: How to avoid it?

We all know that Cognitive Biases in Recruitment are Harming Your Hiring Process, but do you know which ones to watch out for?

A group of NYU students reported in 2015 that 75% of recruiters decide within the first 16 minutes. Even within the first three minutes, 25% of interviewers made a decision. As a result, the candidate’s fate will already be determined after sharing only a fifth (or less) of who they are and what they are capable of. Anyone can make mistakes when interviewing due to cognitive biases. In this article, we will find out what cognitive biases recruiters may encounter and how to avoid them as much as possible.

What are Cognitive Biases in Recruitment?

American psychologists?Amos Tversky?and Daniel Kahneman introduced the term “cognitive bias” in 1970. Cognitive bias is a systemic inaccuracy in perception that occurs as people absorb and evaluate data from their environment.

This inaccuracy has an impact on their conclusions and judgments. These specialists contend that this type of bias can skew our judgment since they foster bad decision-making by adopting shortcuts.

Although sophisticated, the human brain has its limits. The brain tries to make the processing of information as simple as possible, which frequently results in cognitive bias. These deceptive thought processes most frequently surface in situations where there is a wealth of data, like during hiring. Identifying them is the key to avoiding them.

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4 typical Cognitive Biases in Recruitment

Here, we would like to explore and explain the 4 major Biases in the recruitment process.

• The Halo Effect
• The Horn Effect
• Confirmation Bias
• Affect Heuristic Bias

1. The Halo Effect

The most prevalent Cognitive Biases in Recruitment that arise during any hiring process is known as the “Halo effect”. Here a single favorable attribute or characteristic of the interviewee affects the evaluation of other unrelated characteristics.

This is the propensity to feel strongly about everything a person has, even for qualities you haven’t examined or assessed. Because of confirmation bias, you assume there is proof even though there may not be any because you expect to see (or not see) anything.

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Sometimes, people assume that if someone is gorgeous, he is also smart, nice, and humorous. This one clear favorable characteristic acts as a “halo,” leading others to believe untrue things about their personalities or ability.

This is often referred to as the “physical attractiveness stereotype,” in which our perception of a person as a whole affects how we feel or think about their morals.