BIAS (Specifically When Interviewing)

INTRODUCTION

Answer this riddle for me… If you know it, try and remember how you answered it the first time you heard it. “How many animals of each sex did Moses take on the ark?”

So... what's your answer? If you have never heard the riddle before, the likelihood your answer is wrong is extremely high. The reason it is probably wrong has to do with the myriad of different assumptions you made when reading it. If you listened to me say the riddle, it would be even more likely you got it wrong. One reason is your mind recognizes some of the information in the riddle and you fill in the blanks with the knowledge you think you have. In other words, you hear “Moses, Ark, Sex…” and you think you know what I am asking. Your mind paints a picture based on those cues.

Another problem is you immediately recognize the religiosity of the question. If you come from a Christian-Judaic paradigm, you look at the riddle one way. If you don’t, you look at it a different way. Your personal context filters how you experience the riddle. 

And, another potential problem is simply ignorance. You may not know the answer, let alone get the joke. Ignorance certainly shades the assumptions and conclusions you make as strongly as knowledge does. 

As you can see, there are so many factors for getting the answer to a simply put riddle wrong. 

(The answer, by the way, is zero. Moses wasn’t on the ark. Noah was.).

I know… that was cheap. I tricked you. Hah! But, the concept of bias is no joking matter. One of the reasons a riddle like this works is because I am messing with your biases. The sad thing is I can mess with you all day. Your biases, the way you filter information about the world, are essential to your ability as a human being to filter the tons and tons of data coming at you every second. You have them and they ain’t going anywhere. 

DEFINITION:

Bias is a predisposition, preconception, predilection, partiality, proclivity, bent, or leaning. Bias, or prejudice, means a strong inclination of the mind or a preconceived opinion about something or someone. A bias may be positive or negative. One might have a bias in favor of or against an idea.

In other words, bias is about us humans favoring something (person, place, or thing) we know and like over something we don’t know and may not like. We favor comfort over discomfort. We favor the recognizable versus the unfamiliar. Bias also occurs from the concepts we have been taught since birth. Racism, chauvinism, ethnic stereotyping, nationalism, and so many more “isms” are instilled in us from the time we begin to relate to the world around us. It is impossible for us to always be aware.

A STORY:

Many years ago, I was sitting in a restaurant with my father-in-law. I idolized him. His world-view informed mine. He was brilliant and he could do no wrong in my eyes (by the way—that is bias if you didn’t recognize it). While sitting, he made a comment about mixed race marriages being difficult and one should avoid them since marriage was already hard enough. I was shocked. This was a guy whose self-awareness was pretty darn high and he was so, so, so not a racist in any way, and it was the early 2000s. Except, here was a definitely biased perspective on race. I called him on it. He smiled. He was almost 80 years old, and said, “You have to remember, you were born of a generation where interracial marriage is both normal and accepted. To you, accepting the concept is innate. I am 45 years older than you. I had to learn the idea.”

Biases can change, but they change slowly and over time. Sometimes over generations. Think about gay marriage. Or, in the US, the policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Our perception of gay relationships has completely shifted over the last generation. 

What made my father-in-law so special was his ability to accept and become aware of his biases and their effects. So many others, however, become utterly confident in their gut reactions that they refuse to believe any counter to a bias, even in the face of strong evidence—think climate change. Which brings up another interesting aspect of bias. A bias in one area, such as religion or politics can lead to biased decisions in other areas. Bias is not an isolated occurrence. It is a part of a system for how we believe and engage in the world. If I have a strong belief in politics or religion that stipulates I cannot trust scientific evidence, than I am more likely to disavow any evidence that strongly supports we act immediately on climate change. One bias begets another bias. 

Confidence in our beliefs is more often a function of strong bias. Confidence in the face of conflicting evidence is often labeled "following one's gut." Another word for this is stupid arrogance. And, forget interviewing, arrogance in the face of conflicting evidence can destroy much more than just one’s job prospects. But, let’s talk about interviewing… 

SO WHAT—APPLIED TO INTERVIEWING:

So, bias is tough to recognize. So, bias is tough to eradicate. So, bias is ever present. How does it show up in an interview? How does it affect our perceptions of candidates and whom we choose for the position ultimately?

Most bias shows up during interviews in the following way:

• Racial stereotypes. When interviewers see names on a resume that indicate race (or lead the interviewer to draw a conclusion about race), or interviewers see a person and draw a conclusion about race, often then, race becomes a factor in the decision. For example, “Asians are smart. I am interviewing an Asian candidate. He is smarter than the non-Asians. The position requires high intelligence.”
• The same is true for women. Once identified as female, unless the role is typically female-oriented, a man is more likely to get the nod for the job. Orchestras have actually solved this phenomenon. Now, when auditioning for a spot in the orchestra, prospective players audition behind a screen, do not talk, and any identifiers of race or gender are redacted. Orchestras went from being predominantly white men to very diverse work places. Unfortunately, in other businesses, we need to evaluate face-to-face interactions and not just musicality.
• Ethnic Stereotypes. Sadly, we all know ethnic jokes about people of different nationalities. Those jokes lead to bias. And, often those biases become ingrained and unconsciously lead us to make bad decisions when hiring. One hundred and fifty years ago, if I identified a candidate as Irish, I would never have hired him unless it was a menial hard labor job. Today, in the US, at least, our ethnic biases can be much more wide-spread and insidious and unconscious.
• Age. Old people cost too much and are slow. They are technically incompetent. Young people—millennials, are disrespectful, selfish, spoiled, and hard work avoidant. These are biases and have no basis when we look at individuals for a job. In fact the categorizing of the different generations is just another way for us to perpetuate bias. Differentiating between Millennials, Gen-Xers, and Baby Boomers is fine on generic levels and might be useful when looking at histiographies, but when using those generalizable characteristics to judge individuals for a job, we are leveraging bias in the same ways we do with race, gender, and religion.
• The Disabled. People with disabilities are discriminated against continuously, even though with often very minor modifications to the work space can contribute just as well (or not) as those without disabilities. In fact, in the academic field of cultural studies, there is even discussion that the label of disabled is misleading because the very act of labeling some issues with humans as disabilities and others as simply being human is in of itself, biased. 
• And, many more: politics, religion, body type, beauty, and more. Depending on your filters and your experiences, bias will, as I said at the beginning of this piece, rear its ugly head in many other ways, too. 

Which brings us back to the question… what can we do about it during the interview. Awareness is the biggest thing. Ask yourself frequently:

1. Do I like this candidate because of the evidence of competency, or because he reminds me of me? 
2. Do I reject this candidate because of the evidence for incompetence, or because something about her makes me feel uncomfortable?

Get evidence for all decisions. Always validate your decisions by ensuring your assessment during the interview gets at direct and observational reasons for deciding to hire, or not to hire. Never trust your gut. Or, if you must, trust, but verify.