How to Anonymize Resumes

How to Anonymize Resumes and Why You Need to Do It Today?

You want bias-free recruitment and more diversity in your company. You've heard that blind resumes are a way to achieve that. However, you have no idea how to anonymize resumes. If that’s the case, keep reading and you’ll find out.?

What Is Blind Hiring??

No, blind hiring doesn’t involve a recruiter wearing a blindfold during an interview. Still, it has a similar effect. This process means that all of the candidates’ information that can cause bias is removed from their CV’s. Gender, nationality, age, and other details irrelevant for the job are redacted, while important information, like qualifications and experience remain.?

Why Would You Want to Anonymize Resumes??

Blind hiring is the best way to build a strong organization. Plus, it’s a much more just way of selecting candidates based on their accomplishments.?

Reduce Bias?

All of us tend to think of ourselves as fair – we are open and we don’t discriminate. However, we also tend to forget that many biases and stereotypes are unconscious. Even when we try our best to eliminate bias, there will always be some left. So, a sure way to avoid discrimination during selection process is to take away all personal details from resumes.?

Improve Diversity?

Diversity in the working environment has many benefits. It mixes different backgrounds, points of view, and experiences, which eventually leads to better ideas and decisions and translates into more success for the company. To achieve this, the recruiters need to avoid picking people that are similar to them or to the majority of employees, which often happens even unintentionally. But when they can’t see that the candidate is part of any particular group, the chances of naturality selecting a qualified individual that improves diversity are much higher.?

Better Hiring Outcomes?

Improved performance, lower stuff turnover, and better candidate and role matching – these are only some of the effects of blind hiring. When only the relevant details are available to hiring panels, they are forced to make a decision based on candidate’s qualification. And that leads to hiring a candidate who has higher chances of succeeding in a particular position.?

How To Anonymize Resumes?

It is clear why redacting CVs is beneficial. Let’s see how to actually do it.?

Manual CV Redaction?

One of the ways to get rid of all the details that can cause bias is to have an employee manually anonymize resumes. That person would have to create copies of all the resumes, assign them with numbers, and create a separate sheet to match the applicant with the number. The hiring board would look only at the redacted resumes. After they reach a decision, they would ask the employee who anonymized the CVs to provide them with the names and contact information of the candidates they selected. Not only that this way takes a lot of time, but it also often happens that candidates get mixed up.?

Automatic Resume Redaction?

Instead of going through the lengthy process described above, you can have all the received CVs anonymized automatically by using a resume redactor, like the one Affinda offers. Based on AI and deep learning, this tool identifies and redacts chosen fields from resumes, producing a copy of CV without details like name, age, location, photos, education, etc. Reach out to Affinda to learn more and assure bias-free hiring for your company.?