How can you make better decisions when searching for a job?

I have worked in the field of Talent Acquisition for 15+ years and have worked for, and with, hundreds of organisations across the globe and across sectors. During this time I have developed a good understanding of the role biases play in the decision-making of not only organisations but also applicants.

Risk alert: authority bias! Even though the first sentence is factually true, and the second sentence is my honest belief, the below are just my views and they should not automatically be accepted because of my experience, however relevant you may think it is.?

Thankfully, the role of bias in our overall decision-making and, more specifically in Talent Acquisition, is becoming more and more known and accepted. However, most information out there focuses on how organisations & hiring managers can become more objective in screening applicants and making sure that they don’t hire the wrong people, or miss out on hiring the right people.

But what about you as a candidate? How thought-through and objective is your decision-making when you are looking for a new job? We are often convinced that we make conscious, objective and high-quality decisions and that it's mainly others who are impacted by things such as biases. This, the blind-spot bias, is arguably the most dangerous one out there. After all, you cannot change if you don't believe that you have a problem.?

Let me quote 2 key data points about human decision-making that will help us create some context:

• On average we have to make around 35,000 decisions every single day.
• Up to 95% of all thinking that drives our decision-making, happens on a subconscious level.

Unconscious bias is when we make judgments or decisions on the basis of our prior experience, our own personal deep-seated thought patterns, assumptions or interpretations, and we are not aware that we are doing it.?

Having biases is a survival strategy for us to not drown in the amount of decisions that we need to make. And for many decisions, for example, when deciding between ordering a Coca-Cola or a Pepsi, it's not a bad strategy. However, when making major and complex decisions that have a significant and long-term impact on your life, as well as the lives of others, it's not the right strategy.

Top-10

There are 100+ biases but here is my top-10 of biases that are likely to impact you during your job search, and my tips for controlling them as much as possible:

Blind-spot bias - We see that others have biases but we don’t think that we have them.

Fundamental attribution error - we judge others on their personality or fundamental character, but we judge ourselves on the situation.

Example: “The interviewer challenged some of my answers during the interview, I don’t think they trust their people”. As opposed to when you challenge an answer of the interviewer, you likely only do it because you want to clarify or probe, not because you fundamentally don't trust people.?

Halo effect (and its opposite, the Horn effect)- If you see a person as having a positive (or negative) trait, that impression will spill over into their other traits.

Example: you thought that the interviewer was very friendly and open during the interview and, based on this, you assume that they must be a great manager to work for.

Spotlight effect - we overestimate how much people are paying attention to our behaviour and appearance.

Example: ‘I forgot to close a button on my shirt, they must think I'm very unprofessional”. Or, “My handshake was not as strong as it should have been, they may assume that I am not as confident as required for the role”.

Anchoring - We rely heavily on the first piece of information introduced when making decisions. These anchors can be external or internal.

Example: you have heard that someone in your network, who has a similar profile as you have, was offered a 25% increase in salary when they moved jobs 6 months ago. This is very likely to become your anchor for what you believe you should ask for, even though there are many moving parts that can be different. For example, the job market may have changed or your contact simply got lucky and that offer was not representative of the market conditions at the time that they were applying.

Confirmation bias - We tend to find and remember information that confirms our perceptions.

Example: If your perception of a hiring manager is that they are open and friendly, you will remember that they were friendly in the interview but you may forget that they were late and didn't show any genuine interest in you by asking you detailed questions.

Gambler’s fallacy - we think future possibilities are affected by past events.

Example: “All my applications have been turned down so far, it's not my lucky week so I won't send any more applications in the next few days”.

Stereotyping - we adopt generalised beliefs that members of a group will have certain characteristics, despite not having information about the individual.

Example: “They are salespeople so I take everything they say with a pinch of salt”.?

Framing effect - We often draw different conclusions from the same information depending on how it is presented.?

If, for example, you have two offers but one represents a 10% increase in your basic salary, with non-monetary benefits that work out to 10% less. The other offer is a copy of what you are currently on. In this case you are likely to lean towards the first one.

False memory & cryptomnesia - we mistake imagination for real memories.

Example: when you are sure someone did or said something but you cannot remember the actual moment that it happened. Chances are, it never happened, or at least not like that.

Clustering illusion - we find patterns and clusters in random data.

Example: you receive 5 rejections in a week, you are starting to think that it's related to something you must be doing wrong or, worse, that you are not good enough.?

Tips to manage biases

Acknowledge that you are biased and study your enemy! By accepting that we are driven by biases, and by understanding what they are and how they impact us, we can reduce their influence.

Before you start applying, create an Ideal Opportunity Document. This should be a dynamic document that you should update at any point, not only when you are looking. Elements that can be included are the nature of the responsibilities, type of organisation, organisational culture, sector, compensation package, commute, career development, reputation, size of organisation, and so forth. You can split them into must-haves & nice-to-haves.

This document will be your anchor that you can and should refer back to throughout your search. But, unlike the anchor created by bias, it is based on conscious reflection, feedback, learning, etc., and is therefore a great way to stay on track and fight biases. (Extra tip: Create a Balance Scorecard in Google Sheets or Excel to review every opportunity in an objective way by scoring each item according to the weight you have given them).

Always take notes. There are many good reasons why you should take notes but one of them is to create a written record that you can use to recall information which will then help you to learn and prevent you from creating false memories, forgetting about information that conflicts with your perception (confirmation bias, etc.).

Prepare. You need to prepare. Preparing will help you to gather information which can help you with asking better questions and making better decisions. Try and go beyond the company website, Glassdoor.?

But keep an open mind. Your gut instinct is not always wrong, but it often is. Write down your impressions but see them as just that, impressions that are likely influenced by your biases.

For example; you read the Glassdoor profile of the organisation and spot some negative comments. Without taking away from those individual reviews, we know that negative reviews are more likely to be posted so it's not a proper representation of reality. Also, these negative reviews are just one side of an often complicated story.

Take your time with making decisions. Don't give your full feedback straight away, even when asked. Don’t make a decision too quickly, even if you absolutely love an opportunity. After an interview, take your mind away from the opportunity, review your notes, review your Ideal Opportunity Document, sleep on it, talk with people you trust and digest the information before you make a decision, even if it seems an obvious decision. There is no such thing as a decision with only upsides, it simply means that you ignored the downsides (confirmation bias). So a great way of knowing if you make a thought-through decision is that, when you love an opportunity, you can list the downsides as easily as the upsides. Of course the reverse applies if you lean towards not liking an opportunity. A great video on this topic is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVRco_eLjdc .?

Be careful with sharing certain information. With regards to what you are looking for you want to be as detailed as you can be, to avoid any misunderstandings. However, try not to reveal your current salary for example but instead focus on your expected package worth. If you are being pushed into answering, which still happens a lot, don’t just give it but, in return, ask for the budget for the role as well.?

Keep applying. Although there are certainly good and bad strategies when it comes to applying for jobs, looking for a job is ultimately a numbers game and the numbers are heavily affected by the market conditions. Currently, you may need to send well over 100+, and maybe even 200+ applications to find the right job. Don't stop applying because you get rejections, thinking that it's not your lucky day/week etc. If you feel discouraged, acknowledge that, take the afternoon off but don't take the whole week off.