Unconscious bias in Recruitment

According to research lead by the?Nuffield College’s Centre for Social Investigation (CSI), ?British citizens from ethnic minority or Black backgrounds sent 60% more CVs on average to get positive feedback from employers, compared to their White counterparts who had the same skillset, experience, and qualifications??

?In an article titled ‘Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal?? A Field Experiment on?Labor?Market Discrimination’ authors Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan revealed that resumes from African American, Asian, and Hispanic names are less likely to get an invitation for interviews in the USA??

In South Africa,?an annual report published by the Commission for Employment Equity’s 2019-2020 , found that White people occupied 65.5% of top management in 2019, while Black Africans occupied only 15.2% of management positions

According to?BrightTalk , “79% of HR professionals agree that unconscious bias exists in both recruitment and succession planning decisions”.

The concept of unconscious bias is well-known across various industries, so what can we do to be more aware of unconscious biases, especially in HR???

?What is Unconscious Bias?

Unconscious or implicit bias is the mental processes that cause us to act in ways that reinforce stereotypes even when in our conscious mind we would deem that behavior counter to our value system.

Unconscious bias is like a blind spot – we hold perceptions about certain groups of people but we may not even be aware of them.

That means during the recruitment process, we may do things like favor male applicants over female applicants or white applicants over minority candidates. These common biases can hinder an organization's recruitment efforts because BIPOC and female candidates may avoid applying for your organization, causing you to lose out on some outstanding talent during what is already proving to be a talent shortage.

How to remove unconscious bias from your hiring process?

1. Remove gendered wording

How many of us have ever stopped and considered the inherent gender bias of the language we use every day? When it comes to crafting the perfect job description, the gender implications of words used can have a significant impact on the recruitment process.

Researchers ?have found that women are much less likely to apply to job descriptions that include ‘masculine-coded’ language such as “active”, “confident” and “driven.” Interestingly, the effect of feminine-coded words like “interpersonal”, “honest” and “support” on male applicants was found to be negligible.

The Robert Walters Group has created its own bespoke?Adify ?tool to flag so-called gender bias in job adverts, which can then be removed. As Tom Lakin, senior innovation manager at Resource Solutions, our recruitment process outsourcing business, explains, “gender equality is a key priority for our clients, and Adify allows us to support our clients’ diversity goals.”

2. Introduce blind skills challenges

While CVs remain the most efficient way of introducing a hiring manager to prospective talent, there is certain information in CVs that can lead to unconscious bias. One way to address this is to encourage ‘blind applications’ that remove details like race, nationality, gender and age – all factors that can lead to biased decisions.

To help recruiters, start-up?GapJumpers ?removes CVs from the application process entirely. Used by the BBC and The Guardian, GapJumpers allows employers to create bespoke tests that mimic the challenges of the job itself. Applications are then reviewed by the employers and interviews can be offered based on the scores received.

GapJumpers says 54% of its users are women, yet female workers account for 59% of the platform’s highest performers, highlighting its potential. And GapJumpers doesn’t just tackle gender imbalance; it can also eliminate bias created through educational and ethnic background, as well as age.

3. Make data-driven decisions

Another way to minimise the influence of your unconscious bias on your applicant selection process is to let intelligent data insights guide your decision-making process.

Tom recommends?Entelo ?for clients “to surface new and diverse talent with the right skills quickly.” Favoured by Visa and Facebook, talent aggregator Entelo uses big data, predictive analytics and social signals to help hiring managers find and engage with talent. It allows recruiters and hiring managers to rank candidates against open vacancies and includes several features, like diversity filters and a ‘more likely to move’ function, which assesses the likelihood of candidates moving jobs.

Resource Solutions, our recruitment process outsourcing business, tested the benefits and functionality of Entelo by identifying and talent-pooling female talent underrepresented in Switzerland. By using the platform’s ‘more likely to move’ function, recruiters achieved a 60% response rate from candidates on LinkedIn – double what was expected.

4. Advertise roles through new channels

The future of online recruitment is definitely mobile, with statistics showing 82% of candidates already search for jobs on their smartphone. By 2021, experts predict 87% of all mobile internet traffic will be video, and with visual content getting an average of 1200% more shares than written content, it’s easy to see why.

5. Make your interview process structured

When interview time arrives, it might be tempting for hiring managers to favour an unstructured session in order to get a better feel for a candidate. But unstructured interviews can make it harder for hiring managers to fairly benchmark candidates, making it more likely that unconscious bias will creep in. Creating a structured process that tests all applicants in the same way ensures they’re all assessed against the same markers.

The simplest way to achieve this is to stick to a specific set of questions for every applicant – and remember not to diverge from them. This can help reduce subjectivity and allow candidates to be judged against others on the specific answers they give.

6. Have an interview panel

It might sound like unconscious bias can be difficult to remove without the help of the latest recruitment technology, but if you’re looking for a more human-based approach then consider introducing interview panels into your recruitment process.

Establishing a panel that includes a diverse set of colleagues (in terms of gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background and age) can ensure any personal unconscious biases are mitigated and help you to consider an applicant from a wider perspective and make a more informed decision.

Curbing unconscious bias

Ultimately, our unconscious bias is inescapable, but equipping your business with the right tools and processes can significantly reduce its impact on your recruitment process. While new technologies provide rich insights to help guide data-driven decision making, underpinning new tech with regular diversity training is key to helping hiring managers recognise and reduce their bias blind spots.

Last but not least, I would recommend having refresher meetings with the Talent teams to raise awareness.