Interviewees Worst Nightmare - Biases

?Over the past decade of my Technical Recruiting career, I’ve seen the same recruiting problems arise over and over. You’d think something would change, but it’s individuals who need to change their perspective. How they perceive candidates based on their titles, length of work years, keywords on their resumes/LinkedIn, ethnicity, gender, their looks, the way they sound and truly ask themselves if they’re seeking a “purple-squirrel” or if they’re being prejudice.

The purple squirrel is a person that doesn’t exist (for example: a hiring manager wants 2 – 3 skill sets in one job description plus some soft skills) because one person can’t possibly have several skill sets and have mastered each of them. Surely, they’ve touched the technologies throughout their careers; one might think, but maybe they have a simple understanding of the fundamentals of how each technology works but hasn’t had the opportunity to work on them hands on.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “The number of job openings, 9.2 million on the last business day of May 2021, was little changed from the previous month. Hires were little changed at 5.9 million. Total separations decreased to 5.3 million. There were 1.6 million job openings in trade, transportation, and utilities, and 1.5 million job openings in professional and business services.” These statistics are alarming, given that there are so many qualified folks that are looking for new opportunities but aren’t given a shot.

?Another issue that comes up with hiring is a notion of “cultural fit” and trying to be “inclusive and diverse.” What does that even mean? Look up a company on LinkedIn and check out the profiles for any given company to see if there’s a pattern. Most likely there is because humans are biased by nature whether they want to admit it or not; it’s in our subconscious to be that way; imperfect.

It seems that if a company has Cheerios working there, they want more Cheerios and that’s what they attract. Every person brings a different dimension with them to work, they can be outgoing, shy, quiet, loud or silly; their personality shouldn’t matter as much as how they treat others and get the job done. Questions we should ask ourselves are: “do they have the skills for the job?” “Are they nice or at least educated when they speak?” “Did they smile and shake my hand?” If the answer is yes, then most likely that person won’t be rude to others and they can effectively be part of your “culture”. If they are rude or can’t do the job, it will come out quickly and you can have a chat with them about how they can effectively communicate with others & suggest training they can pick up to ramp up.??

?We’re all adults and are learning every day how to deal with each other in the work place as well as in our own homes. Give people a shot instead of shooting them down before they can prove that they can learn quickly and hit the ground running.

Compassion should play a part in your interviewing because you wouldn’t want others to give you an unfair shot at getting a job that you know you can do. You may be missing out on great talent that’s being presented to you because of certain cultural differences in how the interviewee answers questions, or because subconsciously you have something against that person from a bias in your head. Are you thinking that you are not biased? Reality check, you are, and so am I.

It gets even tougher to hire someone when you have a group of people getting together because they are being influenced by each others views. Yes, the interview panels will kill deals. Or, the 1 on 1 interviewers who then have to get back together with other team members to discuss if they will hire a candidate or not. Maybe they can't remember their interview with the candidate by the time you are debriefing and decisions are made hastily.

Chances of that person getting hired go down again, because what one might’ve thought they liked, is now being questioned by someone else who didn’t like it. Getting everyone to agree on something is hard enough, especially when it comes to a new hire.

So why are companies putting up so many hoops for candidates to jump through and then, rejecting them after an onsite interview? It makes no sense. Why not instead hire someone that has the skills necessary to achieve the job, give them a shot no matter what their personality is like and if they don’t workout within 60 days, then you can let them go?

?Maybe you’re thinking that it will be a waste of money, however the company is wasting more time and resources not hiring someone to do the job. The longer the job is open, the less of a chance they have of filling it. The people working on the projects are wondering where their help is and are getting burnt out from having to do a 2-3 people project. If they continue on this path, they will probably start looking for new projects elsewhere and you'll have to find their replacements too.

Let’s change the way we hire and more jobs will be filled, people will learn new skills on the job, and projects will move a lot smoother having the extra hands to deliver.

Today, I challenge you to be real with yourself and ask yourself if you are being too hard on candidates when you interview them. Would you want someone to think of you in that light (how you are thinking of candidates) before getting a chance to prove that you can do the job? We all want to give a great candidate experience, which is fantastic, but more times we fail at that very simple task because of our interviewing techniques and the long waits that happen in-between interviews and giving feedback – if any.??

Side note, I wrote this article in 2019 but did not feel that it was good enough to post. Today I am posting this because I have chosen to believe that what I wrote may help someone out there. Thank you for taking the time to read.