Unconscious Bias

We may have heard members of the leadership team utter the phrase, "He/she/they don't strike me as management material," when deciding whether to promote staff members.

When pressed to elaborate, the responses are unsatisfactory and vague. "I don't know; I just can't put my finger on it." "It's a gut feeling."

Sometimes, our gut feelings are spot-on. In the above scenario, however, it may be that we are just not used to seeing certain demographics in positions of power and this could be subconsciously influencing our decisions over who to promote and who is "leadership material".

I've come across three ways of working around unconscious bias.

Consciously avoiding the picture

I learned this technique from my friend and former colleague, Clea Arrieta . When I first met Clea, it was on a Zoom call for my first interview at New/Mode . She had specifically asked me not to turn on my video. This was unusual but I complied. After I started working at New/Mode, I learned that Clea did this with all her initial interviews. Not only that, she actively avoided looking up the candidate's profile on LinkedIn since it would inevitably show her their profile picture. She did not see anyone's face until after they had completed the final round of interviews and been extended an offer.

The reasoning was that seeing a person's face could unduly influence us as to whether they're a "suitable" candidate or not. Clea shared that while this method does not eliminate bias completely (you can still guess a candidate's heritage or surmise their appearance from their name), it goes a long way towards giving every candidate a fair chance, i.e. evaluating them on their merits and not their physical appearance and all the assumptions, stereotypes and judgments that come along for the ride.

I experienced this myself when conducting interviews for co-op students at New/Mode. Upon reading a resume, I decided that the candidate must be a female. I was caught off-guard when the candidate showed up for the video interview and turned out to be male. It took a few moments to reconcile the image in my head with the real human being who had shown up for the interview. I was able to get past it and conduct the interview but I did find it interesting how entrenched our ideas about a person can be before we actually meet them face-to-face.

Jazz HR

Jazz HR was another tool to which Clea introduced me at New/Mode. I found it so valuable that I recommended it to a friend who was also conducting interviews at her company. My main reason for recommending Jazz HR is that it helps keep the interview process efficient and objective.

Clea created (or asked the hiring managers to create) a rubric with questions and sample Average | Good | Excellent answers. She would then incorporate the questions into Jazz HR. There was also a place to take notes during the interview (a virtual scratch pad).

When it was time to begin the interview, each interviewer from the panel (we used multiple interviewers to remove bias) would click “Start Interview” on the Jazz HR login screen. We would see the list of questions and a place to take note of the interviewee’s answers (the interviewee would have no access to Jazz HR). After the interview was concluded, we would use the rubric to determine whether the answer was average/good/excellent or poor. Once we had rated each answer, we’d click “Submit”.?

At this point, a popup would ask us ??or ??for the interviewee? We would make a selection and enter optional comments. The rating would be sent to the entire panel, after which a final decision would be made. The panel would not have an opportunity to discuss with each other prior to the submission. After all submissions were entered, the panel could meet to debrief.

I liked this process because it eliminated the subjective human bias to a great degree. Jazz HR helped us ensure that we focused on the content of the interviewee’s response and not how we felt about it.

Woven

Woven is a third-party tool that acts as an evaluative intermediary between the candidate and the hiring company. I have used it twice now, as a candidate. After I applied for a position, I would receive an email from Woven, stating that they had been engaged by the hiring company to evaluate my skills. The emails were very clear and precise, which I appreciated. They showed me exactly where to log in and what I could expect. There was also a practice session before the real session began.

The real session involved a series of questions (I've seen a maximum of three). A real-world scenario is presented - code this challenge, solve this problem, record your findings, etc. Time limits are imposed. Once candidates have completed the challenge, tests are run to check their work and after they've developed confidence in their solution, they can click Submit. The results are sent to Woven and not directly to the hiring company.

What I liked best about Woven was the timeliness of their feedback. As a candidate who had submitted several applications and heard nothing but crickets, it was refreshing to receive feedback within the next one or two days, as promised. The feedback was specific and useful, starting off with what was positive in my solution and what could benefit from additional work. The results were also sent to the hiring company. I don't remember whether I heard back from them or not but I do recall the timeliness and specificity of Woven's feedback with increasing admiration.

I recommend Woven because unlike the whiteboard coding challenge to which in-person candidates are subjected, Woven beautifully simulates the privacy and quiet in which most workplace challenges are solved, i.e. at the peace and solitude of our own desks. Most of the engineers I've met are introverts and people with this personality trait do not often take kindly or do their best work when they are being scrutinized by others (interestingly, they do not have any objection to your carefully scrutinizing their work, provided it's not in their presence).