Today’s businesses need inclusive hiring practices not as a moral obligation but as a strategic necessity. Companies that focus on diversity and inclusion always have a competitive advantage. Such a workforce can bring innovation from different perspectives while improving business outcomes.
Unconscious bias, however, is still a significant problem in hiring, influencing choices at every level, from job advertisements to interviews. As per BrighTtalk, 79% of HR people believe bias is still present in recruitment. Hence, businesses need unbiased recruitment strategies to curb this problem. In this article, we look at some of the best methods for fostering fairness in recruitment.
What is Unconscious Bias in Hiring?
Unconscious hiring means having a blind spot where hiring people have perceptions regarding a particular group but are unaware of the same. This includes favoring male candidates over females or leaving minority groups from hiring. Such biases can be an obstacle in any organization’s recruitment efforts.
This is because people may avoid applying, impacting potential talent loss. Therefore, companies must opt for strategies that help in reducing unconscious bias in hiring process.
Practical Tips for Bias-Free Hiring
Here are the top tips or strategies that can help you create a bias-free process for interview and recruitment.
1. Use a Scorecard
A scorecard is an excellent tool to maintain consistency in hiring methods as it evaluates applicants using the same criteria. It should include role-specific objective criteria, such as relevant skills, years of experience, and education levels. Give a score for each section and determine who will reach the interview round using a threshold. A scorecard will help remove any bias in your hiring process, primarily related to qualification and candidate characteristics.
2. Creating Awareness
Awareness is the answer to every problem. Hence, it is necessary to educate your people about unconscious bias, including racism and affinity bias. By raising awareness and providing an understanding of different biases, you can focus on inclusion and diversity hiring in your company.
3. Focus on Blind Recruitment
Blind recruitment is the process in which the age, gender, race, etc of the applicant is hidden. The recruitment manager receives the resume without the candidate’s name mentioned on it. Companies can even strike out the educational details as it reduces the biases of choosing a top-tier university candidate. Such practice will help in selecting candidates based on skill set and experience.
4. Using Technology
Technology is vital and can help streamline the hiring and recruitment process. Companies can use AI-driven tools and recruitment management software to create a more organized and objective hiring method. This can be done by reviewing applicants based on qualifications and skills without bias. However, you must remember to use these tools only to avoid existing biases.
5. Diverse Interview Panels
Another strategy is to broaden your hiring panel and include people from various backgrounds in the interview panel. This step will help offer diverse perspectives and reduce affinity bias.
6. Regular Assessment and Review
Companies must invest time and effort regularly assessing and reviewing their hiring methods and strategies. In addition, a proper check must also be done on diversity outcomes and identify the areas that need improvement. Transparency in the bias-free hiring process will encourage continuous improvement and accountability.
7. Avoid Gendered Terms
When creating ideal job descriptions, companies occasionally use gender-specific language that could significantly affect the hiring and recruitment process. It is often seen that females do not prefer applying to positions that have masculine-coded language. Using words such as confident, active, etc., also attracts fewer females for the position. However, using words like supportive, honest, etc., which are considered feminine-coded, has less impact on male candidates. Companies can highlight such words when creating job advertisements using ATS or an applicant tracking system. Using ATS is an innovative hiring that can help companies maintain unbiased gender equality among all their candidates.
Conclusion
Removing hiring bias is an excellent step and makes good business sense for the company. Moreover, eliminating recruitment bias can also lower the failure percentage for overall hiring. As per McKinsey, well-balanced gender-diverse organizations are 15% more likely to perform than those who are not gender diverse. Similarly, ethnically diverse companies will have 35% more financial returns than their counterparts. Hence, you must focus on unbiased hiring strategies for your company’s success.