… and what we’d like to share with you
Working in HR, the concept of unconscious bias is something we must be continually aware of and we find a refresher on the subject always helps. Recently, we attended a seminar on unconscious bias that made us take a closer look at our own thinking around how our personal life experiences, our upbringing and our work experience impacts how we view candidates.
The seminar gave us some really useful insights and encouraged us to explore further. We thought it would be helpful to share with you some of what we have been reading and thinking about in this space. So, let’s take a look…
What is unconscious bias?
Bias is a prejudice in favour of or against a thing or person or a group, usually in a way that is considered unfair. Biases are based on a person’s gender, age, race, religion, physical abilities, weight, sexual orientation and many other characteristics. They can occur in a positive or negative way for all types of people and can be held by individuals, groups and even institutions.
There are two types of bias: conscious and unconscious bias. Unconscious bias refers to social stereotypes about certain groups of people we are unaware of. These happen outside our control. Unconscious bias is far more common than conscious bias. Certain situations can trigger unconscious attitudes and beliefs. They are automatic and happen especially when your brain must make quick decisions or judgements or when you’re tired and under pressure. This is when having a third-party recruitment provider or a colleague with a different thinking style can be really valuable.
Research we have seen shows evidence of unconscious bias in all areas of life like employment, education, health and justice. Everyone has unconscious bias but the impact of that bias in recruitment is what we have been exploring and left us wondering what to do about it.
Being aware of unconscious bias in recruitment
Here are some common types of unconscious bias.
Affinity bias
Subconsciously preferring people who share qualities with you. For example, they went to the same school as you or have similar hobbies. This can lead to hiring fewer diverse personalities, which means less creative diversity and approaches to work.
Beauty bias
We all unconsciously notice people’s appearance and make assumptions about them via their appearance. For example, a professional dresser is an organised person.
Gender bias
Gender bias is obviously a preference for one gender over another. In recruitment, gender bias may mean you gravitate towards a candidate because of their gender and the qualities you associate with it. We favour people we can relate to, especially if they’re the same gender as us.
Interestingly, the moment you place a recruitment ad you may be inadvertently favouring one gender over another simply by the type of terminology used, because certain terminology appeals more to men than women, and vice versa. An interesting web-based tool people have been talking about recently is textio. With textio, you can test the language you’ve chosen and assess how people may react to your terminology (visit textio.com).
Ageism
Judging a person’s capability based on their age.
Halo effect
This happens when we focus too much on a great feature a person has, so we see everything about them in a positive ‘halo’ light and think they are more ideal than they are.
Horns effect
The opposite of the halo effect, with the horns effect you focus on a negative feature, mistake or flaw. For example, a turn of phrase they use. Suddenly, you dislike everything else they say and expand the one flaw to represent them as a whole.
How we are trying to minimise unconscious bias in our recruitment?
Everyone’s recruitment decisions are susceptible to biases and subjectivity. As a partnership we are trying to acknowledge our biases and use each other to mitigate their impact. Here are some other tips we have studied and are applying:
- Slow down your decision-making
- Reconsider reasons for decisions
- Question cultural stereotypes
- Monitor each other for unconscious bias
- Standardise the process – create a standard list of questions you plan to ask
- Have the interview in the same place for all candidates
- Take good notes – human memory is notoriously unreliable. Immediately post-interview jot down your thoughts on the candidate before your thoughts get too scattered
- Sleep on it – post-interview, take 30 minutes to think through the facts and put careful thought into the final hiring decision
- Justify your decision – get evidence to back up your decision about a candidate
- Get input from others – once you’ve justified your choices, see what everyone else thought
Fun Fact
Orchestrating Gender Balance
Up until the 1970s, symphony orchestras in America previously had less than 20% female instrumentalists. By introducing a screen between the musician and the audition committee (leaving the applicants audible but not visible to the judges) the proportion of the women hired by major symphony orchestras doubled to 40%.
