It’s an unfortunate fact that unconscious bias in recruitment exists. It occurs when a hiring manager favours one subset of applicants over others, often without even realising it. As human beings, we are naturally drawn to people who are like us, whether it’s a similar educational background, a shared ethos or a professional commonality. However, the risk is that, if we don’t recognise and address our biases, we could miss out on great people and end up with a homogenous culture that reduces our organisation’s ability to be agile and innovative!
Dealing with unconscious bias can be tricky, but it’s well worth the effort. By tackling any preconceptions or partiality that could impact your hiring process, you can widen your talent pool and increase your company’s diversity and inclusivity, allowing you to benefit from different perspectives and new ideas. You will also improve your reputation as an employer in the market, making it easier to attract top talent in the future.
The following four steps will help you reduce hiring bias and ensure you have equitable hiring practices.
1. Engage in Bias Training
When it comes to learning how to reduce bias in the hiring process, it’s important to first really understand it, especially as it takes many forms and operates on numerous levels.
One example of bias that we see often is name bias. The Australian National University undertook a large-scale study that involved submitting 4,000 fictional applications for entry-level jobs in Australia. All CVs showed the applicants completed high school in Australia, but they were separated into distinctive ethnic groups based on common first and last names (Anglo-Saxon, Indigenous, Italian, Chinese and Middle Eastern).
The results were quite astounding – people with names linked to particular ethnicities needed to apply for more roles than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts before landing an interview. Indigenous applicants, meanwhile, had to submit 35% more applications.
While this is just one study, there are many anecdotal stories in the Australian recruitment industry of applicants intentionally ‘Westernising’ their name after failing to land job interviews and then suddenly finding interview success.
This is why it’s imperative to equip your team with an understanding of unconscious bias through appropriate training. Organisations such as Diversity Australia run courses in the sphere. They are an excellent way for you and your team to uncover what prejudices you may hold, so you can actively work against them when hiring new talent.
If you aren’t able to invest in the required team training time, consider using external advisers to mitigate unconscious bias during each recruitment stage. As experts in Indigenous and non-Indigenous recruitment, the team here at First People Recruitment Solutions have a range of equitable hiring practices in place to ensure you can dip into the most diverse and inclusive talent pool possible.
2. Consider How to Make Your Recruitment Materials Inclusive
Your job advertisement and job description are usually an applicant’s first recruitment touchpoint with your company. As such, you want to do all you can to ensure they leave a positive impression on top talent and draw them further in, rather than dissuading them from proceeding with an application.
We recommend paying close attention to the language you use in your job advertisement and description to avoid unintentionally excluding certain groups. For instance, research conducted by Duke University and the University of Waterloo found words like ‘competitive’ and ‘determined’ in a job ad dissuaded some women from applying, as they felt like they might not belong in an environment where these qualities were valued. Words such as ‘collaborative’ and ‘cooperative’ were viewed more positively.
If you find it a little tricky to include inclusive language throughout your recruitment documents, consider working with a specialist recruiter that has extensive experience refining recruitment materials to ensure they’re inclusive and don’t hold hidden biases.
3. Embrace Equitable Hiring Practices
Another highly useful way to avoid unconscious bias is to review applicant résumés ‘blindly’. This involves removing identifiers that aren’t related to the job or experience needed for success, such as name and gender. It allows your focus to remain firmly on the applicant’s qualifications, skills, and abilities.
A further way to level the candidate playing field is to standardise your interviews. This ensures diverse groups have an equal chance at consideration for the role, as it allows you to accurately compare responses.
A consistent interview approach includes:
- A standard set of skills-based, behavioural, and situational questions
- A ranking system for evaluating candidates (weighting years of experience, values, hard and soft skills)
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An optional work or aptitude test, as appropriate
4. Work with an Inclusive Recruitment Agency
One of the best ways to reduce hiring bias is to partner with a recruitment agency that knows how to prioritise diversity and inclusion. Here at First People Recruitment Solutions, we intimately understand the barriers that underrepresented groups face when applying for roles and work hard to ensure our recruitment processes are transparent and equitable.
Feel free to connect with us for more advice on how to reduce bias in the hiring process or support with finding the best talent for your team.
