Biases are of three types: conscious, subconscious, or unconscious. While one can be extremely successful at tackling conscious bias, curbing the other two is a different story altogether. However, no matter how hard it is, companies today are deploying resources, both financial and manpower, to develop a process that allows them to conduct hiring with little to no bias.
Unconscious bias is part of human nature and cannot be eradicated overnight. Despite explicitly outlining the necessary steps to improve the hiring process, recruiters may still display implicit bias, leading to unbiased hiring practices. This can be a hindrance to the recruitment of a diverse workforce, and therefore, it is necessary to avoid unconscious bias in hiring practices.
To avoid the problem of unfair hiring practices, companies around the world are boosting the diversity of their workforce by using technology and training managers about interview bias, recruitment bias, and AI recruitment bias. Unconscious racism, ageism, and sexism play a massive role in the candidates who get hired. And recently, new issues such as sexual orientation bias have also come to the fore. However, there are certain steps that one can take to recognize and reduce these biases. So, where do we begin?
Read also: Importance of Diversity and inclusion in the Interview Process
Ways of Overcoming Bias in the Interview Process
If you are reading this, you have already taken the first step which is admitting that there is bias in your process. Beyond this, you should also learn about different kinds of biases and eliminate them. Learn how BarRaiser mitigates bias in your interview process.
Standardize the Interview Process
According to research, unstructured interviews that lack properly defined questions are often unreliable for job success and inclusivity. When the questions are structured, unconscious biases in hiring practice are much less as all the candidates have the same set of defined questions. It allows employers to focus on the factors that directly impact performance. Moreover, using an interview scorecard is also beneficial as it grades the candidate’s responses to each question on a predetermined scale. This helps in the interview becoming a third independent point for sourcing data, thereby reducing bias in the hiring practices.
Research has found that Structured interviews help in reducing unconscious bias. If you are using semi-structured or unstructured interviews, it’s worth exploring the merits of using structured interviews.
If you are unsure what’s being used in your organization, you can contact BarRaiser for a free assessment of your current interview process or check out our free interview planning tool!
Read also: How to Conduct Structured Interviews for Consistent and Fair Hiring Decisions
Have a Diverse Interview Team
Having a cross-functional, diverse interview team is necessary for reducing bias in the hiring process. Hire more diverse managers wherein you focus on creating an environment wherein true diversity at all levels is acknowledged and appreciated. Make sure to have sessions with the interview team to watch out for potential interview biases, common mistakes, etc. Formulate a plan and debrief meeting so that if biases surface, they can be subsequently vetted by the other interviewers.
Creating a diverse interviewer panel is not easy. More often than not, you will see very high demographic similarities in the companies claiming to be flagbearers of diversity.
You can, however, train your interviewers to hire more diverse teams. As most biases are unconscious an occasional classroom training will not help (not to mention, it will cost a bomb!). To attack this systemically, use technology like BarRaiser Interview Intelligence.
Read more: How to train interviewers on Unconscious Bias and promote Diversity & Inclusion
Analyze Each Step of the Unbiased Hiring Process
Make sure to analyze every step of the hiring process, as it is a common misconception that unconscious biases seep in only in the interview stage. Hiring is a process, a series of steps, not just a singular act. Analyze every step, and gather data and information. You can quantify and measure the diversity score in your hiring process. This analysis will help you ascertain where the problem mainly lies, whether it is in the job descriptions, the advertising for candidates, the application process, interviewing structure, etc. Once the steps that have inherent biases are identified, they can be resolved quicker thereby reducing unconscious biases that lead to unfair hiring practices.
It’s important to track the efficiency of your interviews in enabling diversity. Read more about how interview analytics improve your hiring process.
Additional Points To Remember:
- Remove words closely associated with any particular gender from job descriptions
- Make the candidates take a work sample test- this will help in comparison of candidates and determine future job performance effectively.
- Use data and numbers more. Keep personal likability aside by crediting them with numerical scores.
- Use a software program that ensures a level playing field for the judgment of the candidates. During the interview, do not allow surface demographic information or characteristics to seep into your mind.
- Do not neglect the diversity goals that your organization has set. Make sure to track them at every stage to see how well they are being accomplished.
Read also: How to conduct an unbiased interview?
Curbing unconscious bias, especially in the interview process is a difficult task. However, the right tools and equipping your business with the apt processes can significantly reduce the impact of unfair hiring practices in your recruitment process. BarRaiser is committed to ensuring rich insights to help make data-driven decisions, emphasizing regular diversity training for hiring managers to recognize and reduce their unconscious biases and blind spots.
Conclusion
In conclusion, hiring managers must adopt best practices for conducting unbiased interviews to ensure fair and equitable recruitment processes. Tackling unconscious bias in hiring practices becomes an essential step in creating a diverse and inclusive workforce. Organizations can promote unbiased hiring and selection decisions by providing free interview training for hiring managers. They can further enhance the process by utilizing unbiased interview questions. To conduct unbiased job interviews, hiring managers need to adopt a structured and standardized approach. This approach emphasizes job-related qualifications and skills, rather than personal biases or preferences. Hiring managers should possess the necessary knowledge and awareness of unconscious bias and diversity and inclusion principles.
By implementing blind resume screening, organizations can eliminate biases based on gender, ethnicity, or other demographic factors as personal identifying information is removed. This approach directs attention solely to candidates’ qualifications, fostering a more inclusive evaluation process. Furthermore, organizations must regularly assess and improve their interview process to continuously enhance unbiased recruitment practices. They should actively seek feedback, analyze data, and stay updated with industry best practices to refine their interviewing techniques. Ultimately, these concerted efforts contribute to creating a more equitable society where opportunities are based on merit and talent, rather than biases and prejudices.
While a recruiter needs to do everything in their power to avoid bias, sometimes even the best efforts are not enough. This is where AI-backed tools can improve a company’s recruitment process. One such tool is called BarRaiser, a state-of-the-art AI interview assistant.
So, what does BarRaiser do? Well, it’s simple; it makes the job of an interviewer more simple and efficient. As an interview assistant, I take instructions from the interviewer to form a Structured interview questionnaire that judges every candidate using the same metric.
Post-interview also helps the interviewer rate the candidate’s performance over 45 metrics. However, it does not decide anything independently; rather, it depends on the recruiter. For example, if the AI bot asks the interviewer to rate the candidate on five different scales. So, suppose the recruiter gives a dissatisfactory rating on a particular parameter. In that case, the AI bot will go into the transcript of the interview to find out the context behind the rating.
However, just because the recruiter has power over the AI bot doesn’t mean that there are no checks and balances on them. Post-interview, the AI bot generates a report on the interviewer’s conduct. Thai includes uploading the entire interview with the transcripts in little video snippets on the dashboard where every stakeholder can view it.
Using BarRaiser, we guarantee Quality hiring that will bolster diversity and inclusion. BarRaiser is the best AI Interview platform that features structured interviews and tools to ensure quality hiring while eliminating recruitment bias. With BarRaiser’s support, you’ll be well-equipped to build a strong team of sales associates who will drive sales and deliver exceptional customer service.