Podcasts
Blogs
Interviewing guide
Interview questions
E-books
Webinars
Interview Highlights
Diversity and Inclusion
Quick Hiring
Hiring Bias
Quality Hiring
AI interview notes
HR Recruiter
Hiring Manager
Interviewer
HR Leader
Guide for Interviewers
Structured Interviews
Interviewer Training
Interview Platform
Interview as a service
About us
Contact Us
Integration
Partners
Religious bias might be the least talked-about bias, especially when it comes to the hiring industry. However, as the world has now become a global village with people of different nationalities and religions working together, such instances of bias are on the rise. While religion is usually not mentioned in any CVs, it can be a source of discrimination. The source of this discrimination has to be the interview process. It is here that the candidate enters the hiring process.
Out of all the biases, religious bias is the toughest to detect. This is because it can intertwine with other biases, such as gender, race, or socioeconomic status. This is why a case of religious bias may be wrongly interpreted as some other bias or, even worse, no bias at all.
What is Religious Bias?
According to the US Department of Commerce, Religious bias is ‘discrimination that involves treating individuals differently because of their religious beliefs and practices and/or their request for accommodations of their religious beliefs and practices’.
Religious bias also extends to how one treats an individual and perceives their viewpoints on a particular topic based on the person’s religion. One reason for the bias could be how religion is viewed in the United States. Religion in the US is mostly considered to be a private affair, and public display of it is not viewed favorably, especially at a workplace.
Researchers have found that a CV that mentions religion has a far lower chance of acceptance than one that doesn’t mention it.
Read More: AI Bias Audit Strategies for Fair Hiring Practices
Types of Religious bias
Like any other biases, religious bias can occur for several reasons. The four main categories are affiliation, characteristics, perception, and association.
By Affiliation
This type of religious bias occurs when a person is targeted, harassed, or discriminated against because they are affiliated with a particular region. For example, employees could be discriminated against not because they have done something wrong but because they follow a specific religion.
By Characteristics
In this type of religious bias, a person is discriminated against based on his appearance or dressing. This type of discrimination could be due to the person’s clothing, which may give away his religion. One of the most common examples is harassment because of wearing a hijab, yarmulke, etc.
Read More: What is Disability bias and how can we solve it?
By Perception
A person could also be religiously discriminated against because he may be perceived as belonging to a particular religion even when he may not be. This is a classic case of mistaken identity, where certain characteristics may lead one to believe a person belongs to a certain religion.
By Association
A person could also be discriminated against because he may be affiliated with a religion by marriage, conversion, or other. Like the perception bias, an individual might not be from that particular religion and is just being targeted because of affiliation.
Read More: What is Gender Bias in Hiring? Solutions to Prevent it
How to eliminate Religious bias in hiring
Hiring a more diverse interview panel
Since religion is rarely mentioned on a CV, the majority of such cases occur during the interview stage. So, one way to curtail this bias is to ensure that an organization has a diverse interview panel so that candidates do not have to go through a discriminatory process. Having fewer incidents of biases will automatically lead to an increase in the quality of hiring.
Blind resumes
Earlier in the article, we touched on the issues that religion mentioned CV is far more likely to get rejected. And although their numbers are less, that does happen. So, having a resume that does not have any characteristics of an individual (name, religion, photograph) is the best way to solve this problem. In the hiring industry, these are called Blind Resumes. They were brought initially to curb biases such as racial and gender, but they are equally effective in containing religious bias as well.
Creating strong anti-discrimination policies
While an organization can make every effort to curb bias of any kind, incidents can happen. In such a case, there should already be strong zero-tolerance policies. Taking such measures will ensure that there is a healthy work environment where employees feel secure. This, in turn, will motivate them to work diligently and, at the same time, help improve their loyalty to the organization, thus improving the company’s retention rate.
Conduct sensitization workshops
Even if a candidate has a smooth interview experience, they could be a victim of bias when they join their workplace. This bias can stem from their co-workers, managers, or other senior company employees.
Organizations can also ensure that their employees are well aware of any such biases. This can be done by conducting regular sensitization workshops, where employees are taught about such biases and how to avoid them.
Read More: Unlock the Power of Your Workforce: How to Optimize Your HR Tech Stack
How BarRaiser helps in eradicating bias
There is no guarantee that bias won’t happen even after taking all the measures as mentioned above. After all, the human factor can always introduce biases in the hiring process. So, what is the solution to ensure a bias-free hiring process? This is where BarRaiser comes to your rescue. Our Interview intelligence platform helps ensure that organizers conduct smarter interviews. The Artificial intelligence-backed ecosystem uses advanced methodologies such as structured interviews.
We also have an AI Interview Copilot, a tool that simplifies the interview process. This tool offers real-time suggestions to ensure flawless operations. It recommends a predetermined set of questions to ensure that the Interview does not get stuck at a point and continues smoothly. It also provided feedback on both the employee and the interviewer.
After the Interview is conducted, a report is generated for both the candidate and the interviewer. This report is then sent to the hiring manager. BarRaiser also raises alerts if a question which may be discriminatory to the candidate is asked. This ensures that there are checks and balances in the system.
BarRaiser also provides interviewer training to make sure your team is always recruiting the best of candidates. We also believe that not every organization may have the resources at their disposal to run and use our tool on a daily basis. This is where Interview as a service product helps companies outsource their hiring process to avoid the hassle.
Using our tool helps companies ensure quality hiring in their interview process. In the long run, it helps companies ensure diversity and inclusion in their workplace while ate the same time eliminating hiring bias.
