Uncovering Unconscious Bias in Recruiting and Interviewing

No matter how many AI recruitment tools emerge for use within the workplace and to assist with hiring decisions, they can never replace human judgment and decisions that seal the fate of incoming talent in a company.

Human interference and judgment can attract some of a company's best talents, but can also lead to costly hiring mistakes. That’s why hiring and recruitment are critical processes, where hiring managers and HR professionals have the entire company’s future at stake.

Human judgment based on past experiences and preconceived notions can lead to unconscious bias in recruiting and interviewing, where candidates lose out on opportunities, long before they can prove themselves.

Does that mean hiring managers must ignore their past experiences? How can recruiters decide which candidates deserve a chance? Is it possible to filter candidates without human interference and bias?

In this blog, we’ll learn how unconscious bias from humans in the recruitment process can be a barrier to hiring great talent. We will also explore ways to filter the best applicants without human bias.

What is Unconscious Bias?

Unconscious bias refers to enforcing certain preconceived notions into routine tasks without validating their correctness in a given scenario.

During recruitment, talent acquisition team members play a crucial role in selecting and filtering numerous candidate profiles through various stages of the hiring pipeline. It can be difficult to filter or reject profiles where all candidates have equal qualifications, abilities, experiences, and more.

In such cases, recruiters tend to pick candidates with whom they can associate more easily unconsciously. For instance, recruiters may choose candidates from their alma mater, those who share similar hobbies, or who belong to the same ethnic background.

While such notions or “gut instincts” can attract good candidates, they can sometimes lead to unfair rejections or the denial of opportunities to candidates who would have been great fits for the given roles.

The Most Common Types of Bias in Recruiting and Interviewing

Whether a technical interview, HR interview, or evaluating profiles for eligibility, talent professionals in charge of each process can unconsciously bring some of their preconceived notions and biases into the selection process.

Here are some of the common types of unconscious biases during interviews and interactions that can make the hiring process unfair for some candidates:

1. Affinity Bias: When hiring professionals select candidates who share common interests, they can unintentionally develop a preference for them and advance them to the next hiring stage. Such common characteristics include shared hobbies, practicing the same religion, coming from the same ethnic background, and much more.
2. Confirmation Bias: Some hiring managers shortlist specific candidates by looking for parameters that confirm their preconceived notions. For instance, they believe candidates from certain universities are high performers. Thus, they use that as a filtering parameter and a confirmation to select them for the next step.
3. Halo and Horn Effect: Icebreaker conversations with candidates during interviews can sometimes distract both participants from the actual purpose of the interview and lead to rapport development. This affinity, in turn, leads to a so-called halo effect, resulting in the hiring of a candidate due to their newfound closeness.
4. Similarity Bias: This implicit bias occurs when hiring professionals tend to favor candidates who are similar to them, such as those from the same graduate school, belonging to the same community, or hailing from a similar financial background.
5. Expectation Bias: Expectation bias is yet another form of implicit bias based on preconceived notions from past experiences. For instance, hiring managers select profiles based on past data indicating that candidates from a certain university tend to perform well. However, the chosen candidates may not meet the expectations, resulting in a costly mistake.
6. Interviewer Bias and Unintentional Bias: Sometimes, interviewers may not select certain candidates simply because they feel uncomfortable with them, have had past ego clashes, or personal conflicts. For instance, certain interviewers are not pleased with candidates who arrive even a minute late, leading to their rejection without considering the cause.

Where Does Bias Creep in During the Hiring Process?

In addition to the bias candidates face during their interactions with recruiters, they can also lose out on opportunities due to implicit bias in hiring decisions and processes within the hiring pipeline.

The following stages of hiring are often less noticed but have a high chance of introducing unconscious biases, which can lead to missing out on some of the best talent.

1. Writing Job Descriptions

A clear and concise job description helps candidates determine their suitability for a job. However, sometimes, the language used in such descriptions can indirectly hint that certain candidates are not welcome, for instance, because it is gender-specific, requires candidates to live in a particular city, or the like.

While some job roles require rigid requirements, there are better ways to describe them so that all candidates feel comfortable and are willing to apply.

2. Resume Screening

A mammoth task in the recruitment process is screening numerous resumes to filter the best for the subsequent rounds of hiring. Manually doing this process can be laborious and tiresome, often leading to unconscious bias creeping in when recruiters become stressed.

Such jobs are best outsourced to AI recruitment tools, which help filter resumes that exactly match the job descriptions without filtering based on factors such as alma mater, city, ethnicity, and more.

3. Interview Setup and Format

A standard interview format and a similar questioning pattern can help recruiters give all candidates a fair chance. Of course, it can be tricky to repeat the same questions to all candidates. At the same time, testing candidates in a completely contrasting manner can lead to unfair rejections.

Similarly, video interviews can lead to confusion and biased decisions among interviewers. Background noises during interviews, poor camera quality, and network issues during calls can lead to unfair judgments on the ability of those candidates to work remotely.

4. Candidate Scoring and Feedback

Each interviewer can have their own way of scoring and selecting candidates. Some may emphasize the correct solution, while others give more weight to a candidate’s approach and patience in deciphering various pathways to a solution.

To avoid such confusion, talent professionals must establish uniform interview scoring parameters for a given job role when crafting the job description. Additionally, interviewers must provide constructive feedback to employees based on their current performance, without judging them based on their appearance, educational background, or other factors.

5. Final Hiring Decision

No matter how hard recruiters try to identify the best candidates, there can be situations where two or more candidates are equally proficient and eligible for a job role. These are the last and worst situations where candidates become victims of unconscious bias or “gut instincts,” losing out on a job role despite performing at their best.

Companies must resort to additional tie-breaker challenges during such critical situations to determine which candidate performs better. Otherwise, if the budget permits, one may be chosen immediately, while the other can be hired for similar job roles without requiring interviews.

9 Proven Strategies to Reduce Unconscious Bias in Hiring

Sometimes, unconscious bias creeps in before recruiters can analyze candidates' fit in the selection process. Here are some strategies to avoid and control bias during the recruitment process.

1. Use Inclusive and Bias-Free Language in Job Descriptions

Companies must create clear and attractive job descriptions to fill job roles effectively. The words and language used in job descriptions can significantly influence whether candidates apply. However, using certain words to highlight role preferences and the team’s dynamics can make certain groups of candidates feel they are not suitable for the role.

If your company values DEI initiatives as a core company policy, it is vital to use an inclusive language to ensure candidates do not feel offended.

For instance, it is okay to expect candidates to be based in the same city as the office to qualify for the job role. However, your job description must clearly state how the company is prepared to support candidates who wish to relocate or commute to work. Similarly, job roles can expect employees to pitch in more work hours, which can be difficult for some candidates. In such cases, be clear to highlight the perks they will receive upon taking such challenges, prompting hesitant candidates to make a conscious choice.

2. Standardize Interview Questions for All Candidates

Recruiters must discuss the team's requirements for new talent with the team and understand the duties and responsibilities that candidates must possess. Then, they must create a standard set of interview questions that allows candidates to be judged on their approach and analytical skills.

It is difficult to ask all candidates the same questions, especially considering they can be shared after the interview. For these reasons, interview panels must ask questions on a rotational basis, conduct such interviews confidentially so that candidates do not engage in malpractices, and focus more on the problem-solving approach rather than the right solution.

Additionally, the interview panel should remain consistent for all candidates qualifying for a certain round of hiring. Maintaining this consistency is key to eliminating any additional bias or missing out on good talent.

3. Adopt Blind Resume Screening Practices

The foremost step in the hiring process involves screening several resumes and shortlisting relevant ones that match the job roles. In today’s AI-driven marketplace, recruiters find it increasingly challenging to filter candidates with impressive resumes and differentiate between genuine and fabricated candidate experiences.

In such cases, many talent managers follow their gut instincts, often fueled by unconscious bias, to filter talent. This includes candidates with a specific professional qualification, preferences for particular coursework, or connections to top competitor companies, among other factors.

For such reasons, it is best to outsource the talent screening, shortlisting, and filtering processes, keeping them blinded from the actual team leaders and professionals who will decide on hiring results. Several AI recruitment tools offer accurate insights and screening results that align with the job description, eliminating unconscious bias.

4. Implement Structured Interview Formats With Scorecards

Companies can find it challenging to develop a uniform interview format for different job roles, as different roles require varying methods of testing candidates’ expertise.

There may be scenarios where a hiring manager, a domain expert from a different team, chooses a candidate based on personal expertise levels. Still, the candidate may not be the best fit for the target team.

To avoid this confusion, team leaders and HR professionals should develop standard and structured interview formats tailored to different job roles within their teams. They must elicit the expected requirements from each interview level and the tests and questions that candidates must pass to qualify for hiring.

Teams must also develop a common scorecard for different job roles, ensuring that all candidates are evaluated fairly. Maintaining an ordered interview process and scoring system makes it easy to feed this data to AI tools, which process it and provide valuable hiring insights.

5. Use Objective Evaluation Metrics Tied to Role Requirements

While most interview processes in the hiring pipeline evaluate candidates’ technical skills for the job role, recruiters must dedicate at least one round to determining the fitness of candidates with the overall objective of the job role in the target team. However, this “fitness” interview has a lot of unintentional scope for unconscious bias to creep in and seal the fate of some candidates.

Without proper evaluation metrics to determine a candidate’s fitness, HR rounds often result in unfair rejections where expectations do not align with reality. For instance, it can be unfair to conduct a mandatory stress-testing interview for an entry-level candidate just because it is a company policy.

HR professionals and recruiting managers must ensure that each step of the hiring process involves wholesome and objective evaluation of candidates to meet the exact requirements of the job role. Having clear evaluation metrics that accurately assess candidates for the required job role makes it easier for AI tools to support hiring decisions and provide clear insights during tiebreakers or instances of unconscious bias.

6. Involve Diverse Interview Panels for Balanced Feedback

Just like how companies must recruit candidates from diverse backgrounds, the hiring panel members must also come from equally diverse backgrounds. This involves selecting recruiters from diverse ethnic backgrounds, different alma maters, and possessing a range of skillsets, among other factors.

A diverse interview panel projects the idea that the company hires diverse people without bias in choosing candidates from only certain alma maters or ethnic backgrounds.

Additionally, allowing diverse members to participate in the interview process helps break any unconscious affinity bias that may occur when candidates are connected with one or more interviewers. A diverse panel can yield comprehensive feedback on candidates, providing fine details that facilitate easier filtering and selection for the next hiring stage.

7. Train Hiring Managers on Unconscious Bias and DEI

Just as the term “unconscious bias” suggests, some recruiters and talent managers may be unaware that their preconceived notions influence their hiring decisions.

For instance, a manager’s past hires from a particular technical institute may have significantly contributed to the company’s business. However, this need not be a deciding factor for the manager to involuntarily reject candidates who are tied up with another candidate from the same institution.

Therefore, companies and talent outsourcing agencies must train all recruiters, hiring managers, and interview panel members regarding the different types of unconscious bias in recruiting. Awareness and eliciting appropriate examples, conducting DEI workshops, interview role-play sessions, and mock panels help managers reflect on their unconscious biases and avoid them in the future.

8. Collect Anonymous Feedback After Interviews

What may be a filtering norm for job creators and recruiters can seem offensive to specific candidates. As we discussed earlier, certain job roles require strict criteria typically fulfilled by specific types of employees. Such notions may lead to unconscious rejections of employees who are outliers, willing to take on challenges and outshine the rest.

Collecting feedback from all candidates after their interviews helps them share their opinions and experiences with the interview panel and recruiting managers. Their feedback forms a valuable source for uncovering unconscious bias in recruiting and interview sessions, highlighting the bias exhibited by those recruiters.

Conducting such feedback interviews anonymously helps provide fair opportunities to candidates in the future, even if they may have to face the same interviewers who are unaware of candidates who have highlighted their bias.

9. Audit and Analyze Hiring Data Regularly for Patterns

Most strategies discussed in uncovering bias in recruitment and hiring suggest evaluating candidates based on structured metrics and standard scoring. Additionally, each stage must involve collecting proper feedback from the candidates and their interviewers.

The data collected in every stage of the hiring process serves as fodder for several levels of data-driven analytics using AI recruitment tools. Such tools utilize this data to provide insights into patterns of unconscious bias prevalent among recruiters when hiring candidates.

Periodic analysis and audits of such data help uncover and remove biased selection criteria, enabling hiring managers to make more informed decisions when evaluating equally qualified candidates. Several AI tools provide HR professionals and talent acquisition consultants with valuable insights on implementing a hiring process free from any biased patterns.

How Revaluate180 Helps Identify and Reduce Bias in Hiring?

Recognizing and identifying unconscious bias in hiring is just a small step. Companies must take holistic measures to help recruiters and interviewers overcome their unconscious bias and make data-driven hiring decisions.

Revaluate180 can help hiring partners and talent acquisition professionals address concerns related to unconscious bias in recruitment decision-making. Our proprietary data-driven model helps reduce discrimination and improve productivity throughout the hiring process.

We go beyond evaluating technical resumes to analyzing a candidate’s personal value profile. This data helps us provide quantifiable insights into a candidate's relevance for a job role, eliminating the space for unconscious bias and preconceived notions during the screening and evaluation process.

Furthermore, our programs involve long-term data insights tracking that help companies continually refine their hiring processes and identify potential areas where hiring managers can improve, making the hiring process fair for all.

Final Thoughts: Uncovering Bias For Better Hiring and Retention

Unconscious bias can manifest itself in multiple ways at various stages of the recruitment process. Nevertheless, uncovering unconscious bias in recruiting and interviewing is achievable through continuous feedback and process refinement.

The key to removing biased hiring decisions is to identify and acknowledge the presence of an unconscious bias and provide awareness of conscious decision-making to avoid missing great talent.

Several AI tools and recruitment platforms help reduce and avoid bias by facilitating blind screening and evaluation based on precise job requirements. Moreover, their AI-driven insights enable recruiters to make informed decisions based on robust data-driven analytics.

Reach out to us today if you wish to enhance your hiring process, which will yield maximum talent retention and attract the best candidates for your job roles.

FAQs

1. How can unconscious bias be overcome when interviewing and hiring?

The key to overcoming biased hiring decisions is to become aware of oneself and assess the correctness of decisions. This process involves collecting and analyzing feedback from candidates regularly.

Furthermore, hiring professionals must attend periodic training and workshops to assess their decision-making skills and have honest conversations with experts to understand how they can be better decision-makers.

2. What is a useful way to uncover an unconscious bias?

In recent times, AI-based recruitment tools have been trending, thanks to their ability to speed up and accurately predict the hiring relevance of candidates to a job profile. From screening valid profiles, shortlisting and evaluating the best fits, and conducting online tests to assisting interviewers during live interviews and providing insights on hiring decisions, these tools are all-rounders.

3. What is an example of unconscious bias in recruitment?

Several forms of bias arise unconsciously during the hiring process based on the recruiter’s preconceived notions. One common way bias manifests itself during hiring is through affinity. Affinity bias occurs when recruiters find candidates who share anything in common with them.

Coming from the same ethnic background, pursuing similar hobbies, speaking their native language, residing in their neighborhood, being blood related, and similar reasons often lead recruiters to be biased towards such candidates over others.

4. What are the three C’s for managing unconscious bias?

Companies must ensure their recruiting professionals follow these 3 C’s to avoid and control bias during hiring.

• Curiosity: Learning and analyzing different perspectives rather than blindly trusting their gut instinct and preconceived notions.
• Courageousness: Highlighting bias when meted out to candidates by other professionals in the hiring pipeline and providing constructive feedback.
• Commitment: Persistent efforts to uncover unconscious bias and strive to get the best talent for the company.