Just Because You Like Them Doesn’t Mean They’re Right For The Role

Most of us understand the concept of bias. It is a tendency to believe that some things are better than others, without any real evidence. This leads to the favouritism of certain ideas and people, and the unfair dismissal of others.

These days, when people are openly biased, they are often challenged. 

But how do we combat unconscious bias?

Don’t trust your gut

Unconscious judgements on their own are not a bad thing. In fact, they help us to make everyday snap decisions all the time.

Imagine you are choosing between two food brands. You might reach for one over the other because the packaging is your favourite colour. That’s fine. The unconscious part of your brain just cut a corner to save you time.

It’s only a problem when this affects decisions that need logic. Like which candidate you should hire to scale your company, or drive new product innovations.

According to a December 2023 report, 89% of hiring managers said they have made judgments about applicants within the first 15 minutes of the initial interview.

Interviewers tend to use intuition and mental shortcuts to make quick hiring decisions. But the quicker the decision, the more it is influenced by unconscious thought. This opens the door to unconscious bias, and we end up choosing talent on gut instinct rather than merit.

Basically, when we think fast, we think lazy.

Challenge your preconceptions

Some types of bias make us form negative ideas of a candidate early on, even before meeting them. These can come from a candidate’s name, or from how they look or speak, and are usually rooted in social stereotypes.

A famous academic study from almost 20 years ago suggests that candidates with White-sounding names receive as much as 50% more call backs than those with Black-sounding names.

Our unconscious brain pre-judges people on everything. This can be age, gender, ethnicity, religion, how they dress or even whether we find them attractive.

The root cause of many of these judgments is stereotyping.  For example, the assumption that X group of people are not as intelligent, competent or reliable as Y group of people. These stereotypes contribute to measurable trends in hiring, such as:

• Applicants aged 40 and above are almost 50% less likely to receive an interview.

• Applicants of minority ethnic backgrounds see a 50% decrease in interviews when they divulge their race. 

What makes this really damaging is that it combines with confirmation bias. This is where we focus on information that backs up our established ideas. We might be harsher, say, to an older candidate who doesn’t recognise a piece of software, than we would a younger one.

This opens us up to the “Horn” effect. This is where we form a negative impression based on one trait, behaviour or answer to a question. This makes it much harder for candidates we have pre-judged to “win us over” – and makes it less likely you will pick them to join your team.

Don’t play favourites

Other types of bias make us favour certain ideas and people because they are appealing or familiar to us. A key part of this is affinity bias (aka similarity bias). This makes us gravitate towards people who share our own characteristics and backgrounds.

Reports suggest that managers are 3x more likely to hire someone who has similar job experience to them. We also know that people show favouritism to people of their own ethnicity and social background, due to ingroup-outgroup bias.

This leads into the “Halo” effect, where we form an overall positive impression based on one piece of information. This makes it much easier for people we find familiar to convince us they are a good fit for the position.

When workplaces already have low diversity, this amplifies these biases. It increases the chance that we lean into culture fit and the status quo. This means we judge candidates based on soft factors and first impressions, and make decisions to keep things as they already are.

So, what can you do?

We know that companies with a diverse workforce perform better than those without. This means a diverse hiring strategy is a must-have. Combating unconscious bias should be high on the list – or you risk undermining your other efforts.

Begin with inclusive job descriptions

Many job ads use gender-coded language, and this affects which candidates apply. It also encourages bias in your interviewers, who might find men more “driven” or women more “responsible”.

Anonymise your applications

Ideally, you should remove everything except experience and skills. You might consider removing the names of past employers or dates for education, as well as more obvious details such as name and age.

Be intentional about tech

AI has repeatedly been proven to carry over biases from the data it is trained on. Make sure you research any time-saving tools you want to use.

Dig deeper

Often, biases are so ingrained and unintentional that simple probing into why someone prefers the responses a candidates gave, or why having a certain set of skills and experiences is required from candidates can reveal biases. Create an environment that allows your team to challenge each other and their biases in a judgement-free, open way. 

Create skill-based assessments

These are less biassed because they let you judge the hard skills of your applicants. Use this to shorten your lists.

Run structured interviews

Ask the same questions in the same order, and combine this with defined scoring systems. Everyone on your panel should know what a one-star answer is versus what a five-star answer is. At the end, take an average on their scores rather than looking at highest and lowest.

Invest in unconscious bias training

Empower your panels to challenge themselves over preconceptions. You should also have a system for flagging bias they observe in others.

Don’t make it easy

The safe choice is usually the familiar one. Encourage a slower, more thoughtful hiring process. Interviewers should take notes, and always ask themselves why they feel one way or another about the candidate.

Overall, aim to create hiring processes where it is difficult to act on bias. By employing a mix of the strategies above, you can support your people to make informed decisions, avoid assumptions and not listen to their gut.

Looking for more inclusive hiring tips like these? Check out 20 Things You Should Do To Hire Inclusively (But Probably Aren’t), a guide we created in partnership with FairHQ, filled with actionable tips you can implement or remind your team about this week, to create a more inclusive and equitable hiring process.