No manager wants to think that they might bring a biased viewpoint into their hiring decisions. But research suggests that unconscious bias often happens at the leadership level—even when the leaders in question had been through training specifically on objective hiring. As just one example, a Yale University study found that both male and female scientists with hiring responsibility showed a preference for hiring men.
With this disturbing reality in mind, FlexJobs asked three business leaders with expertise on how can companies eliminate conscious and unconscious bias during the hiring process for their insights on this critical matter.
One of these leaders is workplace strategist Chelsea C. Williams, founder and CEO of College Code, which facilitates the development and retention of early-stage professionals. Williams explained that among the first places organizations seek to make strides in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) is in talent attraction, selection, and sourcing, collectively known as recruitment.
“A core success factor in recruitment is a process that mitigates bias and fosters conscious inclusion,” Williams said. “Conscious inclusion has intentional steps to include and consider the experiences of others. Conscious inclusion requires leveraging the senses and consistently evaluating what was in consideration of what is necessary for the future.”
Williams and the other experts identified the following five strategies for organizations, managers, and HR teams to consider in helping to remove bias from their hiring process.
Use a Structured Interview Process
The easiest way to eliminate bias in hiring—including for remote positions—is to follow a structured interview process, according to Stephen Light. Light is a remote business leader and the co-owner of Nolah Mattress and has experience managing a remote team.
“It is easy for bias to surface in interviews if you follow an unstructured process,” Light said. “When you’re free to ask any question, you’re basing the question on the candidate’s experience, age, and gender—however, those questions are full of bias and don’t give candidates an equal chance because of varying questions.”
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Light explained that a structured interview process requires hiring managers and recruiters to follow a strict series of questions, asking each candidate identical questions. “Doing so gives all the candidates equal chances of proving their worth to the interview panel,” Light said. “In contrast, it isn’t easy to do that in an unstructured interview process because of the different questions.”
Standardize Your Recruitment Process
Richard Buckle—a director at the UK-based company Wellmeadow, which specializes in business growth, marketing, and recruitment—says his team recommends having a documented, standardized recruitment process to eliminate bias.
“Having a process that you can continually refer to can ensure that bias does not leak into the recruitment journey,” Buckle said. Having a documented process means that in addition to setting interview questions in a structured way as explained above, employers can standardize all touchpoints of recruitment and hiring, such as creating job descriptions and questionnaires and, as Buckle recommends, vetting them prior to ensure they’re indiscriminate. “This also means that candidates will get equal opportunity to impress,” Buckle said.
Conduct an Audit of Collateral Hiring Materials
Williams suggests that hiring teams audit all collateral hiring materials—including job descriptions, interview questions, and panels. This can help ensure you have avoided biases and mitigated inequity.
Williams advised that HR can lead this action step in partnership with hiring managers, adding that in some cases, organizations hire a DE&I consultant to lead this effort. “Consider degree requirements, gendered language, and measuring diverse candidates for performance versus potential,” Williams said.
Consider Conscious Technology
Another practical way that employers can seek to eliminate bias in hiring is by ensuring all technology platforms and tools leveraged in the recruitment process were designed through a diverse, inclusive, and equitable lens, according to Williams.
“Inclusive design has emerged over the last five years and is continuing to be a major area of focus in the tech ecosystem,” she said. “Platforms such as RippleMatch have launched inclusive products in the early-career recruiting space that seek to make it easy to hire top talent virtually and build diverse teams.”
Offer Hiring Manager Support
Williams also recommended providing capacity-building to hiring managers to help them understand how to support a bias-free, consciously inclusive recruitment process. “Many times, employers hire a DE&I trainer/facilitator to design relevant training or direct employees to online resources, such as LinkedIn Learning,” she said.
As an example, Williams pointed to the course Uncovering Unconscious Bias in Recruiting and Interviewing by Dr. Tana Session. She advised moving away from one-time training to developmental opportunities to support managers and micro-learning opportunities that build on core themes taught.
Avoiding unconscious bias is incredibly important to the future of organizations in every industry, both from a people and performance perspective. Make sure you follow the strategies above to make your recruiting, interviewing, and hiring process as bias-free as humanly possible.
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