As human beings, we all have biases that affect our decision-making. These biases can have a minor consequence, but they can have an outsized and negative influence on the business and how it works.

A diverse workforce brings multiple aspects and skill sets to the table, which is good for business. However, most of the recruiters fall prey to the same but powerful biases in their recruiting process. It means both candidates and recruiters lose out on valuable opportunities.

Interview bias happens when the interviewer assesses a candidate not only on their skills but also on unspoken criteria, making the interview less accurate.

For example, an interviewer may reject a candidate based on the simple fact that the candidate didn’t have a ‘good handshake,’ didn’t make enough eye contact, or because they kept their arms crossed during the interview.

Such unconscious bias in interviewing often leads to bad hiring decisions followed by high turnover rates. Also, it harms the efforts companies make to bring more diversity to their workforce and become more inclusive.

Are you struggling to make unbiased hiring decisions? Well, we have got some sure-shot ways that will help you address the recruitment bias hassles and create a win-win situation for both parties. Let’s take a look.

Write Proper Job Descriptions

Job descriptions are what a candidate has first interaction with. You must write a job description using proper language and avoid using terms like ‘salesman’ or accidentally assigning gender to the ideal candidate as they can discourage applicants.

Write compelling job descriptions by removing gender, age, and other restrictive terms that select only a few candidates.

Try A Blind Recruitment Process

Blind recruitment is the practice of covering the applicant’s name, gender, age, and other details to prevent personal biases from affecting the hiring decision. Using the right software for blind recruitment can help you with a successful blind hiring process.

Conduct A Skill Assessment For Candidates

A skill assessment is a screening method that helps recruiters assess a candidate’s skills. For example, suppose your organization is looking for a web developer. A screening test before an interview will give you deep knowledge about a candidate’s technical skills and whether he or she is a right fit for the company or not.

Skill assessment tools can help analyze the hiring process by eradicating the need to review the resume. They offer candidate ranking based on their match for the position.

Use Standardized Questions

Before the interview, creating a set of questions to ask a candidate can help you reduce bias. How? With a set of questions by your side, you won’t accidentally forget to ask anything particular to a candidate. Thus, you can’t reject that candidate based on that specifics.

A good start can be a phone screening. It avoids any judgment based on looks, body language, and other factors related to their external appearance.

Have Multiple People Interview Candidates

While interviewing the candidates, you should have 2-3 interviewers by your side. Each interviewer must have a set of questions related to their expertise and job requirements.

The candidates may not feel like they are answering the same question again and again. Here the idea is to get a clear picture and reduce bias.

The other advantage of having multiple interviewers is that if you have no or least technical knowledge, then other interviewers can ask tech-related questions to the candidate to assess technical skills.

Grade Candidates On A Rubric

Before you initiate your interview process, identify which skills are essential for your organization, and look at those skills in a candidate individually. It will help you avoid stereotyping, first impression bias, and adverse results, among others.

Generally, the hiring manager and recruiter will already have determined the skills required for the open position when putting together the job description and vacancy (so it makes sense to use the same ones).

Fall Back On Data

Data can have positive impact on multiple parts of the hiring process.

• Expanded talent pools.
  HR leaders can use data to find, examine and adjust various aspects of their outreach to expand their talent pools. With a broader lens and improved understanding of people, organizations can create more effectively DEI strategies.
• Broaden understanding among stakeholders.
  Utilizing data for recruitment raises awareness among business and HR leaders of the availability of diverse talent segments in nonobvious alternative locations.
• Understanding bias.
  External labor market and competitor level diversity data are two of the best proxies HR leaders have to discover whether biased talent processes are preventing the fair and equitable acquisition, development and promotion of diverse talent in organizations.
• Reducing unconscious bias when hiring
  Data can be used to filter the best candidates from a large pool. You can set up a auto evaluated screening test. These test evaluate the candidate and automatically create leaderboard based on merit. This allows you make decision based on merit.

Making data driven hiring decisions can help you create more diverse and inclusive teams.

Hiring bias can lead to selecting employees who aren’t fit for an organization’s requirements. Additionally, it can lead a company to get into legal trouble on the grounds of discrimination.

Eliminating hiring bias and promoting diversity and inclusion has the following benefits:

High-performing Teams Are More Diverse

As a recruiter, it is crucial to understand the dynamics of your teams and which forces each member brings. Research states that teams should be a mix of 50% men and women. Additionally, female managers reported higher levels of cohesiveness and better team performance compared to male managers.

Diverse Teams Lead To Creative Problem-Solving

Employees will exceed when they understand how their unique strengths benefit the group and overall company. The more diverse a team is, the more likely it is to consider different strategies that will result in innovative and compelling ideas.

Diverse Teams Are Good For Business

Speaking ethically, companies with a diverse workforce are 33% more likely to have above-average profitability. A report also found a significant relationship between a diverse leadership team and financial out-performance.

Eliminating interviewer bias entirely is impossible as humans have innate preferences. With that said, you can still make a significant impact on your company’s bias reduction efforts by having straightforward interview and evaluation practices.

According to Ideal, removing hiring bias will help you achieve a fair hiring process and reduce the failure rate for hire, up to 50%.

Now you have all the tips on reducing bias hiring, it’s time to polish your hiring process.