How Bosses Are Biased When Recruiting

I recently wrote a blog about how to overcome ‘age discrimination’ if you are looking for work. The truth, I wrote, is that it is not easy to overcome and you basically have to have a smoking hot resume and really sell yourself and your experience during the job interview. I only wrote that recently and so I was fascinated to come across a report on a new study that looks at how an employer’s conscious and unconscious biases creep in when reviewing resumes. The research found that bosses do discriminate against women and people from minority backgrounds.

In this American study, the researchers sent out fake resumes and looked at how employers responded. A number of companies agreed to take part. Each participating firm rated 40 randomly assigned fake resumes. The fake resumes were developed from information from real resumes and listed education, work experience and leadership skills.

The study was run by Wharton business economics and public policy professors Judd B. Kessler and Corinne Low and doctoral student Colin D. Sullivan. The paper, “Incentivized Resume Rating: Eliciting Employer Preferences without Deception,” will be published in the journal American Economic Review.

The fake resumes were designed so employers saw names that clearly identified candidates’ gender and ethnicity.

Employers recruiting in humanities and social sciences did not rate female or minority applicants lower on average, but employers recruiting in the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths did discriminate. On average, the CV of women and minority groups had to be around 5 per cent better than Anglo men to receive the same reception from bosses.

Prof Low says firms need to think very seriously about this bias and start looking at how to ‘strip that out’. Employers also gave less credit to where female and minority candidates groups had worked in the past – even if they had been employed by highly reputable companies.

“It was quite a big effect,” Prof Low said. “Women and minorities only got about half the boost that a white man would have got.”

Employers also thought that female and minority candidates would be less likely to accept their job offer.

“Companies say that they value diversity and think that everybody else is doing the same, and that they’re all going to be chasing those candidates,” Prof Low said. “But our research shows they don’t actually have those preferences.”

Some companies say they want to diversify their workforces and identify non-traditional candidates (like women returning to the workforce after taking time out for child raising, etc) but the results of the study show they are not following through.

“They are excluding the exact type of candidates they say they want to be interested in,” Prof Low found.

How to change this

Some experts have argued that we should leave it to computers, not people, to assess resumes and identify the people who should get interviewed for the job. Prof Low says it’s inevitable that the prejudice of bosses would be programmed into the software used to identify candidates.

“Firms need to remember that if you have some of these biases, they’re going to get hard-wired into the algorithm,” she said.

Ways for recruiters to overcome bias

After reading about this study, I searched the internet to find out if there was advice for bosses on how to overcome personal bias. For your interest here are some of the key recommendations.

1. Bosses should look at their past hiring record

They need to look for trends. Do they always end up hiring the same kind of people or people from the same gender, ethnicity, race or sexual orientation? That’s a pattern they need to break. Acknowledge the biases – this is the first step to overcome it.

2. Re-evaluate job descriptions

Building an inclusive work culture begins with creating an inclusive job description because that forms the first impression potential employees have of the company. Many companies make the mistake of using gendered language that make women feel excluded. Research shows women are reluctant to apply for jobs with descriptions that contained masculine words, like ‘chairman’. Use neutral words to make job descriptions inclusive and effective. While stating the perks, consider those that appeal to a wide section of people of all genders, races and ages. For example is the job ‘family friendly’? Are working hours flexible around the needs of children?

3. Interviews are a two-way street.

In an interview recruiters should ask the right questions to know candidates better and give them the scope to ask questions as well. Both the parties should get something out of an interview. Remember, it’s an interview, not an interrogation. Go into the interview with an open mind. Tell them something about you. A one-sided conversation will not give you any interesting insight into the candidate’s personality and can negatively influence your hiring decision.

4. Have a diverse panel

There is a lot one can say about how diverse a company culture is by just looking at the interview panel. An interview panel consisting of men and women from different backgrounds and ages denotes diversity and also gives positive signals to the potential employee. This eliminates unconscious bias and brings varied perspectives to the table which is essential in making an unbiased decision.

5. Be objective not subjective

What do bosses make their decisions on? They must evaluate these parameters with fellow interviewers before selecting the right candidate for the role. Bosses should have a criteria list, that include factors like educational background, past work experience, technical knowledge, skills and personality. It is okay to ask them to solve situational problems on the spot to gauge how well suited they are for the role.

Afterwarda, every interviewer should rate the candidate on the objectives.

6. Review the interview process

Bosses need to keep reviewing the interview process and looking for blind spots. Get feedback on the recruitment process from candidates and be open to making improvements. Set up a candidate experience survey where every candidate can share their experience and give feedback on the entire process right from the job description to the personal interview stage. Look at feedback from employees and get opinions on the hiring process.

A female friend of mine recently complained that Australian bosses are mostly pale, male and stale. The percentage of female CEOs in Australia has not risen in years, and fewer women seem to be entering politics. I think it probably is time for people to be more right-on and look closely on what is stopping women and minority groups from really achieving … or am I just beginning to sound like a man who has daughters and worries about their future?