What Methods Can You Employ to Reduce Bias in Recruitment?

What Methods Can You Employ to Reduce Bias in Recruitment?

To help you mitigate bias in the recruitment process, we asked CEOs and talent consultants for their best strategies. From using structured interview questions to creating a candidate matrix, here are the top four methods these leaders shared on reducing bias in recruitment.

• Use Structured Interview Questions
• Implement Blind Recruitment Practices
• Standardize Interviews and Assessments
• Create a Candidate Matrix

Use Structured Interview Questions

While it is important to be approachable in an interview, recruitment bias can become an issue when hiring managers are inconsistent in their interview format and questions. It is a natural tendency to gravitate toward candidates that you can relate to, leaving room for personality bias. Creating structured, open-ended interview questions will ensure consistency in interviews and allow for improved candidate comparison and selection.

Implement Blind Recruitment Practices

Blind recruitment practices are pretty helpful for reducing bias, particularly when hiring in an international environment as I do. On the whole, this is a practice that involves removing personally identifiable information, such as names, photos, and addresses, from applications during the initial screening process either via HR software or manually by an HR specialist not involved in the selection process. By focusing solely on candidates' skills, experience, and qualifications, organizations can minimize unconscious bias and create a more equitable hiring process.

Standardize Interviews and Assessments

I've always thought that one of the better ways to reduce bias is a bit of standardization, which, in this context, means going with structured interviews. While they're a little old-school and can stand to have a little bit of variation, structured interviews basically ask all candidates the same set of predetermined questions, ensuring a consistent evaluation process based solely on skills and qualifications. You need to make sure your hiring managers are trained on unconscious bias and also try to use diverse hiring panels to further minimize subjective influences, but generally speaking, you want to focus on incorporating objective assessment tools, such as skills tests or work samples, that can be the same across all candidates.

Create a Candidate Matrix

An excellent tool for ensuring the recruitment process is focused on the right person, regardless of age, sex, or religion, is to create what I call the Candidate Matrix. This requires taking the time BEFORE you interview a single person to identify exactly what the position requires. When we focus on what the job requires, we look at skills, talents, abilities, education, and leadership necessary for success. The Candidate Matrix acts as a filter to find the right person and then offers guidance as to what to dig deeper into. Once we know a person has the qualifications, we can then utilize DISC, EQ, and Motivator assessments to learn more about the individual to determine fit for teams, company, and culture.