Unconscious biases in recruitment that affect your Hiring Process
Recruiters, as every other person on earth, are exposed to cognitive bias. Recruiters also are all subject to their own set of innate cognitive biases. They can be biased without even realizing it. When looking for their next hire, talent acquisition managers are exposed to a number of recruiting biases they should be aware of to avoid distorting the hiring decision by those implicit bias.
#1 What does unconscious bias means in recruitment?
According to Merriam-Webster a bias is a “systematic error introduced into sampling or testing by selecting or encouraging one outcome or answer over others”.
Studies found that we receive 11 million bits of information every second. But we can only consciously process 40 bits, more than 99.99% information is therefore processed at the unconscious level. When faced with an overflow of information to process, the brain may take shortcuts to treat it. Here, we create the inevitable bias according to personal experience. This is due to memory distortions and analysis based on personal beliefs.
Can you guess how much time the initial scan of the resume takes for a recruiter in this case? The average hiring manager spends 6 seconds reading a resume. In those 6 SECONDS unconscious bias happens; it happens when you form an opinion about candidates based solely on first impressions or when you prefer one candidate over another simply because the first one seems like someone you’d easily work with, hang out with outside of work or you have some type of affinity for.
With all this in mind, recognizing specific biases in recruitment (aka, unconscious biases), and seeking to remedy them helps promote sound hiring practices and avoids undesirable circumstances and bad hiring decisions.
#2 The “Similar to Me” Bias
“I like this person. We went to the same school and we both play football”. This example illustrates the “Similar to Me” bias which helps breaking down the ice, but still it doesn’t necessarily result in the selection of a good fit candidate. However, interviewers exhibiting this bias favor recruits who share the same gender, casual interests, or socioeconomic status.
#3 Halo Effect
The halo effect is a type of cognitive bias in which judgements on one aspect of something unduly influence other aspects of it; typically judging a book by its cover. That’s why the halo effect is largely based on first impressions.
As an example, recruiters may perceive an attractive candidate as competent, whereas someone they’ll deem less appealing to the eye will not benefit from such unfounded opinion.
#4 Framing Effect
According to Wikipedia, the framing effect “is a cognitive bias where people decide on options based on whether the options are presented with a positive or negative connotations; e.g. as a loss or as a gain.”. Decisions based on the framing effect are made by focusing on the way information is presented instead of the information itself. Thus, equivalent information can be more or less attractive depending on what features are highlighted. (example: ½ of the cup full vs. ½ of the cup empty)
In recruitment, hiring managers may ask questions based on the framing effect in a way such that candidates know exactly how to direct their answers, and say what they think recruiters want to hear instead. This is the reason why how you present information is highly important.
#5 The extraordinary bias
“She went around the world; she must be a good fit!”. This example illustrates one of the forms of the extraordinary bias. It happens when recruiters tend to give more value to someone who has a skill or trait that we judge out of the norm or extraordinary. In this case, recruiters are impressed, and they favor this candidate over others, but is this the profile we are looking for? is a good question to be asked.
Knowing the existence of these different recruiting biases, hiring managers can start to try to understand where biases are coming from and how they affect the hiring decisions in order to minimize their effect. They may not be able to discard these unconscious biases completely, but they at least would be more conscious and aware of them when it does happen.
Knowing the existence of these different recruiting biases, hiring managers can start to try to understand where biases are coming from and how they affect the hiring decisions in order to minimize their effect. They may not be able to discard these unconscious biases completely, but they at least would be more conscious and aware of them when it does happen.
