Reducing Bias in Your Hiring Process

Bias is a natural part of human life and however much we try and deny it – it plays a major part in pretty much everything we do. While not particularly harmful at many levels, e.g., always buying the same brand of coffee at a supermarket or continuously wearing the same socks because they’re comfy, bias does have the potential to be pretty destructive when playing a role in situations where impartiality is key. One such situation is during the recruitment process.

Whether conscious or not, bias during recruitment can lead to you missing out on a prime candidate or even alienating a certain demographic that may contain a portion of the leading talent within an industry. When hiring, it’s key to reduce your bias as much as possible, below are some tips on how to best do so.

Awareness 

One of the best ways to combat bias during the hiring process is to be aware of it; while this may not sound like a preventative strategy but rather a method of self-reflection, it’s the unconscious biases that tend to cause the most harm. By becoming aware of your subconscious bias, you can approach an interview or an interaction from a more objective point of view allowing for full understanding of the skills that a candidate provides to a role.

Job Descriptions

A key part of the recruitment process that is regularly overlooked is that of job descriptions. Not only do job descriptions detail the roles and responsibilities of a job but they can also play a major part in attracting/deterring people from certain backgrounds, genders, races, or identities. The wording within a job description has a strong impact on the application pool with masculine terms such as ‘competitive’ and ‘determined’ serving to discourage some female applicants while the terms ‘collaborative’ and ‘cooperative’ tend to attract more women than men. When writing a job description, it’s vital to use natural terms where possible, and if not – to variate between gendered words to strike a balance.

Job descriptions also serve as an identifier of how comfortable people from different backgrounds may be within the company. You may wish to highlight your company’s outlook to diversity and inclusivity within the job description.

Here is a free to use tool from Eploy for checking job descriptions to reduce unconscious bias. 

Team Up 

Biases are often a by-product of our upbringing or background and as such, different people have very different biases. Why not use this to your advantage by conducting interviews with the help of another (or even several) members of the team? By collating your notes at the end of an interview, you are likely to get a far more objective opinion on a candidate.

Diversity Goals 

A great way to reduce on bias is to set diversity goals. Research has shown that diversity offers competitive advantages to businesses and is a great way to get ahead of the competition while also improving on brand image. Of course, we’re not suggesting you lower your hiring criteria in order to attract people from a wider range of backgrounds but rather that you monitor the range of people applying/being interviewed for a role in order to get a better idea of the demographics that may not be properly represented within your business and set goals for ways in which this can be changed.

This free ebook from Eploy has lots of recruitment metrics including those that can be used as part of your Diversity & Inclusion programme to aid your hiring.Get your copy here.

Contact Eploy for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) 

Why not take a look at Eploy's AdTuner. It's your Recruitment Content Assistant, designed to help you craft job descriptions and email communications that are inclusive and engaging.

Eploy's AdTuner highlights content for optimisation and provides potential alternatives to consider, analyses reading ease, gender bias, question balance and more. Book a demo, and we will show you the latest features!

At Eploy, we offer highly adaptable Applicant Tracking Systems designed to help you find the best candidates for each and every job opening. Get in touch with our specialist team at Eploy to find out how we can help you meet your recruitment goals.