Recruitment

In many cases, discrimination can occur unconsciously because every one of us carries a degree of unconscious bias based on our previous personal experiences, stereotypes and cultural context. In short, unconscious bias can influence your decision positively or negatively by using criteria irrelevant to the job and focus rather on how close the candidate is to our personal idea of the best candidate.

Monitor your process and pinpoint the problem areas

Before eliminating unconscious bias from the recruitment process, the first step is to be aware of the biases which may be held within your organisation. Monitoring and analysing each stage of the recruitment process on an ongoing basis will enable you to pinpoint where the problems are. For example, you may find that your applicants tend to drop out after the interview stage, which could potentially imply that there is an issue with the interview process. 

Undertake unconscious bias training 

Encourage your recruitment team, or colleagues who are responsible for recruitment take part in unconscious bias training. Unconscious bias training is recognised as an awareness learning activity where your hiring staff become aware of how their role that unconscious bias can play a part in their decision-making.

It is equally important to bear in mind that unconscious bias training shouldn’t be relied upon as a tool to drive culture change, but more so can increase awareness.

Once there is an awareness, this will encourage inclusive culture within your organisation that will give your respective teams the tools to mitigate bias by focusing not only on unconscious bias, but on conscious action instead.

Using a strength-based selection process to widen your candidate pool by identifying what people are good at and what they enjoy will help you to achieve workforce diversity. The Strength-based selection technique looks at what people are good at and what they enjoy to identify their future potential in a specific job. 

The Strength-based approach (SBA) is not a ‘one size fits all’ option, as your organisation needs to be aware of what your personal challenges are and tailor your approach in order to get the right talent. 

In the case of wanting to diversify your workforce, a strength-based recruitment and development approach allows diversity to take care of itself because you are valuing each person for who they are regardless of their gender, ethnic background, age or any other factor that can lead to unconscious (or conscious) bias.

Essentially, using an SBA is an inclusive approach and beneficial for individuals who do not have a lot of work experience, because the traditional competency based relies on candidates using work experience to demonstrate their skills and knowledge.

Strength-based interviews are also more personal and will allow your organisation to gain a genuine insight into the personalities of candidates and whether they would be the right candidate for the role they have been shortlisted for.

Using the strengths-based interview approach will also allow your organisation to benefit from shortlisting or recruiting a candidate with genuine interest and motivation for the role that you are advertising because candidates have less opportunity to prepare and rehearse their answers.

On the other hand, this approach positively enhances the candidate experience as this way of interviewing enables the candidate to be at their best, and is more of pleasurable interview experience all round, for both the interviewer and interviewee.

Attracting more diverse candidates also means that the interview panel should be diverse. Where possible, having a diverse interview panel helps to bring unique experiences to the discussion, and enables candidates to feel more comfortable during the interview process.

It also gives a positive impression to prospective employees and your existing workforce that you are committed to having an inclusive culture. 

It is also recommended that the following are also considered and implemented as actions to improve the interview process and enhance a more positive candidate experience.

Plan your questions carefully

Focus on asking questions that will enable you to look at the potential of the candidate, rather than focus on their experience. You can read more about this approach in the ‘Strength-based recruitment' section above.

Familiarise with your organisation’s D & I commitments

Ensure that the panel is familiar with your organisation’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, and any BAME recruitment targets. 

Ensure your panel is a diverse mix of people

Where possible, any interview panel should be a representative of people from different areas of the organisation, different levels of authority, and a mix of genders and ethnicities.

Once interviews are completed, the final recruitment stage in making your final choice on the best candidate to fill your organisation’s vacancy is dependent upon carefully reviewing all data and making a recommendation to the position’s recruitment manager.

All of the following should be considered in the decision-making process:

• Avoid hastily labelling any candidate as the “most promising” until all candidates are interviewed.
• Ensure that the interview panel have a debrief to compare notes and identify strengths and weaknesses for all candidates.
• Consider each candidate’s track record of achievements and qualifications to meet the requirements of the position as they have been ranked in the assessment matrix.
• Challenge any bias – if anyone from the panel says something about the candidate they like or dislike, which isn’t part of the shortlisting criteria, discuss how relevant this is.
• Create a log to record and track decisions which are made, and share this with all recruitment managers to reinforce a consistent approach across the organisation.