Unconscious bias versus hiring success

Too many hires don’t work out

At a recent talk I gave to HR Directors about unconscious bias in recruitment, the overwhelming consensus was that far too many new hires don’t work out. If that doesn’t surprise you, you’ve probably been stung in the past. So what can we do to get it right first time?

One important factor to consider when recruiting is unconscious bias. Although we like to think we’re self-aware and make fair decisions, research has shown that our brains are hardwired to favour those who are most like us. This can lead to us selecting candidates who ‘fit the mould’, rather than those who might be better suited to the role.

And no one’s immune. As a career management coach and selection panel interviewer, I’m pretty tuned in to how I think and make decisions. Yet I can clearly recall an experience that forced me to sit up and rethink those assumptions about myself.

Guarding against hidden bias

I’m a lay member on selection panels which make recommendations for new judicial appointments. There’s been a drive in the last 10 years to increase diversity in the judiciary, and I felt that with my background in recruitment and selection, I could make a difference. However, despite both my experience and having been briefed on how to recognise and counter unconscious bias, I still found myself caught out.

I was on a panel with another woman when we interviewed an assured, professional and smartly dressed female candidate. We were both impressed and gave her top marks. However, the third panellist, who was male, marked her down, pointing out weaknesses in her performance that we’d missed.

After some discussion, the other female panellist and I acknowledged that we hadn’t assessed the candidate objectively. As female career professionals who’d both witnessed the lack of equal opportunities for women in our childhoods, we’d instinctively championed a confident woman for the role rather than looking at the evidence.

My takeaway from this was that even with training, unconscious bias can sneak in without you noticing. The key is to recognise it and always stick to the evidence.

Getting our heads around unconscious bias

To overcome unconscious bias, we first need to understand what’s going on in our heads when it happens.

Our brains are constantly bombarded with sensory information – different sights, sounds, smells and so on. The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is part of the brain that acts as a filter, deciding which information gets your attention and which is ignored. If our brain is an enormous restaurant kitchen trying to process billions of ingredients (information) then the RAS is the sous-chef, ensuring the head chef (your conscious mind) only gets the ingredients they need for the dishes they’re preparing.

So how does the RAS work?

Filtering out the ‘noise’: Just as a sous-chef ignores all the ingredients the head chef doesn’t need for a dish (e.g. no sugar for a savoury pie), the RAS filters out the overwhelming ‘noise’ from the world around you, ensuring only critical information reaches your conscious mind. That’s why, in a noisy environment, you can still hear your name being spoken – your RAS has already tagged it as important.

Categorising information: Like a sous-chef organising ingredients into labelled jars (spices, grains, sugar), the RAS categorises people and ideas to save time and effort. This can lead to quick judgements, like thinking, ‘All politicians are untrustworthy.’ It’s efficient but can result in oversimplification.

Personal preferences: If the sous-chef has a thing about salty flavours, they might keep handing the head chef salt without realising it. Similarly, your RAS unconsciously reinforces your existing beliefs and biases by prioritising information that aligns with them.

In the context of recruitment, the ingredients (i.e. candidates) your RAS selects often reveal your internal biases and the mental shortcuts you use to make decisions, so it’s important to challenge this when it happens. Just as a head chef would challenge a sous-chef who ruined a meal with too much salt or the wrong ingredients!

5 tips for overcoming unconscious bias

1. Flip the script

Every time you interview, remind yourself that you’re human and are seeing things through your own set of pre-wired filters. Then question your natural instincts and look out for biases in your decision-making.For example, if you find yourself leaning towards a candidate based on shared personal traits, ask yourself whether those traits are actually relevant to the role.

2. Mix things up

Diversity on the interview panel helps to check unconscious bias by bringing a variety of views and perspectives to the table. So seek out people from different backgrounds and with different experiences or ways of thinking to ensure a fairer assessment of each candidate. A panel of three is ideal as it allows for diverse perspectives without the risk of groupthink. If you run a small business, think about hiring an external, impartial panel member to ensure you make unbiased, rigorous decisions.

3. Take the long way round

To avoid the mental shortcuts our brains often make, listen carefully to the candidate’s answers and write them down word for word. We tend to hear what we expect rather than what’s actually said, so this can help you to make decisions based on evidence, not assumptions or bias.

4. Play fair

Assess candidates against a set of criteria that you devise beforehand, rather than each other. Focus on their individual strengths and evaluate how well each candidate meets the specific requirements of the role instead of making comparisons between them. This will ensure the process is fair and evidence-based.

5. Be match fit

Studies have shown that decision-making can sap the brain’s energy leading to ‘decision fatigue’ – and this can prevent you from being objective. That’s because when our brain’s tired from making too many decisions, it resorts to the mental shortcuts I mentioned earlier. To avoid this, make sure you eat and drink enough water before the interview to manage your glucose levels, and take regular breaks.

My experience of sitting on judicial selection panels has reinforced my opinion that for more effective recruitment, interviews need to be unbiased and evidence-based.

Are yours?

If the answer’s ‘no’ then I hope the tips above will help. But if you’d  like more guidance, please get in touch. Using a psycholinguistic tool called the LAB Profile, I work with clients to help them uncover how they’re influenced by their personal filters when recruiting, and how they can eliminate unconscious bias for more successful hires.