Increasing Diversity in Candidate Screening. Part 2 of Diverse Recruiting
One key element to consider if you are trying to increase the diversity in your recruitment process is how you screen them, specifically you will need to work out how you can remove any unconscious bias.
Think
Ask yourself what you look for in a successful hire? Ask yourself why you look for that? Do any of these attributes relate to your own unconscious bias?
In Diverse Recruitment Part 1 we looked took a look at re-thinking what you look for in a candidate. This time we need to re-think the factors you screen for. Look at the profiles you typically favour - do they have certain characteristics in common? Are they specific type of people? And are these similarities unrelated to how qualified they are for the role you are recruiting for.
Hide
A very simple and popular way to remove unconscious bias during the screening process is to remove any personal information from resumes. This can include names, schools, date of birth, locations and addresses. This method is called blind resumes.
A similar method or continuation of the previous: blind interviews. Similar in principle, in practice this can be accomplished by sending questions via text, with the candidate responding anonymously.
'Blind recruitment' is challenging to get right. If you're using an application tracking system, like bullhorn, you could opt for using a tool that obscures the details for you, for example Blendoor.
Some companies that also use this hiring tactic include, HSBC, Deloitte, BBC and Google.
Automate
Artificial Intelligence holds the highest chance of being un-biased.
However, AI and automation doesn't come without its risks; AI is programmed (by a human) to react in certain ways to replicate human behaviour. Therefore, it is possible that any unconscious bias from the human behaviour it is simulating or from the human programming the automation may be transferred unintentionally. The AI and automation will need to be corrected or 'de-biased'.
The easiest way to use AI at this stage is to leverage it in your ATS. You will have to pre-program your platform to flag and filter for specific skills and experience but the AI will analyze your candidate resumes after that. Creating an impartial shortlist!