How to reduce hiring bias from the recruiting process

Studies have long supported the benefits of a diverse workforce. Companies can experience greater innovation, better decision-making, and higher employee satisfaction. Plus, when Gen Z candidates are specifically looking for employers that prioritize diversity and inclusion, a commitment to diversity can help you attract early talent.

The advantages are clear, but executing this vision can be challenging—particularly when hiring bias repeatedly threatens to sabotage your best intentions.

What is hiring bias?

Hiring bias is when personal preferences or stereotypes—instead of objective qualifications— influence your hiring decisions.

These biases can be intentional (conscious bias) or unintentional (unconscious bias). But, regardless, this prejudice can lead to unfair advantages or disadvantages for candidates based on factors that have nothing to do with their skills and fit for the role—such as race, gender, or age.

While you might think your company is above this inclination, you’d be surprised. Consider the following statistics:

• 41% of women say they’ve experienced gender-based discrimination during a job interview
• 36% of hiring managers admit to having age bias against Gen Z applicants
• 34% of candidates say they’ve been on the receiving end of discriminatory interview questions about their age, race, or gender

Hiring bias can creep into every level of your process—from sourcing candidates to interviewing them. But, the good news is that there are ways you can reduce bias and build a more balanced and inclusive hiring process.

Reducing bias in sourcing and top of funnel

To build a diverse workforce, you need a diverse pipeline. Here’s how you can reduce bias when sourcing and recruiting to attract a varied group of candidates to your company and open positions.

1. Refine your job descriptions

It’s tempting to write off a job description as just the nuts-and-bolts of the process—one that you can use the same rinse-and-repeat template for. However, a job posting is often a candidate’s first impression of your company.

Unfortunately, it’s easy for bias to sneak into these listings and make even high-quality candidates feel excluded. You can write inclusive job descriptions that keep bias at bay by:

• Using inclusive language: While it might seem subtle, gendered or ableist language can discourage candidates from applying. Carefully review your job descriptions to swap out those terms for more inclusive language. If members of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) want to be involved in the recruiting process, enlist their help to review the descriptions and catch any unintentional discrimination.
• Revisit your requirements: Do you really need candidates to have a degree in computer science? Or are you primarily looking for Python skills? Foregoing rigid requirements in favor of skills-based hiring can open opportunities for qualified candidates who would’ve otherwise ruled themselves out. It’s also worth reviewing your job requirements to make them more accurate and suitable for candidates with disabilities. For example, does the person in this role really need to communicate over the phone (which excludes deaf or hard-of-hearing applicants)? Or do they simply need to communicate effectively?
• Prioritize salary transparency: Gen Z is behind a growing movement toward salary transparency and sees it as a meaningful lever for equity at work. Plus, pay transparency has been proven to close gender and racial pay gaps. Include salary information (or, at the very least, a range) in your job postings to demonstrate your commitment to transparency and leveling the playing field.
• Highlight inclusive benefits: Job descriptions are an opportunity to sell a candidate on the role and your company. Emphasizing meaningful benefits can attract a diverse pool of candidates and encourage them to apply. Wondering what to shine the spotlight on? Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), development opportunities, and flexibility all hold a lot of importance for Gen Z job seekers.

2. Widen your candidate pool

Did you know that about a quarter of all Black graduates with bachelor’s degrees in STEM attend an HBCU?

It’s tough to attract more diverse candidates if you’re constantly relying on the same sources. You could be sourcing qualified talent from four-year universities, community colleges, and trade schools that you're not currently partnering with.

Your “core schools” strategy can be limiting qualified talent from discovering your opportunities.

Reducing bias in evaluating and screening

A diverse pipeline is a good thing—but it doesn’t mean anything if diverse candidates never make it past the application stage. Here’s how to recognize and reduce hiring bias when screening candidates.

1. Rely on automated or anonymous resume screening

People have beliefs that shape their perceptions and decisions. So, it stands to reason that eliminating human involvement in screening processes can help reduce bias.

That’s why many companies have turned to automated resume screening to reduce inequality when evaluating candidates. With this approach, an algorithm scans applications for relevant keywords, skills, and qualifications to surface the ones that are the best match for an open role.

It might seem like a surefire way to kick bias to the curb, but even artificial intelligence (AI) has shown bias in certain tests. That means relying on these tools isn’t a foolproof system.

Some companies have instead opted to strip identifying candidate information (like name, gender, age, and even educational details) from applications so it doesn’t influence decision-making. Currently, only an estimated 20% of organizations opt for this anonymous process, but it’s a strategy that will likely continue to gain steam.

2. Provide bias awareness training

Even if you rely on anonymized screening tools, real people will play a role in evaluating candidates at some point. Providing bias training can help them recognize when biases influence their decisions and understand how to change their behaviors.

While this training should offer plenty of information, it should also be an opportunity for decision-makers to participate in simulations, see real-time examples of their own biases, and practice better responses.

3. Use skill assessments

Skills-based hiring continues to gain ground, especially since it provides an objective and standardized way to evaluate each candidate (without personal feelings muddying the waters).

A skills-based approach impacts what you include in your job descriptions (like focusing on necessary competencies rather than specific degrees or years of experience), it also plays a role in how you assess candidates.

Skill tests are one solid example. When these assessments are tailored to match the requirements of the role, they provide meaningful insights about which candidates are the best match—regardless of other factors.

Reducing bias in interviewing

Job interviews are an opportunity to understand candidates on a deeper level, but these conversations can also be ripe with biases. Here’s how to keep personal expectations and opinions from shaping your interviews.

1. Standardize your interviews and questions

There’s a lot of nuance in interviewing, which means you want to feel out the candidate and adjust the interview accordingly. However, research shows that unstructured interviews—where interviewers “go with the flow” and ask questions at their discretion—are the most susceptible to biases.

These biases could cause interviewers to ask discriminatory questions and exhibit microaggressions that make candidates feel defensive or unwelcome. That might look like:

• Gender-based microaggression: Asking a female candidate why she chose a specific field (when you wouldn’t ask a male candidate the same question)
• Age-based microaggression: Asking a younger candidate if they’re ready to take a career or “real job” seriously
• Race-based microaggression: Telling a candidate of color, “I didn’t expect you to have such an impressive background!”

Take the time to reflect on potential bias when, for example, you’re writing your feedback for a candidate, or while they are answering a question. Structured interviews can help mitigate the potential for prejudice and hidden stereotyping. These interviews often include standardized questions and established scoring rubrics that apply to all candidates for that specific role. Plus, research shows that companies with structured interviews improve the candidate experience as well as the efficiency and quality of hires.

2. Build diverse interview panels

When you involve only a handful of employees or decision-makers in the interview process, it’s easier for bias to undermine your critical thinking. However, assembling a diverse group of people to contribute to the interview process can help you avoid (or, at the very least, gut-check) your personal judgments.

This doesn’t mean that every candidate needs to face a panel of 10 people in every interview. You can involve a diverse mix of employees in other meaningful and less nerve-wracking ways like office tours or quick, low-pressure conversations between the candidate and members of the team they’d be working on—like a social lunch, or a meet and greet.

By exposing the candidate to more people, you’re able to gather more insights and perspectives about that applicant (rather than relying on one or two opinions). And, as a bonus, Gen Z appreciates this exposure: 75% of Gen Z survey respondents said they value the opportunity to meet directly with employees from the team they’ll work with.

Hiring bias doesn’t just harm candidates

It’s important to recognize that we all carry conscious and unconscious biases which will inevitably show up in the hiring process. But have your processes led to overlooking or disqualifying candidates who could make a meaningful and long lasting contribution your organization?

Hiring bias can be a silent yet powerful force undermining even the best recruitment strategies. By focusing on how to reduce hiring bias, you’ll attract top talent who will strengthen your workforce and better reflect your community.

Are you using Handshake to widen your candidate pool as one way to reduce bias in sourcing? Talk to us.