Can we drive DE&I with “blind hiring”?
First published in Shortlist’s monthly newsletter… It’s probably no surprise that bias lurks in all stages of a recruitment funnel. In the United States, where there’s the most data, research has shown that “white-sounding” names get 50% more callbacks than “black-sounding” names. One in five women experiences gender discrimination in the recruitment process. And only 32% of HR managers feel confident that prejudice does not affect their decision when hiring new staff, with another study showing that over 85% of hiring managers claim to “rely on intuition” while making decisions.
Enter “blind hiring,” a range of techniques that anonymize or blind demographic or identity information (e.g., from a CV) in an attempt to limit bias in the hiring process. For example, before being presented to decision-makers, CVs can be scrubbed of identifying details like name (which can suggest gender, ethnicity, tribe, race), school (which may trigger alumni or regional bias), compensation data, even sometimes prior company experience or personal interests. The hope is that this can help hiring teams hone in on the candidate’s skills, experience and accomplishments in a more objective manner, at least at the “top of the funnel” where 90%+ of job applicants are often rejected. Certainly this doesn’t solve bias in the entire process, but maybe it can address a critical part of it.
As a firm committed to building diverse teams and leveling the talent playing field, we’ve been following this for some time and hoping for a chance to try it out. So when one of our clients (a global nonprofit focused on energy efficiency) recently expressed interest in blind hiring, we jumped at it.
The CEO of this NGO made diversity a priority when she saw that the top three levels of the organization looked largely similar, came from similar schools, had similar interests, and were making similar decisions. She also noticed that, as an example, most of her team in the Nairobi office were from the same tribe, due to natural referral dynamics more than any intentional bias. She came to Shortlist seeking to include blind hiring practices for her upcoming hires in hopes of driving more diversity. We were excited for the challenge.
Incorporating blind hiring practices required some changes to our standard search process. We started with job descriptions, which we scrubbed to ensure we used gender neutral language. We edited CVs to remove details that may trigger conscious or unconscious bias. When screening we leaned heavily on objective skills and work sample assessments instead of just filters for certain degrees or company experience. We used specialized software to present candidates in a redacted version of our typical “market maps” and candidate reports.
According to the organization, the experiment was a success, leading to a number of new hires they may have otherwise missed. On our side, this experience has made us even more intentional about DE&I, leaving us looking for other ways to promote team diversity and level the talent playing field.
We are considering a small case study or webinar to go into more depth on this topic. Would you be interested in learning more? Hit reply and let me know!
Happy hiring,
Paul
By the way, in case you missed it, we published a report last year sharing a number of practical steps organizations can take to promote more gender equity in hiring and human resource processes. Check out “Hiring for Equity in Clean Energy” and let us know what you think!