As a result, the interview loses objectivity, which can lead to every candidate being interviewed differently. If the backgrounds of candidates dont match those of current employees, an employer may be unconsciously inclined to rank the candidate lower due to the possibility of them not working well with current employees. Heres how it works: First, an employer creates an assessment, or challenge, that directly relates to the skills required for the job opening. } White men account for 72 percent of corporate leadership jobs in the U.S., a 2017 analysis of 16 Fortune 500 companies found. Surprisingly, workers aged 64-66 received 35% more interview invitations than those aged 29-31. Even juggernauts such as Google struggle; black employees make up only 2 percent of the companys U.S. workforce, according to 2017 demographics data. Can blind hiring improve workplace diversity? This goes to show that blind hiring statistics can sometimes be misleading because much of the bias may occur long before the employment age or the interview process. Were by no means experts on blind hiring. To achieve that, hiring managers omit certain information from resumes, such as age, gender, and ethnicity. Yes and no. Equally, blind recruiting doesnt automatically result in a more diverse range of applicants, a fairer interview process, or ensure your new hires feel welcome and can progress in your organization. African Americans are twice as likely as white people to be unemployed. According to Careerbuilder, 60% of recruiters use social networking sites to research candidates, and many of them might not interview a candidate if they cant find any information about them online. Unconscious bias, which occurs when individuals make judgments about job candidates based on gender, race or other prohibited factors without even realizing theyre doing it, fuels the problem. It has changed our mindset as an organization, she says. When blind recruiting, hiring managers can focus on candidates qualifications and previous work experience in the industry instead of hiring applicants based on relatable information. $("span.current-site").html("SHRM China "); Another online platform called interviewing.io lets companies interview candidates anonymously using chat rooms and voice-masking technology.
Instead, everyone is asked to respond to the same skills-based questions and given applied exercises. In addition to racial and ethnic diversity, companies that rank the highest for gender diversity are 15% more likely to have better financial returns than their industry medians. They found that people with Chinese, Pakistani or Indian-sounding names were 28% less likely to get invited to an interview than the fictional candidates with English-sounding names (despite their qualifications being the same). 2022 GoRemotely.. All rights Please purchase a SHRM membership before saving bookmarks. Cathy Hawley, the companys senior vice president of performance, came across GapJumpers at a conference in 2015.
Even though there are several disadvantages of blind recruiting, there are numerous blind hiring statistics that prove its effectiveness. Weve seen more success with larger companies that have stable hiring processes already in place, Vujosevic says. However, even though blind recruiting is an imperfect tool and cant do much about solving the root of the problem, there are numerous blind hiring statistics to back up its effectiveness, so yes, most times, it does work in helping businesses diversify their workforce.
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Heres some expert advice on how to incorporate blind hiring into your companys talent selection strategy: Many believe the practice originated in the 1970s with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which at that time was made up almost entirely of white male musicians. For example, recent McKinsey research of 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their industry medians. The software enables employers to evaluate candidates based on relevant performance challenges. We also needed to have buy-in from all of our employees before we began blind hiring.. Watch the whole interview with Esther: How to Double Down on Diversity With the Power of Internships. While this isnt necessarily bad, referrals account for nearly 50% of hires in the US. Next, GapJumpers technology grades the exams and creates a scorecard for each candidate. Explain to your staff what youre trying to do and why, and train hiring managers about job interview techniques, she says. Anonymous recruiting CANT eliminate bias during interviews, it doesnt ensure your new hires feel welcomed on their first day, and it doesnt ensure they can progress through the organization and be an example for future candidates. Weve only been doing this for about a year, so we dont have a ton of data yet. To test this, researchers sent out almost 13,000 fake CVs to over 3,000 job postings. Increasingly talent teams are turning to modern recruitment software that includes resume anonymization tools. At best, its one tool in a bigger diversity and inclusion (D&I) toolbox. Companies like Adalo, Everi, and Wagepoint use the blind hiring feature of Pinpoints applicant tracking system and consistently see the diversity of the applicant pool better represented at the interview stage as a result. Apply for the SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP exam today! You could also appoint an HR team member to oversee the blind hiring initiative. One employer that has leveraged the service is Return Path, a global e-mail data solutions provider with 410 employees headquartered in New York City. Blind hiring is, by definition, a technique used by businesses to eliminate all bias from the recruitment process. According to blind recruitment research, it is significantly harder for African Americans to find employment. Dates, particularly for educational milestones, Often indicates age. Of course, it isnt the right solution for every organizationand the jury is still out on whether the practice actually prevents discrimination in the long runbut this unique form of talent selection may be worth considering if you work in an industry dominated by a single demographic. People Management. Pew Research Center, 10. [SHRM Member2Member Solutions article: Lessons Learned About Unbiased Hiring Practices]. With GapJumpers, the applicant is a black box., Weve essentially applied software technology to allow companies to experience the same kind of results that orchestras have achieved with blind hiring.Petar Vujosevic. But progress on diversity is slow. Employers who adopted various diversity practices reported that they increased the level of external female leadership opportunities by 24%. Perhaps one of the reasons many businesses fail to promote diversity is that their decision-makers dont perceive it as relevant.
According to LinkedIns global talent trends in 2019, the most common way for recruiters to assess a candidates soft skills is through behavioral questions, reading body language, and situation questions. But if a tiny organization like us can adopt blind hiring, any company can.. The home address of a candidate can reveal information about their socio-economic background that could cause unconscious bias. Applicants now have the option to test from home. By presenting every application and resume in a standard format, its easy to compare candidates side-by-side.
At the same time, its also much more financially effective for them to do so. But despite there being well-publicized examples of blind recruitment trials that backfired, blind hiring can still helpeven when trying to meet diversity quotas. Consistently attract the right candidates, fast. Weve clarified our evaluation criteria. Harvard Business Review, 4. Could also be linked to race. According to a study published in the Harvard Business Review, the majority of professionals rely on the mental synthesis of information or intuition when processing applications. Non-white-sounding names are less likely to get invited for an interview.
We did analysis on the people we hired, and we found that there were 19 percent more women. In addition, 38 percent more ethnically diverse candidates came in for job interviews, she says. You could: If your applicant tracking system has a blind recruitment feature this is almost certainly the best way to go. This can include information like their: Blind recruitment helps hiring teams to assess applicants exclusively on their suitability for the position and reduces the risk of conscious and unconscious bias. Illustration by Ryan Inzana for HR Magazine. three times more likely to be passed over for jobs. Removing these dates from the information presented to your team members that are part of the selection process will help to reduce the risk of age bias. After receiving resumes for a position, McNamee assigns each candidate a number and refers to applicants by their number until people are brought in for interviews. After this is done, CVs can be delivered to the hiring managers, who can then assess candidates solely on their qualifications. Use dedicated blind recruitment software (this is ideal if youre using a legacy applicant tracking system that doesnt have a blind hiring feature). Yes, but it can also hamper workplace diversity. As well as anonymizing resumes, you need to anonymize the contents of any application forms, personal summaries, and cover letters. reserved. Please enable scripts and reload this page. Just pull out your Sharpie and mark out things [on resumes] that are not relevant [to performing] the job, Ward told attendees. Approximately 57% of companies struggle to accurately assess candidates soft skills, and this can prove to be even more difficult if not impossible through blind hiring. Its part of our circuitry, he says. I sat down with our founder, and we decided we wanted to build an inclusive environment for women. Since the company rolled out its blind hiring initiative 16 months ago, the number of female employees has increased by 50 percent, with women now making up 30 percent of the total workforce and 30 percent of the management team. If you have specific quotas around diversity, or use affirmative action to help improve diversity, blind hiring wont be possible at every stage of the processyou cant ensure an even gender split at the interview stage if you dont know the gender of the candidates. Organizations should also yield better results, considering that every applicant is hired solely based on their qualifications. Often reveals race and gender. Job listings with gender-neutral wording get 42% more responses. The underlying issue is rooted in society. You have successfully saved this page as a bookmark. Blind recruiting is one of the latest trends, and more and more businesses are conducting blind recruitment trials and adopting the practice. This is a hiring method that anonymizes candidates demographics to eliminate bias from the hiring process. Simply put, yes, it is.
Additionally, you can opt to use various applicant tracking systems to sort out resumes based on predetermined values. And because weve taken a collaborative approach to blind hiring, I think it has improved the candidates experience with our hiring process.. Discover how Pinpoint makes it easy for talent acquisition teams to offer a fairer selection process, and improve diversity. But anonymous recruiting is only one part of a diversity recruitment strategy. But years spent at previous jobs and periods of education will allow the age of a candidate to be roughly estimated. However, the University a candidate graduated from has little relevance to their suitability for a certain job. Once youve decided what information to remove candidates resumes youll need to decide how youre going to manage the resume anonymization process. Virtual & San Diego, CA | October 24-26, 2022. The technology helped streamline hiring for engineering and data science jobs. While this can attest to some degree to a candidates previous work experience, it tells more of their personal and private connections rather than their qualifications. Glassdoor, 12. Over time weve found the right balance and, today, Pinpoints blind hiring feature removes: Rather than just removing names from applications, consider replacing them with something completely random. One of the earliest blind recruitment trials was this oneorchestras ran blind auditions and found the probability a woman will be advanced out of certain preliminary rounds is increased by 50%, as well as enhancing by severalfold the likelihood a female contestant will be the winner in the final round when using blind screening. Communications is the common thread that runs through every role she's had, and is what she's really passionate about. By redacting candidates age, name, gender, ethnicity, and other similar information, hiring managers can focus on hiring talent solely on their qualifications and experience in the industry. As an HR department of one, Katherine McNamee, SHRM-CP, knew she didnt have the resources or technology to implement a sophisticated blind recruiting platform that would strip identifying informationsuch as a candidates name and college graduation datefrom resumes. As weve seen from previous blind hiring research, most of the leadership positions in private businesses are occupied by white males, and only a small number of them consider diversity to be very important. According to a study by OECD, one in five boys considers a STEM career as opposed to one in 20 girls, despite having similar performances when tested. 3BL Association, 14. Hannah Irwin, Senior Human Resources Associate at Pivot Energy explains how this worked for her: Theres always that little bit of uncertainty with a new process, but everyone has adopted Pinpoint really well. It takes time to develop a challenge statement, and we learned you need a vendor that has technology that can be integrated with your talent acquisition system, Augustine says. 71% of employers say diversity practices have a positive impact on their company. Get the tools you need today to build more inclusive workplaces tomorrow. A GapJumpers plug-in syncs with the employers ATS so people who apply to jobs on the clients website are redirected to GapJumpers to take the assessment. The American Association of University Women, 9. Even if you, as the employer, dont perceive them to be less-skilled, you might be deciding theyre less suitable unconsciously based on your preconceived notions of different schools. If you want buy-in, you need to monitor how blind recruiting impacts diversity performance. For example, HR leaders at FCB Worldwide Inc., a New York City-based global advertising network with about 8,000 employees, decided to build an extensive blind hiring system last year, says Cindy Augustine, the companys global chief talent officer. Jess loves working with great people and growing businesses.
Company leaders are currently searching for a vendor that can offer the right blind hiring technology for the companys needs. Members may download one copy of our sample forms and templates for your personal use within your organization. Approximately half of women believe theres a pay gap between equally qualified male and female hires, and research by AAUW confirms it - American women working full time were paid 20% less than their male counterparts in 2015. ZipRecruiter, 15. Many candidates may lose potential job opportunities by remaining anonymous during the blind application process.
Also be sure to have clear metrics in place to track the outcome of your efforts. Additionally, 42% of females and 33% of males have agreed that the cost and impact of maternity leave is the second most significant barrier that stops qualified and experienced women from getting hired. However, it can hinder businesses that actively try to recruit minorities and focus on making a more diverse team. Anonymous resumes and applications are the foundation of a blind hiring process. As a result, the ratio of female musicians in the top U.S. orchestras increased from less than 5 percent in 1970 to 25 percent in the 1990s, according to a 1997 study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The easiest way to do this is to make a dedicated application form on your website (thats integrated with your ATS) the default way to apply to your organization. The simplest way to do it is to assign an employee who isnt a part of the hiring team and task them with removing certain information from candidates resumes. Careerbuilder, 7. Others might complain that it makes the screening process more difficult. A two-year gap in employment might seem like a red flag, but could be a very reasonable period to take off for somebody recovering from serious illness. var currentUrl = window.location.href.toLowerCase(); White-sounding names got 50% more callbacks than black-sounding names. Recruiters are often swayed by candidates who have previously worked for well-known companies or attended reputable colleges. Moreover, a 2014 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that managers of both sexes were twice as likely to hire a man as a woman.
One in five women experiences gender discrimination in recruitment. However, before we start, lets take a closer look at precisely what blind recruiting is and how and when it is used. This is due to the fact that, in order to establish a diverse team, numerous organizations actively seek and hire minority candidates. Automate tedious processes and make better hiring decisions. These high-tech approaches are intriguing but may not be feasible for smaller organizations that dont have the resources or infrastructure to make them work.
They found that people with Chinese, Pakistani or Indian-sounding names were 28% less likely to get invited to an interview than the fictional candidates with English-sounding names (despite their qualifications being the same). Hiring managers often rely on intuition or unconsciously form personal connections with applicants similar to them or candidates who have attended a college or worked for a company the hiring manager is familiar with. Industries that use the most gendered wording are business, science and engineering, technology, and finance and insurance. If used correctly, this technique can be highly beneficial for your business, and implementing it into your hiring process is relatively easy. We know diversity leads to creativity and innovation, which is why I love blind hiring. The US National Bureau of Economic Research conducted a study where they sent out 40,000 fictional job applications. Lets discuss them in more detail. This is the mode that results in fast, unconscious decision making based on emotion, instinct, learned associations, and impressions weve created of the world around us. I think that the efficiency and user experience of the system has helped to gain our teams overall buy-in for the new process.. Grenawalts goal in setting up the process was to recruit more women. In an effort to diversify, the orchestra began using partitions to conceal the identity of those who were auditioning. Deciding what information to redact is an important decision. How can the bias be reduced in the hiring process? This allows candidates to retain anonymity, which prevents hiring managers from hiring candidates who are similar to them or rejecting candidates based on (un)conscious bias. Earnings increase by 0.8% for every 10% increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior-executive team. There are pros and cons to blind hiring and theres a big difference between how youd approach the goal of reducing bias in the pre-interview screening process (hint: blind hiring can help here) vs ensuring your run fairer interviews (hint: you should be looking at scorecards rather than blind hiring if this is your biggest problem). Please log in as a SHRM member before saving bookmarks. Even though blind recruiting reduces the initial bias, applicants are most likely to be interviewed face-to-face at some point throughout the recruitment process, which exposes candidates to delayed discrimination. You could try hiring a contractor or assigning an intern to manually redact names and other identifying information, says Kelly Marinelli, SHRM-SCP, president and principal consultant at Solve HR Inc. in Boulder, Colo. Or simply invest in more black markers, suggested Mary Ila Ward, SHRM-SCP, owner of Horizon Point Consulting Inc., a talent management service in Decatur, Ala., at the Society for Human Resource Managements 2017 Diversity & Inclusion Conference & Exposition last October. But were filling roles quickly, and using GapJumpers has helped us cut down on how much time our recruiters put into the hiring process, since theyre not sifting through resumes. Hawley and her team plan to introduce blind hiring practices for other positions. Blind hiring is a powerful tool for reducing the risk of bias in the recruitment process and ensuring that hiring teams are focused on finding the best candidate for the job. pay gap between equally qualified male and female hires, removing certain information from candidates resumes, 1. Anecdotally, its been successful, Hawley says. Although the concept of blind hiring isnt newit dates back to at least the 1970sthe strategy of hiding certain candidate information until the late stages of the recruiting process has become more popular in recent years, thanks to new tech tools and an increasing awareness of the importance of building diverse workforces. Diversity Recruiting Strategies: 8 Diversity Recruitment Best Practices for 2021, If Your Diversity Strategy Doesn't Include Interns, You're Missing an Opportunity, Interview Score Sheets - The Complete Guide, Candidates with Muslim-sounding names are, Words and phrases that could allude to protected characteristics. Removing the date from applications and CVs is an obvious step if youre trying to reduce age discrimination. Your experience on this site will be improved by allowing cookies. For example, whites and Asians pursue careers in computer science a lot more often than Blacks and Hispanics, which naturally leads to more whites and Asians being hired in the industry. According to PwC research, one in five women are discriminated against in recruitment, compared to 5% of men who experience discrimination when job hunting. Studies show that the relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance has strengthened over time.
Not every applicant follows the instructions in the job postingand McNamee doesnt manually remove any identifying information she receivesbut taking this small step toward blind hiring has paid off. Like AAM, Cockroach Labs, a database solutions provider to enterprise businesses, takes a tech-free approach to blind hiringbut with a twist. The second advantage is the uniformity of the assessment process. We began by numbering candidates instead of giving them names, and found that lower-numbered candidates would be invited to interview disproportionately more often than higher-numbered candidates. On the other end, 60% of African Americans, 43% of Hispanics, and 32% of Asian/Pacific Islanders think diversity is crucial in the workplace. Furthermore, resumes with male names are 40% more likely to get an interview than similar resumes with the same qualifications but with female names. Organically, we needed to have a conversation about the topic, Grenawalt says. Engage your new hires from the moment they say yes. It helps you build a more diverse workforce, leads to higher revenues, and, most importantly, helps build your companys reputation. Modern applicant tracking systems like Pinpoint have the ability to anonymize resumes and applications with a single click. One of the biggest advantages of blind recruiting is that it could eliminate gender discrimination from the hiring process. Modern recruitment software will anonymize the contents of the application form as well as the resume. Hiring managers ask candidates questions to determine who they might know in the industry or what are some of the well-known names who they have worked with.
Make sure thats clear to everybody. Your session has expired. This is yet another statistic that speaks volumes about the effectiveness of blind hiring. Using equality monitoring data from your applicant tracking system before and after introducing blind hiring to report on how representation improves over time.