Blind Recruitment for diversity hiring

Blind Recruiting is fast gaining acceptance among startups and other companies as a tool to add diverse staff. An acceptable acknowledgment to recruiting adding diverse candidates. Diversity hiring is a global phenomenon now and most of the company’s talent acquisition teams are measured on what percentage of new diversity hires have they onboard. 

However, the question remains how that will look in actual practice? Is it really an acceptable tool? And what are the ways you can acquaint it to your organization? 

What is Blind Recruitment? 

The philosophy got recently tested and accepted in many of the developed economies and on real-time have seen few tech companies in Singapore use the same. So what is blind recruitment? It is nothing but removing all the information from resume/ CV which would disclose details about an individual like gender, age, location, education qualification, etc. which might contribute towards biasness early on. 

Candidates’ names, for instance, could signal their socio-economic background, and influence a hiring manager’s decision whether or not to advance their application. 

Because several organizations specialize in removing candidates’ names from applications, this adjustment is frequently said as ‘name-blind recruitment’. It involves removing the candidate’s name and altered appropriate factors – like age, abode or location, years of expertise, and Adequacy or university names – from their application. 

The rationale is that removing such details makes it easier for hiring managers and recruiters. Blind hiring was made popular by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1952. When they asked musicians to audition behind a screen, the orchestra began accepting more women into their ranks. A later research paper concluded that blind auditions increased the chance of a woman being accepted by an orchestra, by 50 percent. 

Unconscious Bias and its impact on Blind Recruiting 

You may believe that you and your peers have an open mind and never disqualify an applicant for anything other than the absence of abilities. However, ideas and emotions that are not conscious of them can also influence most accepting individuals. 

"Unconscious partiality" is a widely accepted notion that the existence of a person affects their thinking without realization. Whether we remember or not we deliberately remember everything in our life, all that we hear, see and feel affects the way we approach distinct situations. We don't know anything that affects our thinking and our decision making. We are not aware of every little thing that is influencing our minds and decisions, because our minds move so quickly and have so much data stored in our unconscious mind. 

According to consultants, one of the greatest mistakes that auditors continue to detect is subconscious interval performance bias. A blind hiring system is supported by many consultants. This involves removing distinguishing information at its simplest from CVs— such as age, gender, or sex. 

It is essential to inform your staff–especially managers–how they can acknowledge and overcome their own subconscious biases in order to get the ideal benefits from your blind recruitment procedures. After all, for a long time, the new hire won't be "blind" to everyone— especially when they show up for a job that first day. 

For executives, there is training they should undergo to at least identify what their unconscious biases are through a sequence of exams, which they can then learn how to handle efficiently and acknowledge when they might kick in. To give you some insights on how big the problem of bias is in recruitment. 

1. 32 percent of HR managers were confident that they don’t hold any kind of prejudice while hiring new staff. Shockingly, 48 percent admitted that they are indeed affected by bias on their candidate choice whereas just 20 percent weren’t sure if bias affected their decision. (Study was done in the UK, 2017) 
2. As per the research conducted in 2009 by the UK government suggested that the chances of white-sounding name getting hired are more compared to non-white-sounding names even if they possess the same set of skill and experience. 
3. Muslim women are 3x as likely as women in other social groups in the UK to be unemployed. (Report by Women & Equalities Committee, 2016)
4. In one US study, universities seeking a laboratory manager were randomly given CVs with male or female names. Those with ‘male’ names were rated as “significantly more competent and hireable” 
5. Research published in 2003 found that people with ethnic-sounding names needed to send out 50 percent more CVs than people with white-sounding names to get a call back from recruiters 
6. Disabled candidates have to apply for 60 percent more vacancies than non-disabled candidates before securing a job 
7. A study by the US National Bureau of Economic Research – which involved sending out 40,000 fictional job applications – found that the fictional workers aged 49-51 received 19 percent fewer responses than those aged 29-31. Those aged 64-66 received 35 percent more interview invitations than those aged 29-31. 

In short, you create assumptions and biases after you sit down to review summaries and applications whether you realize them. 

The Blind Application Process 

Your CVs are censored by an indigenous footstool. Nothing can be anonymized about the entire skill technique. You must seek advice from a range of candidates before you completely conclude an agreement with them. I.e. Anonymizing elements of adjustment. 

The anonymisation of CV is modified many times. Some recruiters have experimented with this type of recruitment, such as the deletion of name and date of birth. However, many others have even discarded other information claimed, including education for a candidate. However, this may then influence the best judgment and attitude of a recruiter. 

Based on their basic qualifications or information, you can not judge candidates ' skills. If this happens, how will you get the data you need to contact them? Instead, you need assistance from someone in your organization that will not have any input on who is chosen for an interview. You will not be able to ask applicants for their CV in the blind first location – a potential downside. 

Social media

The addition of social media profiles into the application of a candidate may often give a more complete picture of a candidate. Through their social channels like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook profiles, you can see how they present themselves online. It is better to wander on the secure side if you are dedicated to blind recruitment attempts and prevent digging into social media profiles while you pre-screen. 

Use formal interviews

Although a face-to-face interview is hardly blind hiring, it may be possible to imitate some of the blind objectivity offers throughout structured interviews. In requesting all applicants in the same order the same predetermined questions, interviewers can rank and evaluate the responses more partially and subjectively than in unstructured interviews. 

Blend of best methods

Drive team-oriented recruiting, which takes the recruitment choice away from an individual hiring manager. If you wish to modify the way you work it is important to find out whether your business is culturally inclined. If an enterprise finds out where its general predisposition is, then it can hire predisposing disruptors and train everyone to do so in an interview. 

Still, a long way to go for Blind Recruiting! In conclusion, while several case studies on blind recruitment have been conducted, but none of them was able to conclude why the initiative was backfired. on the other hand, gender issues are widespread regarding the adverse effect of blind accomplishment. It's safe to say it is not yet the ultimate solution to the challenge of diversity to simply get diversified applicants through the gate.