Ensuring Objective Candidate Evaluation: Avoiding Bias in Recruitment (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Okay, let's look at each candidate, comparing them to the selection criteria.

Speaker 2: Do we need to? To my mind, there are a couple of front runners and a couple that we can reject without discussion.

Speaker 1: I think we do, if we are to avoid inadvertent bias.

Speaker 2: Inadvertent bias?

Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I'm not suggesting that any of us would be deliberately biased, but the brain takes in and processes a lot of information subconsciously, and that can affect the way we feel about someone without us realising. Seriously? Mm. Liz, tell us about one of the candidates that you'd reject.

Speaker 2: I'd reject Jason Pendergrass, because...

Speaker 1: Hang on. It's one of our protocols that we don't use candidates' names?

Speaker 2: Why on earth not?

Speaker 1: Because names can trigger all kinds of subconscious assumptions. For example, Robert Zimmerman sounds different to Bob Dylan, but it's the same person.

Speaker 2: Oh. Well, anyway, I'd reject Jason. Sorry, candidate one. I think he's too posh to mix with the operatives on the shop floor.

Speaker 3: What makes you feel like he's too posh?

Speaker 2: Well, that name for a start. Ah. Okay, Chris, I see your point.

Speaker 3: Exactly. He might have gone to a public school and be well-spoken, but look at his experience. Not only in his current job, but at university and during his gap year.

Speaker 2: Fair point. Maybe there is more to him than first impression suggests.

Speaker 4: In what way is that experience relevant?

Speaker 3: Well, at university and during his gap year, he worked with people with drug problems, homeless people, and he taught in a school in Africa. It's a constant theme in his references, his ability to build relationships with a wide range of people. And in his current job, when we probed into how he worked with people in the business units, he was very precise in what he described and gave very good examples. Yes, I forgot that bit. You're right.

Speaker 1: Okay, well, we know that building effective relationships is an important competence for this job, and candidate one appears to fulfil that criteria. What about candidate two?

Speaker 4: Aren't you going to compare candidate one to the rest of the criteria first?

Speaker 1: I'd rather keep the selection criteria as the focal point and compare the candidates to each criterion in turn. It helps keep us more objective. By the way, can I just make sure that we all kept our interview notes specific, descriptive, factual, and limited to the selection criteria?

Speaker 2: Yes, I learnt my lesson last year when that rejected candidate sued us and I had to produce my interview notes in court. Yes, that was embarrassing.

Speaker 1: And expensive. So how do we rate candidate two in terms of building effective relationships?

Speaker 2: Well, I liked her as soon as she walked through the door. Hang on a minute. Just to prove that I'm learning here, which of our criteria does liked her as soon as she walked through the door relate to?

Speaker 3: Well, what I mean is that she gave a very good first impression.

Speaker 4: In what way?

Speaker 3: Well, she looked very smart and she took the initiative and came and shook hands with us instead of waiting for us to make the first move. That could relate to building effective relationships, couldn't it?

Speaker 4: Was that initial impression due to her physical appearance or due to her behaviour? And was it verified during the interview?

Speaker 2: Well...

Speaker 1: My concern with candidate two on this criterion was that all her answers felt too thin. I mean, when we explored her ability to build effective relationships, all her examples came from within the learning and development team, not with business units. And when we pressed her, she told us more of what she could do rather than what she had done.

Speaker 4: Yes, my note at this point says unproven.