Is There Bias in Your Hiring Process?

No one likes to think of themselves and their organization as biased. Most of like to think of ourselves as being nice, decent and fair, as well as competent so to suggest there might be bias in your process may offend or anger you. Yet for years, I have heard managers at clients refer to wanting to hire a junior person as a euphemism for someone under the age of 27, someone who is perfectly spoken for someone who is born in the US or someone who can work nights and weekends for someone who is not a Sabbath observer.

Yet bias is often far more insidious in most organizations.

For example, by not offering standardized testing for skills-based positions, subjective interviewing, rather than objective measuring become part of the process far too often. By this, I mean, interviewers start asking questions by whim, influenced by the appearance, race, age, gender, perceived sexual orientation and other biases.

An article I recently read described a search process for a major firm that was hiring for a division and strongly considered hiring “the good looking” male candidate until someone remembered to probe into their measurement of success in their current position. Upon doing so, they discovered that the candidate had swung business to MAYBE a 3.5% improvement in profits. When they interviewed someone who was “less good looking” who had turned around a division at a competitor and brought them from losing money to strong profits.

Another way to examine bias in your organization involves looking into your organization and noticing patterns in departments

Here are more examples.

Is everyone in the department male?

Is everyone born in India and no one from Pakistan?

Is Saturday test time the requirement when it could just as easily be Sunday?

Is everyone male?

Have you noticed that no one is over the age of 40? 50?

Are all the worker-bees from a minority group and all the managers white?

Some of the points may seem obvious to you but it never hurts to remind someone that you can ask:

1. Reasons for termination of previous employment,

2. About references;

3 . Work Schedules;

4. Previous work experience;

5. Job-related feeling about previous assignments or present position;

6. Career interests;

7. Job duties of job training;

8. Education;

9. Job-related professional associations;

10. About qualifications for the duties related to the job; and

11. Any other information on the application related to the position.

You cannot ask questions to find out:

1. Age or date of birth;

2. Previous address;

3. How long at present residence or whether they rent or own their residence;

4. Religion or name of priest, rabbi, or minister,

5. Father's surname or mother's surname;

6. Maiden name or marital status,

7. Age of children or how many children or who will care for the children;

8. Spouse's place of employment or spouse's residence;

9. Parents' residence or place of employment;

10. Loans or financial obligations or about wage attachments or personal bankruptcies;

11. If ever arrested or about legal convictions, unless relevant to the jobs;

12. Services in a foreign armed service or about foreign languages spoken, unless requirement for the job;

13. Dates of education;

14. Race or membership in social organizations; and

15. Attitudes towards geographical relocation, unless required for the job.

In addition:

• You may not ask questions of one sex and not of the other.
• Questions about race, color, place of birth, national and family origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age or ancestry.
• Questions about past, present, or future marital status, pregnancy, plans for a family or child care issues. You can ask if the applicant has any commitments that would preclude the applicant from satisfying job schedules or performing job-related travel. If such questions are asked, they must be asked of both sexes.
• Questions about weight and height, unless this information is job-related.
• Questions about the candidate's state of health.
• Questions about disabilities, and the time needed for treatment of the disabilities, unless this information is necessary to determine the candidate's ability to perform an essential job function without significant hazard.
• Questions about a foreign address that would indicate national origin. You may ask about the location and length of time of a candidate's current residence.
• Questions about a candidate's native-born or naturalized status. You may ask if the candidate is eligible to work indefinitely in the U.S. if the question is asked of all candidates.
• Questions about a candidate's native tongue or how foreign language ability has been acquired. You may ask about foreign language skills if the position requires such ability.
• Questions about a candidate's willingness to work on religious holidays. You may ask about willingness to work a required schedule.

Things to Do:

Evaluate your hiring process.

Speak with the manager or determine for yourself what questions will be asked to determine applicant qualifications. Be specific!

Make sure that every person who will be evaluating knows what the focus of the questions needs to be so that they don’t stray from their expertise.

Require standardized post-interview reporting of thoughts and qualifications. Remove the comments for elements of bias.

These four steps are a start. There is no simple recipe or cookbook to eliminate it. After all, bias tends to go further underground when a flashlight shines on it. Yet it may offer a starting point to attack a problem that may be keeping your firm from hiring gthe most qualified candidates.

Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
Concepts in Staffing
jeffaltman@cisny.com

© 2007 all rights reserved.

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter, is Managing Director with Concepts in Staffing, a New York search firm, He has successfully assisted many corporations identify management leaders and staff in technology, accounting, finance, sales, marketing and other disciplines since 1971. He is a certified leader of the ManKind Project, a not for profit organization that assists men with life issues, and a practicing psychotherapist.

To receive a daily digest of positions emailed to you, search job openings, use his free meta job lead tool or to subscribe Jeff’s free job search ezine, Head Hunt Your Next Job, go to, http://www.jeffaltman.com. To subscribe to Jeff’s free recruiting ezine, Natural Selection Ezine, subscribe at www.naturalselectionezine.com For information about personal search services, go to www.VIPPersonalSearch.com.

If you would like Jeff and his firm to assist you with hiring staff, or if you would like help with a strategic job change, send an email to him at jeffaltman@cisny.com (If you’re looking for a new position, include your resume).