Workplaces today are experiencing a revolution. An organization’s hiring tactics must be flexible, fast and on-demand 24/7 if it wants to remain competitive and secure the best talent before another employer scoops up promising candidates.
Simply put, organizations have to readjust what they know while demonstrating their commitment to creating a diverse, equitable, inclusive and quality workforce. That commitment includes recognizing an enormous problem in recruiting today—pedigree bias.
Challenging bias within the workplace can be complex and intimidating when one does not know where to start. With the right tools, however, organizations can get started on recruiting for a better workforce from a candidate’s very first interview.
How Pedigree Bias Stifles Workplace Diversity
Pedigree bias is a conscious or unconscious preference for candidates who look familiar to the organization and its decision makers. Prevailing prerequisites for candidates to meet specific education requirements are a major driver of pedigree bias. Overlooking candidates who do not hold the “right” degrees puts up a significant barrier to entry for people from underrepresented backgrounds and limits an organization’s recruiting opportunities.
Pedigree bias can also be related to preferences for candidates who graduated from particular colleges and universities. Left unaddressed, pedigree bias creates a feedback loop and perpetuates a cycle of failing to create robust talent pools by excluding candidates with diverse backgrounds, such as graduates of historically Black colleges and universities.
Pedigree bias reinforces stereotypes and closes doors. It stunts an organization’s growth and prevents talented individuals from entering the workforce. So, what can be done to counter this?
Undertaking efforts to identify and reduce bias may seem daunting, especially when organizational processes have remained fixed for a long time. Yet, a different approach to recruiting and hiring can be taken. Changing the traditional ways of screening potential employees is an effective way to strengthen attempts to make the workforce more diverse and inclusive.
Be On Guard for Bias When Applying AI Tools
In a candidate-first world, creating an enjoyable and equitable hiring process is paramount. And with digital transformation accelerating at an unprecedented pace, every organization is turning to software to gain a competitive edge. For example, today’s hiring teams are adopting applicant tracking systems (ATS) that use artificial intelligence to help screen potential hires’ applications. While useful, this technology is in desperate need of continuous monitoring and scrutiny, particularly in regards to how it can project pedigree bias into who gets chosen for interviews.
Though ATS can scan applications at scale, the AI-driven tools have drawbacks when allowed to operate unchecked. Organizations have to be aware that bias does not necessarily stem from clearly defined preferences or exclusions. Rather, bias can sneak into the hiring process via learning algorithms that factor in measurements of which candidates succeed in receiving job offers and via data interpretation on the back end.
It is critical, therefore, for organizations to ensure that all their hiring practices adhere to fair and equitable methodologies. This requires consistent human oversight. But, to take an example from the process I know best, many organizations invest approximately 80 hours of their senior engineers’ valuable time per hire. With engineering time now being more valuable than ever, this is not sustainable.
One way to get ahead of the problem of diverting staff from their typical work to hiring is by shifting some of the candidate screening to an always-on network of interviewers who provide on-demand interviewing capacity. Aside from reclaiming the engineering hours spent on candidate interviews, accessing such a network helps organizations stay ahead of the competition for talent.
The race for top technical talent continues to intensify, and every hiring and talent decision becomes more important. By offering on-demand interviews and flexible scheduling, an organization shows its respect for candidates’ time without compromising current employees’ productive working time.
Making interviews more attainable also reduces the need to reject candidates after only looking at their resumes. As noted above, strictly applying specific requirements when screening resumes can inject bias. Inviting higher percentages of applicants to do live interviews gives larger numbers of people the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.
Promote Transparency
It is essential that organizations understand the importance of creating and maintaining a transparent interview process. A lack of transparency can set up candidates from underrepresented groups to fail early on.
Making transparency a focus early on increases the chances for all candidates to feel more confident in themselves and their preparation. Additionally, candidates from underrepresented groups who have little experience interviewing may become more knowledgeable about process itself, which sets them up for success in the future.
Transparency comes when recruiters and hiring managers acknowledge how certain candidates may present themselves better simply because they are more familiar with the process, know jargon and have connections in the organization. Faced with such a candidate, interviewers may consciously or unconsciously prioritize a subjective quality such as likeability over job-related skills. Accepting this reality is the first step toward making interviewing more equitable for underrepresented candidates and more effective for the organization.
A diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce can be developed by committing to taking innovative efforts to emphasize DEI early in the hiring process. Doing this creates a candidate experience that rewards skills and job performance while reducing the pedigree bias that previously excluded workers and limited organizations. Should recruiters and hiring managers implement new practices, employees with diverse backgrounds can distinguish themselves from others and go on to become pioneering leaders within the organizations that hire them.
01 March 2022
Category
HR News Article