Recruiters and HR professionals must prioritize reducing bias in recruitment to find the best talent to staff their businesses. Candidate pooling is one measure that can minimize recruitment bias for a more inclusive work environment. Let’s go over the types of biases in recruitment before discussing the five reasons that reducing bias with candidate pooling is important.
Everyone has biases: their favorite brand of different foods, preferred television shows, and clothing brands they love to wear. Bias is okay in certain applications, but not in the professional workplace. They aren’t conducive to a healthy recruitment process when companies need new talent to fill open positions.
Types of Biases In Recruitment
Recognizing the different types of biases that can happen in recruitment is vital for nixing them completely from the hiring process. What members of the recruitment and HR teams may believe about potential hires could be misinformed because of the little information they know about the candidate prior to interviewing. Plus, if they are not careful, this can open the doors to stereotyping individuals without fully knowing them.
Affinity Bias
Some hiring managers or recruiters may gain an affinity bias for one or more candidates. This means that if they share a hobby or interest or have a similar characteristic in their backgrounds they may favor these candidates over others. However, this affinity bias should be stopped because candidates should only be assessed on their job experience and technical skills to do the job for which they are being interviewed properly.
Gender and Racial Bias
Gender and racial bias can make individuals overlook equally qualified candidates because they may believe that a person of a specific gender or racial background could fulfill the position better because of stereotypical norms.
For example, a hiring manager for a daycare may try to hire a female candidate for a Head Teacher position, even when males have interviewed for it because it’s more usual for women to work in this industry than men. Zippia reports that 89.2% of childcare teachers are females while the remaining 10.8% of them are male. In this case, if one of the interviewed males is more qualified for the position, they should be considered because of their experience and not excluded from the opportunity because of their gender.
Age Bias
Eliminating bias from hiring means shooting down stereotypes. Just because a candidate is deemed “too old” or “too young” by stereotypical norms to work in a specific industry does not mean they should be excluded from being considered for the position. People of all ages may glean an interest in a specific industry outside of the age demographics that are the norm for those businesses.
According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, about 30% of quick-service restaurant workers are teenagers while another 30% of them are aged 20 to 24. The last 40% of quick service restaurant workers are aged 25 and up. The main demographic for fast food workers are individuals in their teens and early twenties. Some hiring managers and recruiters may have a bias towards older fast food workers in their 50s and 60s because they could believe these candidates aren’t fast-paced enough to assimilate with the work environment. However, age bias should not be present to give everyone a chance for employment.
Confirmation Bias
Recruiters may fixate on information they receive about specific candidates that confirm their preconceived notions about them. Instead, they should only focus on true evidence that contributes to the candidates’ character and expertise rather than looking for reasons to prove they are someone different.
Halo or Horns Effect
Something positive or negative about a candidate could make a recruiter feel the desire to hire or not them without taking into consideration the candidate’s other qualities. For example, an interviewee’s resume could be impressive despite their interview performance could be subpar. Hence, the halo effect could cause a recruiter to overlook the bad interview performance because of the superstar’s resume. Conversely, a small flaw in how a candidate presents themselves could cause someone to feel the horns effect to where they unfairly judge them.
Why Reducing Recruitment Bias With Candidate Pooling Is Vital
Now that you know more about the types of biases, let’s delve into why reducing bias in recruitment is important for company success. From expanding access to diverse talent to enhancing innovation with diversity, there are five key reasons why bias reduction with candidate pooling is important for better recruitment outcomes.
Widening candidate pooling can help recruiters and HR professionals focus more on the technical skills, educational backgrounds, and innovative ideas of candidates rather than fixating on biases during the selection process.
1. Expanding Access to Diverse Talent
Bias reduction is essential when creating an applicant pool for recruitment to expand access to diverse talent thanks to candidate pooling. Rather than letting unconscious biases related to gender, race, religion, or other personal indicators cloud recruiters’ judgment, they can instead focus on candidates’ merit from a polished resume and astounding interview performance.
Having a narrow applicant pool with candidates of similar backgrounds and educational journeys could hinder proper decision-making during candidate selection. Broadening the talent pool with individuals of different educational backgrounds and work experience is important for refining overall diversity in the workplace.
Join career fairs throughout your local area to connect with a diverse group of people. Post your requisition to various job boards that cater to specific communities as another way to broaden your talent pool.
2. Enhancing Innovation Through Diversity
Speaking of diversity, prioritizing diversity and inclusion efforts is essential for keeping bias low and great recruitment outcomes high. According to the Pew Research Center, about 56% of working professionals believe that diversity and inclusion efforts are a great focus in the workplace.
Building a workplace of diverse individuals helps with creativity, innovation, and collaboration. The various ideas from different people can help harvest a new way of thinking and working for your company’s workplace environment. Intentionally sourcing people of diverse backgrounds into the talent pool will reduce bias during recruitment while encouraging an innovative workplace culture.
3. Creating Fairer and More Inclusive Hiring Processes
Candidate pooling reduces recruitment bias by instituting a fairer and more inclusive hiring process. All applicants are considered for the position based on their technical skills, experiences, and qualifications without biases getting in the way of a recruiter’s final decision.
Standardizing recruitment practices such as asking the same interview questions and evaluating candidates with the same predetermined criteria is vital for keeping bias nonexistent. Even blind recruitment practices that involve removing the name, gender, and photo from the candidate profile are other measures for eliminating bias in hiring while encouraging inclusivity.
4. Improving Company Reputation and Employer Branding
Candidates want to feel valued during the recruitment process. Hence, ensuring the reduction of biases during selection is important for enhancing the company’s reputation and refining employer branding. Applicants value companies that institute inclusive hiring practices as a strategic priority and social initiative. For example, highlighting success stories from diverse candidates on the company website and/or social media accounts can persuade more individuals of various backgrounds to enter the talent pool.
These benefits trickle down to attracting more customers who are attracted to the diversity and inclusion efforts within the company. Customers will want to purchase products and support companies with diversity and inclusion initiatives that align with their values.
5. Reducing Turnover and Increasing Employee Satisfaction
Businesses that work to reduce biases in recruitment and find the best-fit candidates for each role will see improvements in employee retention and satisfaction. Candidates hired based on merit and their skills are more willing to stay with an organization for longer. Finding applicants that align with company values results in better job fits and enhances candidate engagement while reducing turnover in the long run.
Reducing bias in recruitment involves engaging in candidate pooling. This activity is the backbone of lower turnover because applicants hired with a fair and inclusive recruitment process will feel like an integral part of the organization. Hence, lower turnover means fewer recruitment costs because there won’t be a need to onboard new professionals.
