Managing Interview Bias

This is when you judge someone based on their group, rather than their individual characteristics. For instance, you reject a male candidate for a receptionist job because women are more friendly. Or you reject a woman for a position with a high travel requirement because she probably has children and won’t want to travel. Both ignore the genuine candidate sitting in front of you.

Instead of asking each candidate the same or similar questions, you adjust your questions to the candidate in a way that prevents you from getting the whole picture. For instance, you may drill a candidate with a degree from the local university about their course work and what they learned but assume a Harvard candidate learned everything they needed in the class.

You may prefer the candidate who enters confidently and gives a firm handshake to the candidate who appears nervous and has sweaty hands. Unless the job requires the candidate to meet with new people frequently (such as in a sales position), this type of first impression bias can eliminate quality candidates.

If the candidate gave a spectacular TEDx Talk, you might be so focused on that one thing that you judge them as being better in all areas. This is not a fair analysis of their skills and work history. Don’t let one brilliant aspect of their resume overshadow the areas in which they are weak.

This is the opposite of the halo effect – if the candidate scores poorly in one area, you assume they do poorly in all areas. You may reject a candidate who makes grammar errors in his or her cover letter while he or she is a brilliant programmer. If grammar isn’t a critical part of the job, it shouldn’t be a crucial part of the evaluation.

This type of bias happens when a candidate is trying to impress you rather than share their valid preferences, and you don’t pick up on it. They may advocate a specific position because it’s the politically correct one, but you don’t learn anything about the candidate. If a candidate says, “I’m happy to work from home or in the office, I just don’t care!” it’s doubtful that it is true. If the position is open to either, that’s fine, but if it’s 100 percent on-site, you want to know if the candidate is okay with that.

Are you judging candidates based on body language rather than skills? This bias can result in rejecting neurodivergent candidates or candidates from cultures that don’t share the same body language preferences as your culture. Remember, people with autism may not look you in the eye, use stims to keep themselves calm, or have other body language that seems different. It doesn’t mean they are less qualified.

A person from a culture that defers to authority may look down as you talk, while someone from a culture where eye contact is a sign of respect may look directly at you. Neither is an indicator of potential in the job – it’s just nonverbal bias.

If the first candidate was weak, does the second look extra strong? Instead of comparing candidates to a standard, you compare them to each other. It gives mediocre candidates who interview after poor-performing candidates advantages over strong candidates who interview after other strong candidates.

This type of bias is also referred to as affinity bias. You feel strongly about a candidate because you have a lot in common – you like the same music, went to the same school, or grew up in the same neighborhood. This doesn’t relate to their existing skills.

This is the type of bias that happens when you’re holding out for the perfect candidate. You find fault with everyone, so you class everyone as “middle of the road” and keep looking for that elusive purple unicorn (or ninjas as we call them these days).

If the job is remote or will provide relocation costs, then don’t limit your recruitment geographically (other than legal requirements, or time zones, depending on the work). Advertise in a wide variety of places. This will bring you a bigger, more diverse candidate pool. Then use the methods below to find the most qualified candidate.

Logically, if your company’s talent searches look for candidates from a wide variety of places and sourcing channels, you’ll end up with a more diverse group of people to assess, interview, and eventually shortlist as finalists. Research from the Harvard Business Review suggests that building a diverse shortlist that groups candidates based on gender or ethnicity, can reduce unconscious bias and increase the chances of them becoming the favorite candidate.

Before you begin the interview process, determine which skills are essential, and look at those skills individually. This will help you avoid stereotyping, first impression bias, and contrast effect, among others. Usually, the hiring manager and recruiter will have already determined the competencies, skills, and knowledge required for the position when putting together the job description (so it makes sense to use these in the interview).

These should be short and not actual work that benefits the business. Every candidate receives the same assignment – whether it be writing a piece of code, analyzing a data set, or writing up a brief description of how to handle a specific problem. Judge the work product without identifying the candidate. Basing judgment on work produced alone eliminates almost all the biases if the work is directly related to what the job needs.

Having more than one interviewer and encouraging each interviewer to ask questions that are of particular interest or relate to their expertise and how they may interface with the new hire will help to reduce bias.

Develop a set of competency-based questions that you ask every candidate. This way, you don’t veer into similar-to-me bias as well as inconsistency in questioning. You won’t accidentally forget to ask one candidate about X, and then reject that candidate because X is an important skill.

Some organizations start with a phone screening and/or interview. This avoids any judgment based on someone’s looks, body language, or other factors related to their external appearance. However, there are other factors that need to be considered if using this approach. Ensuring the time for the call has been scheduled to meet the candidate’s schedule is essential.  Here too, the structure is important.

So phone interview or not, make sure to ask each candidate the same questions in the same order.

Instead of waiting until the candidate leaves to write down your impressions (which tend towards similar-to-me bias, stereotyping, and halo/horn bias), write down your impressions as you go. Using a standardized interview guide with room to capture the candidate’s answers, tips for what the organization is looking for, and consistent criteria for rating the response will help the interviewer in arriving at a more bias-free assessment.

It’s normal to start with “How are you?” or “I hope your drive in was okay,” but that can quickly turn to questions that exacerbate bias. The drive-in question tells you about a candidate’s neighborhood, which may increase the “like me” factor. (Oh, you’re from Doylestown? I grew up there!) or the stereotype bias (Oh, you’re from Doylestown? I always thought stuck-up rich kids lived there.)

Unless your business focuses on political subjects and the candidates share these beliefs, focus on skills alone. Provide candidates with your code of conduct, so they know how your business operates, but don’t ask about their opinion on the day’s popular debates. Be clear about the job requirements instead of asking candidates to try to guess what you like.

Sometimes you may just like a candidate or feel that this person is the best person. If you use the above methods to evaluate candidates, you’ll have a quantifiable answer as to the best candidate. Your gut is simply your own biases disguised as intuition.