3 Key Aspects Of Fair Hiring Approaches
Fair and Transparent Hiring and Recruitment are terms used for practices which attempt to decrease bias, inequity and discrimination (even those that are unconscious). There are a number of different ways this can be done, below I describe 3 of the main ones.
1. Competency-based shortlisting: Using blind question answers, rather than CVs, as part of the initial screening process is becoming more common. Examining answers, as opposed to CVs, often levels the playing field initially.
Using answers as a basis for selection, re-focuses short-listing more directly onto knowledge and competencies. It also avoids the bias that CVs often reveal about race, cultural or socio-economic background, age, gender and so on.
Some use 2 main competency-based questions others as many as 5. Most have a strict word limit for candidates answers which are then shuffled and scored against a set of pre-determined assessment criteria.
The job board "Be Applied" is a platform that helps companies to debias their hiring processes through the use of these types of questions as a Diversity Recruitment tool.
2. Transparency: Pre-selecting and then advertising the selection and assessment criteria you have decided to hire upon is also considered good practice in some industries.
This is also true internally where staff are given access to the anonymised question answers and assessment criteria for shortlisting in order to more deeply understand what is valued and how that is assessed.
Shortlisting is usually done, if taking this approach, purely on the marks given for the answers. Effort is usually put in to explaining the process to candidates and letting them know what to expect. For example:
"Your answers will be blind-assessed and given a score ranging from "Does Not Meet Criteria", "Partially Meets Criteria", "Fully Meets Criteria" to "Excceds Criteria." These marks are given based on clear criteria which a number of people assess. The scores you receive are weighted equally and are then averaged. These averaged results are then be shared - in an anonymised form - internally with employees showing the types of answers which proceeded to our short listing for them to compare the scores they may have given as well as improving understanding about core competencies for the range of jobs in our business."
In giving marks, numbers and judgement words such as "Good" are often avoided. Numbers do not immediately illustrate how candidates matched up against criteria. Similarly, labels such as "good" or "excellent " may also have all sorts of other problematic associations and are also unclear.
3. Sharing: Sharing feedback - or their average answer score - with all candidates is another area that makes the hiring process more transparent and potentially beneficial for even unsuccessful candidates to help them understand how they matched up with the criteria.
Of course some candidates do not want to know their score, so this feedback is often sent out automatically as an attachment or link (which they can choose to open or not as they wish).
Some companies choose to share anonymised examples of question answers and how they scored with staff as well in order to educate about expectations and hiring choices. Differences between employees are often “built into the system” through processes and administration.
Who has access to knowledge and who “knows” what in businesses often structures power relationships. When a company commits to one of the above approaches, it aims to remove obstacles which empower or benefit a few people to the cost of others.
Practically, this often means developing systems and administrative processes which avoid discrimination, uphold key human and labour rights as well as educate employees on key issues - which were previously seen as being part of the “realm” of executives - and sharing information more purposefully.
Many companies are now looking inwards at how hiring practice can become more equitable, diverse and inclusive internally as well. In this area, approaches range from supporting more internal hiring, to having an entire teams participate in the drafting of Person Specifications, helping formulate the shortlisting questions as well as being the ones to collectively go through responses and mark them against the assessment criteria.
An increasing number will also ask for internal feedback and suggestions before advertising new positions as part of a “shared ownership” approach to corporate culture that aims to create more fairness.
Photo by Evangeline Shaw at Unsplash
Using answers as a basis for selection, re-focuses short-listing more directly onto knowledge and competencies. It also avoids the bias that CVs often reveal about race, cultural or socio-economic background, age, gender and so on.
Some use 2 main competency-based questions others as many as 5. Most have a strict word limit for candidates answers which are then shuffled and scored against a set of pre-determined assessment criteria.
The job board "Be Applied" is a platform that helps companies to debias their hiring processes through the use of these types of questions as a Diversity Recruitment tool.
2. Transparency: Pre-selecting and then advertising the selection and assessment criteria you have decided to hire upon is also considered good practice in some industries.
This is also true internally where staff are given access to the anonymised question answers and assessment criteria for shortlisting in order to more deeply understand what is valued and how that is assessed.
Shortlisting is usually done, if taking this approach, purely on the marks given for the answers. Effort is usually put in to explaining the process to candidates and letting them know what to expect. For example:
"Your answers will be blind-assessed and given a score ranging from "Does Not Meet Criteria", "Partially Meets Criteria", "Fully Meets Criteria" to "Excceds Criteria." These marks are given based on clear criteria which a number of people assess. The scores you receive are weighted equally and are then averaged. These averaged results are then be shared - in an anonymised form - internally with employees showing the types of answers which proceeded to our short listing for them to compare the scores they may have given as well as improving understanding about core competencies for the range of jobs in our business."
In giving marks, numbers and judgement words such as "Good" are often avoided. Numbers do not immediately illustrate how candidates matched up against criteria. Similarly, labels such as "good" or "excellent " may also have all sorts of other problematic associations and are also unclear.
3. Sharing: Sharing feedback - or their average answer score - with all candidates is another area that makes the hiring process more transparent and potentially beneficial for even unsuccessful candidates to help them understand how they matched up with the criteria.
Of course some candidates do not want to know their score, so this feedback is often sent out automatically as an attachment or link (which they can choose to open or not as they wish).
Some companies choose to share anonymised examples of question answers and how they scored with staff as well in order to educate about expectations and hiring choices. Differences between employees are often “built into the system” through processes and administration.
Who has access to knowledge and who “knows” what in businesses often structures power relationships. When a company commits to one of the above approaches, it aims to remove obstacles which empower or benefit a few people to the cost of others.
Practically, this often means developing systems and administrative processes which avoid discrimination, uphold key human and labour rights as well as educate employees on key issues - which were previously seen as being part of the “realm” of executives - and sharing information more purposefully.
Further Steps
The approaches I've mentioned are only a first step for many. This is partially due to the fact that they are external-facing choices that centre of the candidate.Many companies are now looking inwards at how hiring practice can become more equitable, diverse and inclusive internally as well. In this area, approaches range from supporting more internal hiring, to having an entire teams participate in the drafting of Person Specifications, helping formulate the shortlisting questions as well as being the ones to collectively go through responses and mark them against the assessment criteria.
An increasing number will also ask for internal feedback and suggestions before advertising new positions as part of a “shared ownership” approach to corporate culture that aims to create more fairness.
Photo by Evangeline Shaw at Unsplash
