The shortlisting stage is a crucial part of the recruitment process. Our client success manager, Sabah, shares her top 5 tips to ensure your recruitment process is unbiased and inclusive, so you hire the best possible candidates based on skill and experience – the real things that matter.
Diversity and inclusion – It’s not just about gender
Gender diversity is becoming a key priority for many organisations, which is a great step forward, but the best principles include all types of diversity – this means recruiting ‘with a wide-angle lens’. This can only be achieved if individual hiring managers are aware of their own personal biases, and their decisions are made in an environment where unconscious bias is understood and challenged in a constructive way.
There are many reasons why organisations are focusing on this and have started to train their workforces and leaders, but some of the most significant are the benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace, of which there are many.
The benefits to overall business performance
In 2012, a McKinsey study found that US companies with diverse executive boards had a 95% higher return on equity than those lacking diversity. In 2015, McKinsey found that the best-performing companies for gender diversity in management were 15% more likely to financially outperform, and 35% more likely when it came to ethnic and racial managerial diversity.
Reports from the field concur. The HR Research Institute’s 2019 survey saw 61% of respondents agree that diversity led to improved performance.
Here are Sabah’s top 5 tips to help your recruitment process be less biased and more inclusive
1. Your shortlisting process
Make sure at least two people are involved in the shortlisting process, this then reduces the risk of personal bias by challenging any assumptions made by the other.
2. Selection criteria
Create selection criteria based on the requirements of the role.
Mark candidates only against these pre-defined requirements.
Selection criteria should only be used for ranking candidates initially. If large numbers of candidates meet the criteria, then other desired experience may be used, but again base this on experience (previous roles, responsibilities and industry).
3. Unconscious bias
Screening based on top universities/top-tier organisations can actually be detrimental to your recruitment process and lead to a less diverse team.
In 2017, Cloverpop wrote a white paper detailing that diverse teams made decisions 60% faster than non-diverse teams, and that teams marked by gender, date of birth and geographic diversity made the right decision 87% of the time, compared to 58% for all white male teams.
4. Bias towards typos
If there hasn’t been any way to disclose this in your recruitment process, it is important to consider this might be someone with a learning disability (e.g. dyslexia). Dyslexics, in particular, have shown to possess strong entrepreneurial, problem-solving and out of the box thinking skills. Dyslexics you may have heard of include: Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Richard Branson, Theo Paphitis… and the list goes on.
If the candidate otherwise meets the criteria they should be given the opportunity to interview.
5. Consider blind recruitment
Reviewing CVs without including any personal information is effective at removing any bias towards diverse candidates.
Ideally, you have a teammate not involved in the shortlisting process to make sure the assessor doesn’t see any names, locations, schools and date of birth, allowing the assessor to review the proven skills and experience of the candidate – the real things that matter.
Moving forward
We are living in a globally connected world so it’s no surprise that more diverse companies are achieving greater performance. Given the higher returns diversity is set to bring, it makes sense to act now to ensure your organisation moves further ahead instead of falling behind.
Movemeon has a diverse network of over 40,000 strategic and commercial professionals, Get in touch if you are looking to hire.
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Clare Tsangari, Digital Marketing & Content Manager
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- Movemeon.com - The world’s leading community of consultants, alumni and commercial professionals. Founded by two ex-McKinsey Consultants, Nick Patterson & Rich Rosser.
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