Recruitment processes keep on evolving with time. The latest hiring methods usually turn out to be beneficial for an organization if implemented precisely. In this blog, we will go over one of these methods and blind hiring pros and cons for you to make an informed recruitment decision.
The process of not disclosing candidate information with the interviewer like their race, religion, gender, and socio-economic background, ensures that candidates are recruited without any bias. Having them solely judged on their talents and potential is the futurist approach towards true globalization and can benefit the company as well.
A lot of companies have already picked up this method of hiring and are hugely profiting from it. Even though blind hiring is a useful recruitment method, it is essential to understand the hooks of this method to avoid mishaps if any. Here are some tips to successfully implement blind hiring strategy in your organization.
Tips to Implement Blind Hiring
- Clarify what information can be concealed: Make sure both the recruitment team and the applying candidates are clear as to what information can not be shared. Think about what kind of information your recruitment process can resume without. Make a list of that information. Confirm with your management or board of directors and once finalize, share so with the interviewer.
- Don’t Simply go with a Candidate with High Marks: Just because a candidate has high scores from a top university, does not guarantee that the candidate is the right choice for your company. If you receive a candidate’s profile which is inclined more towards theoretical knowledge and has minimal practical skills, the candidate could be a bad choice for the organization. Hence, hiding educational background can help with focusing on the candidates’ skillset.
- Be diverse with your job description: Do not specify any race/gender when you are looking for new candidates, as it can create a wrong impression of you looking only for people with that specific biased mindset. Your job description must make it very clear that everyone is welcome to apply and be a potential employee regardless of where you belong.
- Be incognito during the primary stages: The first impression is the last impression. One can make a quick judgment about someone when they first meet. This is why it is important to keep the primary rounds of interviews incognito in order to remove any kind of bias.
Role of AI in Blind Recruiting
A new method gaining popularity in a lot of companies is using artificial intelligence. The AI technology is used for the initial stages of interviewing and you can have all the relevant information you want about the candidate. The reason it is popular is that using AI eliminates any chance of human bias.
What are the Benefits of Blind Hiring?
Blind hiring helps to remove some of the initial prejudiced views that an interviewer may feel about a specific candidate. It lets them focus on the candidates’ skills and talents. One of the most important aspects of any company is the employees’ performance. How they are benefiting the company, their efforts, and the office environment when they are around – all play an important role in this.
Top data analytic firms are actively trying to implement blind hiring in their recruitment methods in order to raise the hiring standards. It helps in increasing diversity in the organization, recruiting candidates solely based on their skills and establishing a discrimination-free workplace. In addition to the above, there are several other advantages of blind hiring
- Increase in candidate ratio to choose from: There are candidates out there that do not apply for a job where they feel their skills would be judged based on their ethnicity, race, etc. By eliminating the necessity to mention this information, you gain access to a much wider crowd and can reach out to any type of candidate. With more people to communicate with, you may get more strong candidates than you expect, which can very well work in your favor.
- Create a diverse environment: Unconscious bias also plays a huge role during the recruitment stages. But eradicating such candidate information that could lead to unconscious bias ensures that your company stays unbiased. You also get to learn different points of view on a certain matter which you or the other employees could not provide. A company that ignores bias and maintains balance tends to perform better and yield better outcomes.
What are the Drawbacks of Blind Recruitment?
Even though an extremely useful method, blind recruiting has its cons as well.
- Keeping the candidate information anonymous can sometimes work against them.
- Minority groups can suffer from this as blind hiring removes crucial candidate data. Companies willing to work with the minority groups don’t get to know a lot about the candidate. So there stands a risk of them getting turned down. For example, jobs that encourage representation of women by recruiting them can suffer heavily if the candidate’s gender is not revealed before. This can lead to the workforce being more male-dominated. It is the pretty opposite of what the core values of recruitment are.
- Skilled employees are an important asset. There is a chance blind hiring can prevent that one candidate from working for you who could’ve proved useful.
Such issues can be avoided if the method is effectively monitored regularly and proper implementation of each aspect is done.
Final Thoughts
Blind hiring is an extremely effective recruitment method that can work wonders for your company. But, it needs to be executed in a calculated manner because there are also a lot of ways it could go south. Though it has definitely helped reduce bias and improved diversity in the company it isn’t going to solve all your unconscious bias and recruitment issues.
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