Glossary: HR & Recruiting Definitions
Blind hiring, or blind recruitment, refers to the act of reducing bias in the hiring process by hiding parts of information about a job candidate. This can include information such as a candidate’s name, age, and gender.
Blind recruiting involves any steps taken by a hiring manager or recruiter to hide candidate information to reduce potential bias. When blind hiring any personal details that are not relevant to the candidate’s suitability for a role, but that might (subconsciously) influence the hiring decision, are taken out of the process.
The goal is to create a fairer process in which candidates are selected based on their skills and relevant experience rather than on unrelated traits. The implementation of a blind hiring process is generally part of the wider diversity recruiting strategy of a company.
Implementing a blind hiring process involves taking certain steps to reduce the chance of potential biases guiding hiring decisions. The following steps are generally included in a blind hiring process.
Note that these steps are preceded by other diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) methods, including:
As with most organisational processes, it’s important to start by setting a clear goal. Why are you implementing a blind hiring process, and what is it you want to achieve? This will help you keep track of whether your blind hiring efforts are actually having the desired results.
For instance, your blind hiring goal could be to reduce the gap between the number of women versus the number of men working in your Technology team by 10% over the course of 6 months.
Next, you should determine what information is relevant (and what isn’t) for the hiring process.
This often starts by anonymizing the resumes of candidates and filtering out what is clearly not essential. In most cases, any type of demographic data will be irrelevant to a candidate’s suitability for the job. Some common factors to strip from your hiring process:
Aside from hiding these pieces of information, you should also consider what skills are truly essential for the job, and which ones aren’t. This will most likely be a mix of both soft and hard skills.
To learn more about skill-based hiring rather than role-based hiring, check out our article on hiring for roles vs. hiring for skills.
There are several methods that you can use to filter out all this information, including using paid tools like Blendoor.
Alternatively, you can solve this manually and internally, for example by:
Note that this pre-screening should never include looking someone up on LinkedIn or other social media. Not only will this make you much more prone to bias, but it can in some cases even violate data privacy regulations (like GDPR).
The longer you can keep the hiring process blind and anonymous, the more you will reduce subconscious biases influencing decisions.
That’s why some companies have introduced blind interviews as part of their interview process. This could be in the form of sending interview questions rather than scheduling a face-to-face interview. Another method is by holding a phone interview first, although someone’s voice can already signal a certain background.
Do note that these methods may work as an extra anti-bias layer within your interview process, but they probably can’t replace the process. Meaning, at the end of the day, you will have to have a face-to-face interview with a potential candidate to get to know them. But adding a blind interview step can help reduce potential bias earlier on in the process.
Lastly, you should continuously keep track of your hiring efforts and whether you are reaching your goals:
In addition, you should simultaneously keep expanding your efforts outside of hiring as well. Ultimately, your blind hiring process should become part of your company’s holistic diversity recruiting process.
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