How to hire people reliably when your brain is biased

You are biased. This is not an accusation. In fact, it’s neither good or bad, it’s just a statement of fact. Bias is one of the ways your brain works, and it’s part of how we can make sense of the world around us.

A place where this has real consequences is in recruitment.

The question ‘will this candidate contribute to our success in this role?’ is a really hard one to answer. So, in keeping with the way it works, your brain will train and answer an easy one instead, without telling you. Like: ‘how familiar does this person seem?’ — IE are they like me? Do they talk like me? Do we have interests in common? Does their facial structure fit the template of faces I was regularly exposed to in my early life?

It’s important to remember that you’re not doing anything wrong if this happens: it’s how your mind works. Where you are at fault is if you don’t catch yourself in the act of making this subsitution. Because at that point you’ve stopped being effective: you’re no longer trying to serve the purpose of the recruitment process, and find someone who will do well in this role.

The good news is there is a tool that can help you — and not only is it free, it’s almost disconcertingly simple. That tool is: a score sheet.

Each interviewer independently scores each question you ask the candidate separately. At the end, add up your scores for each question to reach a total. This score is not the ‘end goal’, but is an aid to your decision-making discussion.

For instance, if different interviewers ranked candidates differently by total score — why did they do that? Did they observe different things? Or did they weight factors differently? If interviewers ranked candidates the same (or, at least, had the same top score candidate) — would there be any problem with offering that candidate the job?

The score is not the end of the process. It is the beginning. It is how you can start to see - and share, and potentially change - not what you think but why you think it.

By following a structured process in this way, you can direct your energies towards a more focused, fairer and more effective decision-making process.