Everybody Lies is written by the person who had access to the largest text dataset ever, Google! In this book Seth Stephens-Davidowitz proves how good we are at lying even when we say we are telling the truth!
This is amplified when we are on the other end of a telephone polling survey or across from an interviewer for a job.
The most reliable way to really figure out what someone thinks believes and feels is to analyse what they write, or in the case of Google what they have searched.
An easy engaging read that has brilliant material for a dinner party and will change the way you think about assessment tools if you are in the recruitment business! Read it to learn which tools are much more gameable (games!) and which aren’t (text-based assessments).
“If you want the bias out, get the algorithms in.” Andrew McAfee, MIT
Do you see people around you falling victim to a new favourite bias … the “I’m-not-biased bias”. This is where people tend to believe they have fewer biases than the average person. It’s impossible to judge whether you’re biased because when it comes to yourself, you’re the most biased judge of all. And the more objective people think they are, the more they discriminate because they don’t realise how vulnerable they are to bias.
Just as no human driver will ever match the learning capability and velocity of a Tesla car, no assessor will ever be as good as a machine that’s done it 100,000 times. The same applies to AI in recruitment.
No human recruiter will ever match the power, smarts and anonymity presented by a machine learning assessment algorithm.
We would love to see you join the conversation on LinkedIn!
Suggested Reading:
https://sapia.ai/blog/cv-tells-you-nothing/
In this jobs market, the secret to success is not necessarily a huge job ad budget or a top-range salary and perks package. You don’t even need to be the biggest, or the best known – many are the top-notch candidates that have been ghosted by the world’s most sought-after companies.
You do, however, have to invest in employer brand. Most of us know this, of course, but few companies have made the appropriate investment in long-term brand building. It’s a marketing play, fundamentally, and it’s difficult to do right, but the benefits can be huge for your business.
It’s your best long-term approach to recruiting. If you give every candidate a caring, consistent, and memorable experience, you will dramatically increase your fill rate AND your talent network. People talk about good experiences – in fact, according to our own data, a single good experience while applying for a job makes candidates 77% more likely to recommend you as an employer of choice.
The good news is, too, that the impact of an employer brand can be easily measured, according to Dr John Sullivan: By the number of job applications you receive each year. Now, don’t confuse this point with the opening sentence of this post – there’s a difference between a company’s brand and its employer brand. You might be a Fortune 100 company with a household name, but if your job application process is terrible, people will know you and remember you for that.
(And, if you’re not careful, a poor employer brand will end up affecting your wider brand.)
Your employer brand touches everything. You have seconds to introduce yourself to candidates, show off your best features, and get them to apply. That doesn’t mean, however, that you need to throw everything out and start again. Start with some easy wins, and then take a wider focus to include things like your technology and feedback processes.
Stodgy artwork, pixelated logos, spelling errors, outdated information, broken links… these will break your recruitment strategy before it has had the chance to work. So start here.
Channel | Items |
Website | Is our ‘About us’ section up to date? |
Do we have a ‘careers’ or hiring information page? | |
Do both sections, along with the rest of our website, adequately reflect our values? | |
Social media platforms | Is our ‘About us’ section up to date? |
Do we include correct contact information, including to our website? | |
Does our imagery and content reflect our brand values? | |
Are our job postings attractive and adequately promoted on the page? | |
Recruiting portals (Seek, Indeed) | Is all of our information up to date? |
Are our visual branding touchpoints (logo, header/banner images) of sufficient quality? | |
Is all of our information up to date? | |
Third-party recommendation apps (e.g. Glassdoor, Productreview.com) | What is the average star/quality rating of our reviews (mostly negative, positive, mostly positive)? |
Have we made an effort to visibly address customer/employee feedback on the platform? |
It’s important to note that the branding and visual appeal of your organization is not primarily your responsibility – maintaining it is a team effort. But portals and third-party apps are often overlooked over time, as a brand develops and organization information changes. It’s never a bad idea to champion the task of regular housekeeping, and get your best marketing minds to help.
With our Ai Smart Interviewer on your team, you’ll give every single candidate an engaging, empowering experience with your brand, boosting its value from the moment they click ‘apply’.
You can have offers out to the best candidates in just 24 hours. This is an incredible value proposition for candidates who are applying for 5, 10, maybe even 20 jobs at a time and usually don’t expect to hear anything back.
Here’s how it works:
Our customers have cracked the candidate experience code, enjoying application completion rates in excess of 80%, and candidate satisfaction scores of more than 90%. Everyone gets an interview, and no one is ghosted.
Remember: There’s no space in this market to be slow.
Is unconscious bias holding your business back? When it comes to building your team, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of choosing a candidate who seems like a good ‘cultural fit’.
But what if that means you’re missing out on a candidate who would be a great ‘cultural add’? Or the candidate that’s actually the perfect fit for the role and the team. When you make an effort to overcome bias and cultivate a workplace that values diversity – of background, experience, world view and so many more attributes – you’ll cultivate a workplace that’s not just great for your team, it’s great for your business too.
Hiring on a gut feeling that someone will be a good fit for the team is just one indication that your decision has probably been influenced by unconscious bias. Don’t be alarmed, it’s more common than you think. In fact, we all have unconscious bias and we are all affected by it.
You might observe it in the way someone treats or talks about others, or perhaps you’ve been at the uncomfortable end of bias yourself. When it comes to recognising our own ‘built-in’ biases, however, it can be challenging. And that’s why they call it unconscious.
Unconscious bias training has become not just a buzzword but a big business in itself. In this article, we explore the big questions around bias: What is unconscious bias? How does it impact the hiring process? Can unconscious bias be defeated? If you’ve already jumped to your own conclusions on those questions, that’s unconscious bias too!
Since the first humans gathered around campfires, bias has existed.
It is simply the way we feel in favour of something – an idea, a thing, a person or group – or how we feel against that something. Bias usually suggests that these feelings are judgemental, unfair or discriminatory.
Bias is about making assumptions, stereotyping or a fear of the unknown. It can be innate or it can be learned and unconscious bias is created and reinforced by our personal experiences, our cultural background and environment. Bias can be of little consequence – I hate broccoli – or potentially very damaging – I hate {insert name here!}.
The objective of overcoming bias in the workplace is creating a work environment where every employee can feel that the workplace is welcoming, safe and free from discrimination, harassment or unfair treatment. While that may sound ‘warm and fuzzy’, diverse and inclusive workplaces can help lift employee satisfaction, boost engagement and productivity and enhance the reputation of your business as a great employer. It can also lower your exposure to potential legal action from unfair or unjust employment practices.
When it comes to hiring, there are some biases that are more common than others. Some need no explanation – gender bias, ageism, racism, name bias – however psychologists and researchers have identified over 150 types of bias that impact the way we engage and interact with others. Here, we look at just a few. Chances are you’ve let one or more of these biases influence your decisions and, as a result, missed out on a perfect candidate.
Confirmation bias – where an opinion is formed quickly on a single detail (bad suit, good school) and the interviewer ‘fills in’ their own assessment of the candidate with questions that they believe confirm or justify their initial impression or judgement.
Overconfidence bias – can be closely connected to confirmation bias, when the recruiter lets their confidence in their own ability choose the best candidate in the way of objective assessment.
Illusory correlation – where a recruiter believes certain questions are revealing insights about the candidate that actually don’t exist or are not relevant to their ability to perform in a role.
Beauty Bias – this one speaks for itself. Will a great looking person necessarily be the most successful choice for the role? The simple answer? No.
Conformity bias – this bias can occur with group assessments when recruiters fall in with the majority even if their opinion about a candidate differs. Peer pressure can have a lot to answer for.
Contrast effect – also called judgement bias, this is where a candidate is compared with the resume and candidate that went before, rather than being reviewed on their own skills and merit against the requirements of the role.
Here’s some more:
Affect heuristics – this unconscious bias sounds very scientific, but it’s one that’s being a very human survival mechanism throughout history. It’s simply about making snap judgements on someone’s ability to do a job based on superficial and irrelevant factors and your own preconceptions – someone’s appearance, tattoos, the colour of their lipstick.
Similarity attraction – where hirers can fall into the trap of essentially hiring themselves; candidates with whom they share similar traits, interests or backgrounds. They may be fun to hang out with, but maybe not the best match for the job or building diversity.
Affinity bias – so you went to the same school, followed the same football team and maybe know the same people. That’s nice, but is it really of any relevance to the hiring decision?
Expectation anchor – where the hirer is stuck on what’s possibly an unrealistic preconception of what and who the candidate should be
Halo effect – Your candidate is great at one thing, so that means they’re great at everything else, right? Judging candidates on one achievement or life experience doesn’t make up for a proper assessment of their qualifications and credentials
Horn effect – It’s the devil’s work. The opposite of the halo effect where one negative answer or trait darkens the hirer’s judgement and clouds the assessment process.
Intuition – going with that gut feeling again? While the emotional and intellectual connection may come into the process, it’s largely irrelevant. Focus on their actual experience and capabilities instead.
In an ideal world, every hire would be approached in an objective way, free of unconscious basis and based on the candidate’s ability to do the job well. However, we don’t live in that perfect world and, time and time again, bias can cloud our judgement and lead to the wrong recruitment decisions. So what can we do? Let’s first talk about what doesn’t work.
The efforts of any business to drive affirmative change in their business are to be respected. However, there’s a very good reason why unconscious bias training simply can’t work. Why?
Because unconscious bias is a universal and inherently human condition. Training targets individuals and their well-worn attitudes and world views.
While awareness and attitudes may change, inherent bias will remain because that’s the human condition.
So if humans can’t solve a very human problem, what can? Sapia is challenging the issue of unconscious bias in hiring by promoting ‘top-of-funnel’ screening that entirely avoids humans and their bias. Instead, candidates are interviewed and assessed through automation and algorithms. The data that trains the machine is continuously tested so that if ever the slightest bias is found, it can be corrected.
According to an Article Published By Fast Company:
(Ref. https://www.fastcompany.com/90515678/science-explains-why-unconscious-bias-training-wont-reduce-workplace-racism-heres-what-will)
From a scientific perspective, there are reasons to be cautious that unconscious bias training will have a significant impact on racism, sexism, and other forms of workplace discrimination.
Contrary to what unconscious bias training programs would suggest, people are largely aware of their biases, attitudes, and beliefs, particularly when they concern stereotypes and prejudices. Such biases are an integral part of their self and social identity.
Contrary to popular belief, our beliefs and attitudes are not strongly related to our behaviours. There is rarely more than 16% overlap (correlation of r = 0.4) between attitudes and behavior, and even lower for engagement and performance, or prejudice and discrimination.
The closest science has come to measuring unconscious biases is via so-called Implicit Association Tests (IAT), like Harvard’s racism or sexism test. (Over 30 million people have taken it, and you can try it for free here. These have come under significant academic criticism for being weak predictors of actual behaviours. For example, on race questions (black vs. white), the reported meta-analytic correlations range from 0.15 to 0.24.
The hardest thing to influence through any D&I initiative is how people feel about concepts such as gender or race. Systematic reviews of diversity training concluded: “The positive effects of diversity training rarely last beyond a day or two, and a number of studies suggest that it can activate bias or spark a backlash.”
Using machines and artificial intelligence to augment and challenge decisions is fast becoming mainstream across many applications and industries. To reduce the impact of unconscious bias in hiring decisions, testing for bias and removing it using algorithms is possible. With humans, it’s not.
Sappia tackles bias by screening and evaluating candidates with a simple open, transparent interview via a text conversation. Candidates know text and trust text.
Unlike other Ai Hiring Tools, Sapia has no video hookups and no visual content. No CVs.
All of these factors carry the risk that unconscious bias can come into play. Nor is data extracted from social channels as our solution is designed to provide every candidate with a great experience that respects and recognises them as the individual they are.
A research study by The Ladders found that recruiters only spend about 6 seconds looking at a resume. With bulk-hiring, it’s probably less. That’s 6 seconds to make or break a candidate’s hope.
Sapia’s AI-based screening comes into to its own with high volume briefs, with the capability to conduct unlimited interviews in a single hour/day, assessing >85 factors – from personality traits to language fluency and other valuable talent insights. Candidates receive personalised feedback, coaching tips for their next interview and faster decisions on their progress in the hiring process.
Sapia is not out to replace human recruiters but we are here to work as your co-pilot, helping you to make smarter, faster and unbiased hiring decisions.
AI-enabled enabled interviewing and assessment also tracks and measures bias at a micro level so businesses can understand the level and type of bias that may previously have influenced decisions. With candidate and client satisfaction rated 95%+, it’s a game-changer for changing behaviours.
The ability to measure unconscious bias is just one more reason to use AI-based screening tools over traditional processes.
Sapia gives every candidate an opportunity to tell theirs. Through our engaging, non-threatening process where unconscious bias can be taken out of the equation (literally!), we will help you get to the best candidates sooner.
You’ll get a shortlist of candidates with the right traits and values for your business so you can move ahead to interviews with confidence and clarity. With time and resources saved on upfront screening, your team can concentrate on making the interviewing stage more rewarding for hirers and candidates alike.
With Sapia, you can soon be on your way to building more diverse, inclusive and happier workplaces. We know we can work for your business, so we’d love to work with your business. Let’s talk.
Get diversity and inclusion right whilst hiring on time and on budget. In this Inclusivity e-Book, you’ll learn:
Over a six-month period, Sapia gave personalised, same-day feedback to 250,000 candidates after each completed a text-based interview using its AI platform, says CEO Barbara Hyman.
The candidates ranged in age from 16 to 80 and included people from non-English speaking and Indigenous backgrounds. The feedback highlighted their strengths, as well as tips on areas for development.
The outcome, Hyman tells Shortlist, is that 99% of candidate reported satisfaction with their interview experience; 70% said they were more likely to recommend the company as an employer of choice; and 95% reported they loved receiving their feedback and “found it empowering, constructive and ‘scarily accurate'”.
Recruiters using Sapia gain insights into each candidate’s personality and the quality of their response to behavioural interview questions.
Sapia realised candidates would benefit from receiving some form of feedback and insight into their traits as well, and so it began rolling this out 15 months ago. The feature has since won a UK-based candidate experience award.
The feedback specifically does not include information about whether the candidate is a good fit for the role, “because that’s not our job – that’s the client’s job”, Hyman says.
For AI to be trusted, she says, the candidate needs to trust it, and so the candidate needs to get something out of it – including “the ability to understand themselves”.
Candidate experience isn’t simply an automatic email that says, “thanks, we’ve had lots of applicants, but we may not get back to you”, Hyman says.
Rather, a good candidate experience is “when everybody gets something out of it”.
“There really isn’t any excuse now for ghosting. And the feedback that companies give when they do it through humans is not that constructive. Getting a phone call saying you’re not a great culture fit – what’s that telling you? That’s a big cop-out.”
When Sapia first deployed the candidate feedback feature, its clients were initially too scared to use it, says Hyman.
“They thought that if you give candidates feedback, you’ll risk a whole lot of candidates calling up and asking, ‘why didn’t I get the job?’ or candidates would disagree with it and it would undermine their trust in the process. This might diminish their employer brand,” she explains.
But these fears proved unfounded when recruiters started reading the responses candidates were invited to give about their feedback, which included whether they agreed with the feedback and whether they would recommend the organisation as an employer or retailer (most of Sapia’s clients are consumer brands).
“The fact we were able to show to clients what candidates thought about it really disrupted that fear and killed the notion feedback is a ‘risk’.
“In fact, what candidates feel is feedback is a gift, and that gift is really playing out in terms of employer brand,” says Hyman.
Reference: Shortlist 2020 | https://www.shortlist.net.au
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