In an earlier blog, we talked about HR’s role in managing business risk. Today we turn our focus on one risk area that occupies CHRO’s, CEOs and Boards- the risk presented by bias and how to maximise fairness by removing bias. 

Despite all the attention generated by International Women’s Day year a few months back and year on year, and myriad other initiatives, Boards, CEO’s and CHRO’s know that bias goes beyond gender and fixing it requires more than a training session or two. 

Humans are full of bias and none of us like admitting that.

Most of us would not even know when are being biased…

‘I just had a feeling he wasn’t going to be any good’

‘he just wasn’t a good culture fit’

‘she just doesn’t have the requisite experience’ 

‘we had such an awesome interview, we could have chatted forever we had so much in common ‘

Bias in recruitment is even less measured and reported on than quality of hire.

It starts with having the data. The data revolution has been happening for decades in every other function but where is the data around recruitment?

• Do you know if there is bias in screening? hiring? promotion?
• Do the leaders and Board know those stats?
• When you run your 5000 graduate applicants through a personality assessment do you probe HR on what the success profile is that is defining screening criteria?
• Is that profile preferring a certain type (eg over-indexed to qualities like drive, initiative, agility) or does it balance out hiring to include some of those all-important cultural traits like empathy and humility? 
• Is your hiring profile going to give you more ‘Satya’s’ or more ‘Travis’s’? 

More on bias measurement later…

How can bias be removed from people decisions?

Daniel Kahneman, Psychologist & Nobel Laureate, has this to say about managing bias in human decision-making. 

“When making decisions, think of options as if they were candidates. Break them up into dimensions and evaluate each dimension separately. Then – delay forming an intuition too quickly. Instead, focus on the separate points, and when you have the full profile, then you can develop your intuition.”  

Regarded as the father of behavioural economics, after 5 decades of research he has concluded that the research is unequivocal: When it comes to decision-making, algorithms are superior to people

For further reading on how AI can remove bias in recruitment, download our whitepaper here.

Graduate Recruiting

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With graduate hiring, trust in your process is even more important. You never know when a poor candidate experience might end up on Glassdoor or Whirlpool or other such sites. Given there is a lot out of our control now, what you can control is how you and your organisation choose to engage with your graduates.

1. Personalise your communications

Be 10x more humanistic in your communications than ever before, to soften the stress everyone feels right now. Use technology that humanises the application experience. Use your photo in emails, dial down the formal side of your comms, show care and empathy right up the top. These are unprecedented times that call for a whole new way of connecting.

2. Reduce the asymmetry in recruitment and give something back! 

It is now table stakes that every graduate experience is one that rewards both sides – offering personalised learning for the grad and some good quality data intelligence for you the recruiter. Intelligence that looks like this https://bit.ly/2R6LuIc

3. Use assessment tools that feel more human 

This means being mobile-first and using engaging and relatable assessments that everyone can do in their own time and untimed to take away the unnecessary pressure. Tools like FirstInterview https://bit.ly/39KoqFP

4. Remove bias from your processes

The right AI tool can ensure every graduate applicant has an equal and fair opportunity to be considered because:

• They don’t rely on the CV, which is a biased and inadequate reference point for the traits that matter the most, such as growth mindset, accountability, drive and grit.
• They remove irrelevant markers of job fit like your ethnicity, your gender and your age, unlike video interviewing, which bakes in biased selection.

5. Hire for values and train for skills 

We have all read the research saying Gen Z will have ten jobs in our lifetime. That means the real skills that matter is grit, drive, accountability, curiosity and even humility to know you won’t always know what you are doing and how to do it!

That means uncovering these traits and values has to be a critical ingredient in your assessment tool. Doing that via human interviews is no longer acceptable given the bias we all bring to those conversations. Still, more than that, few businesses will retain a human assessment process when Ai does it better faster and cheaper. 600x faster and at least 3x cheaper. Here are the 2 metrics that should matter the most to any recruiter.

There are AI tools out there to help you with this including the ability to run a virtual group assessment to deliver the same integrity of assessment days with a lot more efficiency > WATCH VIDEO HERE. 

It’s about time to look at AI for your graduate recruitment.

Get in touch here with Barb, Nick or Jess

To read the first article click here

https://sapia.ai/graduate-recruitment-during-covid-19-whats-different/

Right now there is an opportunity for our profession to show even more empathy for the thousands that are looking for work.

Even with all the hiring freezes around, we are seeing many organisations use this time to get ready for the bounce back and the inevitable volumes coming from the changing employment landscape.

Gone are the days of screening CVs, followed by phone screens to find the best talent. A 5 to 10x increase in the number of people applying for jobs makes this no longer an option.  And no-one’s time is served well by screening thousands of CVs.

Given that humans don’t scale, automating your screening and assessment criteria is an important job for the right technology.

Imagine offering to candidates an interview that feels nothing like an assessment.

• An intuitive, human and fast interview for the role – 5 free text questions via chat. They can do this anytime, anywhere, anyplace.
• Receiving immediate feedback – personalised, motivating and constructive. Coaching tips to help them perform at their best whatever their next role.
• Having candidates feel comfortable to be who they are, without fear of being judged by a video, or pressured by a time-bound assessment.

It’s the automation of your interviews – with heart ❤️

And importantly – with fairness. Because an interview via chat is blind. So, everyone gets a fair go.

Technology that puts the candidate’s experience first is: 

• RELEVANT: CV’s don’t tell you whether someone has the qualities that matter the most – grit, curiosity accountability, critical thinking, agility, or their communication skills.
• RESPECTFUL: Gives everyone a first interview and never ghost again.
• DIGNIFIED: Value the time candidates give you, by giving them personalised feedback.
• FAIR: Video amplifies bias, so you need to have an approach that is 100% blind to gender, age, ethnicity, and all those irrelevant markers of job fit.
• FAMILIAR: Text is intuitive. It’s natural. It’s what we do every day.

By embracing new technology you can change candidate experience.

And by changing candidate experience, you can change a life.

“Wow, this was not at all what I expected, a great surprise to get a reply such as this, your appraisal was absolutely correct, and the coaching tip will be utilised in many aspects of both work and private life”

You can’t argue with candidate feedback 🙂

Understand how we can help you deliver on these promises and download the 2020 Candidate Experience Playbook here.