You’re sure you’ve found the perfect candidate. It took hours of meticulous resume-combing, phone screenings, and schedule-wrangling, but she’s an ideal match for the job—and just what the organization is looking for.
Or so you think.
See, after the hiring manager has interviewed the candidate, they tell you she’s “not a good fit.” When you ask why, they respond that she “just doesn’t have what it takes to join the team.”
So maybe your instincts were wrong. Maybe the candidate bungled the interview, or proved she wasn’t a good fit for the team after all. But in the back of your mind, you can’t help but wonder if it was something trivial that put the hiring manager off, like the way the candidate talks or the fact that she has blue hair.
And then you wonder, maybe the bias was on your end. Maybe you only liked the candidate so much because she shares your Alma Mater.
Teams mitigate hiring bias
When relying on a single person to evaluate candidates or make a final judgement call, it can be challenging to discern whether their decision was wholly objective. The truth is, we all have unconscious biases, and those unconscious biases make it difficult to keep subjective opinions out of the hiring process. This can make things harder for some candidates more than others—and hinder your team’s ability to find the best person for the job.
That’s why multiple opinions are so valuable. Imagine the scenario above, but now the candidate is being interviewed by a panel, not just the hiring manager. If the hiring manager was (unknowingly) biased, the group consensus would help mitigate that. And if they all came back saying she wasn’t right for the job, then you have your answer.
According to Lou Adler, founder and CEO of hiring consultancy The Adler Group, a core benefit of panel interviews is the fact that they shift the emphasis towards performance and away from personal preference—leading to a 20-30% increase in the accuracy of the interview.
Team-based hiring
And the value goes beyond the interview, evaluating candidates with a team throughout the hiring process—from their first submission to the final interview—helps increase accuracy and stamp out bias. Two (or more) pairs of eyes really are better than one.
Say you ask candidates to submit written, audio, or visual content at various points in the process (like providing a portfolio of work, submitting an answer to a job scenario question, or recording a video response to an interview question) - get a second (or third, or fourth) pair of eyes to review those materials before making any decisions. The team evaluation will mitigate any biases or preferences from an individual.
This is the approach we advocate at career.place. Our revolutionary hiring solution makes it easy for your whole team to review and rate a candidate’s submissions, mitigating bias while driving team involvement and buy-in when selecting their future peers.
Team up. Discover the career.place way today.
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