10 Tips for Reducing Interviewer Bias in the Hiring Process

Finding the perfect individual to fill the job vacancies may be challenging and tough for recruiting managers and recruiters, especially during the interviewing process. All too frequently, the greatest applicant might be lost via what is known as ‘interviewer bias’.

Furthermore, we will discuss what interviewer bias is and discuss the many forms of interviewer bias that can impair the accuracy and reliability of interviews. With that following, We also look at how to reduce the influence of interviewer bias in an organization’s recruitment process.

What is Interviewer Bias?

Interview bias pertains to the common mistake of possessing a misguided opinion about your candidate, knowingly or unknowingly, that affects your appraisal of the applicant, either adversely or positively, making the interview less unbiased and, consequently, less effective.

When individuals interact in a social environment, they are likely to have preconceived assumptions about the individual with whom they are communicating even before they speak.

You could like someone even before you have met them because they’re attractive or graduated from the same institution as you did. Or maybe you could already consider them in a bad light since you know they are from a specific section of the nation.

Recruiters and hiring managers must be aware of these biases, as they are part of daily social interactions. Otherwise, you could end up hiring someone because they are pleasing to you or because they share similar traits or interests. Rather than because they are qualified for the job, this is the case. This is what interview bias is.

This is frequently caused by metaphors or mental representations that our mind uses to deal with tough circumstances quickly and to make rapid decisions. However, this important quality might be quite difficult for a recruiter to find, especially when looking for a particular post.

Types of Interviewer Bias

1. Bias based on first impressions

When a candidate’s initial impression leaves a strong impact on the interviewer, this is referred to as first impression bias. This kind of bias occurs when an interviewer recognizes a candidate’s look, personality, or attitude before the interview even starts. 

First impressions might have a profound impact on the interviewer and may considerably affect the duration of the conversation and even the recruitment result, thus it is necessary to generate a favorable first impression.

2. The bias of the contrast effect

Whenever an interviewer compares an applicant to an individual who was interviewed shortly before them, this form of interviewer bias might happen. For example, whenever a competent and knowledgeable applicant arrives after a less experienced one, the following candidate’s talents and abilities may look unnecessarily impressive. 

In comparison, after interviewing a competent applicant, the recruitment team might become unnecessarily judgmental of the subsequent prospects and underestimate their accomplishments.

3. Variable questioning bias

Interviewers frequently modify the questions they ask different applicants. They could do this depending on their subjective or objective views and conceptions about each applicant. 

When an interviewer presents relevant questions to various applicants, it might be the consequence of or lead to interviewer bias. This can also lead to an inconsistent assessment process, which can be negative to the overall impartiality and integrity of the procedure.

4. Generalization bias

Generalization bias can show when the recruiter meets an applicant during the discussion and expands their actions to the individual’s general character, talents, and attitude. It might restrict the interviewer’s ability to identify new or good features in the candidate. 

Generalization bias typically negatively affects the hiring choice, and it is important for recruiting executives to be conscious whenever they are practicing it.

5. Negative emphasis bias

Negative emphasis bias can occur when any negative information about the applicant leaves a significant and long-term impact on the interviewer. For example, if the recruitment team who is against career breaks and sabbaticals interviews an applicant who has a long career break on their Resume, the hiring manager might acquire a negative bias towards the individual even if the prospect fits all other job qualifications and objectives. 

Due to one element of unfavorable information, the interviewer would miss the candidate’s talents, accomplishments, and credentials due to negative focus bias.

6. Halo/ Horn

The most typical psychological interview bias occurs when an interviewer permits one strong aspect about the applicant to overpower or have an influence on anything else he or she mentions. 

This could be anything that delighted them (halo) or something which irritated them (horn) that distorts the candidate’s other responses, leaving the interview vulnerable to the interviewer’s moral judgments. This, too, is based on initial impressions.

A great example of this might be when the applicant is being interviewed and is unable to communicate effectively in English.

Even though his/her profession does not need him/her to have a solid command of English, if the interviewer rests their decision on this, they will permit it to affect the entire interview, which the candidate may lose.

7. Gender and Racial Bias

When choosing a candidate, recruiting departments and search boards should avoid preconceptions and biases based on sex or ethnicity. Candidates should indeed be chosen solely on the basis of their job-related abilities and qualities.

It is highly typical to recruit more males than women owing to personal biases or gender preconceptions about women, such as that they would be too weak for the position. Or recruiting more Asians, who are known to be more dedicated and seek lower compensation.

8. Nonverbal bias

An interviewer may be irritated by a person’s body language or habits. It is essential to recognize that this may be entirely beyond the interviewee’s power and, in any event, would not have a negative impact on their job performance unless in particular career pathways.

What problems might interviewer bias cause?

Interviewer bias could result in a wide range of negative implications for a company, including poor recruiting judgments and high employee turnover rates. Implicit bias in an organization’s recruitment process can also lead to a lack of a diverse workforce, an inability to give equitable employment chances, and a severely harmed employer brand.

In rare circumstances, interviewer bias could perhaps expose the organization to allegations of discriminatory practices. Recruiters in the United States are prohibited by law from discriminating against qualified applicants based on their generation, gender, color, disabilities, or other potential factors. 

If selection judgments made after an interview are based on assumptions and biases rather than considerations associated with the job specification or skills needed by the person, this might also constitute discriminatory practices.

During the interview stage, it is frequently easier to make biased and often utterly meaningless preconceptions about a candidate. In which the interviewer is ignorant of their own implicit biases, they may offer racial bias questions that pertain to a protected trait. 

For example, if a female candidate is questioned if she intends to have kids and is subsequently disqualified in preference of an applicant of the opposite gender, despite the fact that the male candidate is less competent, the employer might face a sex discrimination claim.

During an interview, an interviewer may unintentionally make a variety of inappropriate statements or remarks that could also lead to abusive behavior. Bullying occurs when a person, including one with a job candidate, is exposed to undesired behavior connected to a recognized feature with the intent or consequence of degrading that individual’s character or establishing an objectionable atmosphere for them. In most circumstances, this will be unintentional, but if the interviewer’s words have a negative impact, it will be considered bullying.

How to Prevent Interviewer Bias?

Learning about these biases will benefit you in avoiding bias in your interviews. Recruiting managers, in particular, require direction in executing bias-free interviewing because many of them frequently interview job applicants. Here are some of the strategies for avoiding interview bias in your hiring process.

1. Use Standardized Questions

Prepare a list of questions to interview each applicant for every job. In this approach, you avoid the equivalent of bias as well as inconsistent questions. You won’t mistakenly forget to question one applicant regarding A, and then dismiss that individual since B is a critical talent.

A telephone interview and/or conversation would be an excellent place to start. This prevents any judgment based on someone else’s appearance, body posture, or other physical demeanor elements. The organization is also essential here, so whether you conduct a teleconference or not, be careful to ask each prospect the same questions in the same sequence.

2. Use A Guide When Conducting Interviews.

An interview guide helps businesses to standardize the way that they conduct their applicant interviews. It also guarantees that all applicants have the same knowledge and, crucially, assists in providing an unbiased appraisal to everybody.

The interviewing guide’s information will vary based on the job you’re recruiting for, the interview style you choose, and your unique organizational requirements. 

3. Make All Assessment Assignments Confidential.

These need to be brief and not genuine business-related activities. Every applicant is given an identical task, whether that means developing code, analyzing data, or providing a quick summary of how they intend to resolve an issue. 

Assess the work produced without naming the competitors. As long as the task is tied directly to what the job requires, this effectively eliminates practically all bias.

4. Throughout the Process, Take Notes.

Rather than just sitting until the applicant leaves to note down your observations (which might incline more toward similar-to-me bias, generalization, and halo/horn bias), note down your observations as you go along. 

Developing a standardized sheet with space for responses could hopefully maintain things correctly and is essential for guaranteeing a systematic approach.

5. Recruit from a Number of Sources.

If the position is remote or will give transportation charges, then just don’t restrict your recruiting regionally. Promote in a number of locations. This will provide you with a larger and more diversified applicant group. Then apply the procedures above to determine the best-qualified applicant.

6. A Criterion is used to Grade Applicants.

Identify which abilities are crucial before beginning the hiring process, and then examine those talents separately. This will benefit you in avoiding, among several other things, categorizing, first impression bias, and contrast effect bias. 

When creating the job requirements and position, the hiring manager and consultant will have previously identified the abilities necessary for the available post The same ones make sense (so using them makes sense).

7. In An Interview, Keep the chit-chat to a minimum

As a starting point, it’s common to ask, “How are you today?” or “I assume your journey was okay,” but these can rapidly turn into inquiries that perpetuate bias. 

The journey in question provides information about an applicant’s area, which may boost the “like me” aspect. (Are you from the suburbs? I grew up in a suburban!) or the stereotype bias.

8. Organize Small Groups of Candidates for Interviews

Interviews should not be conducted too frequently in a single day. Ensure there are adequate breaks between interviews so that you can focus on other tasks during those breaks. It would be best to arrange interviews on different days for the candidate pool if it is very large. 

Arrange them in groups of three or four if the candidate pool is very large. The recency effect and the contrast effect can be limited by doing this.

9. Justify Your Choice.

Recognize your own biases. Every person has a unique set of preconceptions that are brought into play, often unknowingly. Take the effort to determine what makes you like a candidacy immediately.

Is it similarities to oneself, early impressions such as haircuts or shaking hands, or a halo/horn effect based on one distinguishing feature? Then, make a deliberate effort to avoid making quick judgments based on such prejudices and instead concentrate on what the applicant can achieve.

When you meet with other recruiters after the evaluation process is complete, make very sure your thoughts and rubric adequately explain why an applicant was or was not a good match for the role. Avoid justifications that begin with feelings like “I believe…” and instead utilize appropriate vocabulary like “The applicant was capable of demonstrating that…”

Communication with other eligible applicants and informing them that you appreciated chatting with them, even if they were inevitably not the perfect match, is also an important aspect of this. This exhibits transparency and gives applicants the impression that they were treated fairly.

10. Initiate Pre-employment Examinations to Ensure Objectivity.

According to surveys, organizations nowadays employ some form most evaluation tool throughout the recruiting process. This permits them to employ only compatibility as much as anything, generating a broader base of brilliant people who might otherwise be overlooked.

These evaluations should contain brief activities that match the type of work the applicant would be doing on the job, such as authoring a public statement or programming code. Conduct similar evaluations immediately after the initial security configurations and prior to the final meeting.

It lowers the cost per hire and time to hire while removing interviewer bias from the recruiting process by allowing employers to assess candidates only on skill rather than where they learned or worked previously.

Recruiters might remove most sorts of bias by maintaining the work confidentially and evaluating the entries exclusively on merit.

Identifying & Recognizing Interviewer Bias in Yourself

Acknowledging that you have interviewer bias is the initial step toward recognizing it in oneself.

To still be capable of dealing with your interviewer bias, you need to move quickly through all the five feelings of grief: disbelief and outrage, depression and negotiating, and finally, acceptance.

If you are able to acknowledge that you are an unbeliever, racist, gender biassed, homo/heterophobic, and possess any other worldly mix of socially heavily biased beliefs; you have an excellent foundation to work on.

We all possess these biases, and we all employ stereotypes and assumptions to try to understand, criticize, or sympathize with individuals when we deal with individuals. But if we refuse to admit that perhaps we have biases, whether through misunderstanding or by pretending to be above them, we are more prone to recommendations and acts that are, at best, mildly biased, and outright dangerous, racist, or intolerant.

As an employer, and especially as a researcher, your responsibility is to ask questions and pay attention to your interviewee without making judgments; something you must acknowledge as nearly impossible before learning to deal with it.

Wrapping It Up

Across many sorts of organizations all over the world, the interviewing part is still an important aspect of the recruiting process. It is also considered the doorway to an organization. 

However, it is an inadequate indicator of forthcoming employee success. Various activities, such as unintended bias, which leads to rating candidates based on measures that have no connection with their ability to execute the job, remain the primary cause. 

To make matters worse, Intelligence techniques won’t reduce the negative human aspect since they rely on the information given by individuals that are already impacted by prejudice. The fact of the matter is that employers still might reduce its consequences – by deliberately understanding that biases exist and doing anything reasonable to prevent them.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What effect does interviewer bias have on results?

Biases imposed by the interviewers can directly impact the credibility and validity of the end conclusions of the research. Long exposure considerations: Data available show that the wider the gap between the events being researched and the physical interview, the more inaccurate the data.

2. Why is it necessary for interviewers to be unbiased?

Other than potential consequences, interview stereotypes might also result in fewer hiring practices. This makes the environment less favorable and reduces the prospects of progress. Not being biased in a recruiting process enables you to recruit based on knowledge and abilities rather than demographic features like gender, for example.