20 Common Hiring Biases
We all know that hiring the right people is crucial for building a thriving business. Yet even the most well-intentioned leaders can fall victim to unconscious biases that prevent them from making objective hiring decisions.
In this post, we’ll shine a light on 20 common hiring biases, understand how they manifest in the recruiting process, and provide tips for becoming aware of and mitigating bias in your hiring. Approaching this exercise with openness and wisdom can lead to more fair, ethical, and ultimately effective hiring.
Affinity Bias
This occurs when we feel most comfortable with candidates most like ourselves in characteristics such as gender, age, background, etc. To expand beyond our bubbles:
- Seek to deeply understand the strengths that those from all backgrounds could bring
- Invite feedback from diverse staff on position needs
- Use structured interviews anchored in role competencies
Confirmation Bias
Seeking or interpreting evidence that matches our existing views of a candidate while ignoring contradictory information. To gather fuller viewpoints:
- Ask the same core questions/exercises for all candidates
- Create rubrics to assess skills neutrally
- Request insight on areas candidate could grow
Halo Effect
When a positive attribute or impressive achievement causes us to view the whole candidate in an overly favorable light. To assess fairly:
- Use a preset scorecard of weighted assessment criteria
- Seek objective evidence for each criteria point to avoid overall general impressions
Horns Effect
The opposite of the halo effect, when one negative trait colors your entire perception. To evaluate objectively:
- Specify relevant skills, mindsets, and behaviors for the role beforehand
- Consider if negative attribute truly impacts efficacy in this position
Similarity Bias
Valuing shared experiences, perspectives, and connections with a candidate over the diversity of thought and skills an outsider may bring. To welcome new voices:
- Assign value and points to the uniqueness a candidate offers
- Structure interviews to isolate capability for the role
- Explore unfamiliar backgrounds and paths non-judgmentally
Recency Effect
Allowing impressions from a recent interaction or isolated incident override more representative patterns about a candidate built over time. To assess holistically:
- Review all records to remember the full arc of evidence
- Ask for input from those with longer views before judging
- Allow time before acting on temporary emotions
Contrast Effect
When one candidate is assessed as superior or inferior only in direct comparison to the candidate interviewed before them. To gauge individually:
- Space out interviews over days or weeks
- Clear mind before each interview
- Use the same criteria checklist for evaluations
Groupthink
When a desire for harmony leads panel members to minimize conflicting evidence against popular opinions about candidates. To foster diversity of thought:
- Invite panelists with truly varied perspectives
- Encourage playing “devil’s advocate” even after consensus seems reached
Rater Effect
Interviewer biases stemming from their own circumstances that influence assessments of candidates, like harsher grading after personal bad days or episodes of frustration. To stay balanced:
- Set shared grading guidelines before the process begins
- Take personal breaks when facing unrelated issues
- Cross-check by additional unbiased senior leader
Case-Rate Effect
Judging a candidate early as mediocre or unfavorable, and then discounting all subsequent evidence to the contrary. To give a fair chance:
- Withhold judgment until full assessment completed
- Balance early data points with later, in a holistic evaluation
Central Tendency
Scoring all candidates as average to avoid extreme high/low scores. Causes failure to identify strongest candidates. To differentiate sensibly:
- Use simply structured yet nuanced grading
- Set criteria thresholds warranting high/low scores beforehand
Gender Bias
Unconscious stereotyping of capabilities, leadership styles or fit for roles based on gender. To evaluate on merit:
- Use structured process tied directly to skills needed
- Invite perspectives from diverse panels
Age Bias
Assumptions about technical capabilities, ambition or flexibility based purely on age or generational status. To assess individually:
- Gauge interest and adaptability for the role itself vs. age
- Consult experienced yet still open-minded panelists
Attractiveness Bias
Viewing more attractive candidates as more capable, competent, and likable. To prioritize substance:
- Use scorecard tied to business metrics
- Share stories over resumes in early screening
Conformity Bias
Seeking candidates who align with the majority perspectives in your existing culture over those who constructively challenge. To embrace diversity of thought:
- Articulate and assign value to outlier strengths
- Welcome different lenses on decisions and markets
Personality Basis
Being drawn to or rejecting candidates purely based on introverted vs. extroverted temperaments which do not predict performance. To evaluate skills alignment:
- Map role demands to tools like DISC profiles
- Audition skills with situational interview questions
Gut Feeling
Hiring based on overall like/dislike factors unsupported by evidence on competencies. To substantiate choices:
- Build case using benchmarked scorecards
- Pressure-test personal sentiment with an unbiased panel
Cultural Noise Bias
Judging behaviors purely through the lens of one’s own cultural norms vs. understanding different cultural communication styles. To assess more objectively:
- Educate yourself on how behaviors can manifest differently in other cultures
- Focus evaluations on job-relevant competencies vs. stylistic differences
- Invite panelists familiar with the culture to decode cultural nuances
- Pose situational questions to evaluate capabilities despite varied presentation
Overconfidence Bias
The tendency for untrained managers to believe they can accurately predict candidate success without structured evaluations. To take a more measured approach:
- Lean on studies showing humans inconsistent in unaided predictions
- Adopt validated scoring techniques tied directly to job skills
- Check internal overconfidence by tracking prediction vs. actual job outcomes
- Balance own evaluations with multiple diverse perspectives
First Impression Bias
Allowing positive or negative first impressions to influence subsequent evaluations of candidates. To fairly consider the full picture:
- Acknowledge first takes are limited snapshots
- Balance with inputs from later interviews, tests
- Look intentionally for evidence contradicting the initial view
- Withhold final judgment until full assessment completed
As we strive to mitigate bias, we can create hiring processes focused on ethics, equity, and efficacy in sourcing the best talent to propel business goals.
With structured evaluations anchored in validated skills for the precise role, surrounded by diverse perspectives, we take steps towards meritocracy.
The path ahead lies in building self-awareness of prejudices and establishing practices centered on objective assessment of competencies. If we each adopt this mindset shift, the multiplied effect over time can ripple toward fairer, more ethical institutions marked by excellence.
Difference between Confirmation Bias and Conformity Bias
There is some overlap between confirmation and conformity bias, but some key differences as well:
Confirmation bias:
- Tendency to seek or interpret evidence that reinforces existing beliefs or opinions about a candidate, while overlooking or discounting anything contrary. It leads to only evaluating information in a way that confirms our existing views.
Conformity bias:
- Tendency to favor candidates who align with or reinforce the majority/dominant ideologies, norms, or behaviors of your existing culture and team. In other words, preferring candidates who do not change the previous structure versus those who could shake things up.
So, confirmation bias largely impacts how we interpret information to fit existing beliefs. Conformity bias means seeking external candidates who conform to and preserve existing team behaviors and norms, even at the cost of blindspots or missed opportunities for growth.
The nuanced difference is that confirmation bias relates to how we seek information from candidates, while conformity bias relates to how we want candidates we select to reinforce our existing internal dynamics. The distinction is subtle but important.
In both cases, these biases often come at the detriment to alternative viewpoints and diversity of thought that is critical for sound decisions and innovation.
Conclusion
This covers 20 prominent biases that can unconsciously creep into critical hiring decisions, along with tips for noticing and counteracting these effects by centering evaluation around validated role-specific skills and ethical, equitable processes.
Approaching this exercise as an opportunity for organizational growth can set the stage for real change, one mind at a time.
The collective compounding impact over the long run could pave the way to a more ethical society that allows talent and merit to rise based on substantive evaluation of people’s capabilities alone.
