Prejudgements, biases and transference during our screening processes and interviews, pave the way toward leading questions, assumptions and ultimately – the likelihood of a replacement or a refund.
Picture this – you receive an application for a data entry role from a lady in her 20’s, who lives 5 minutes away from the job. She has some data entry experience on her resume, and you think she could be the perfect fit for the role. Great news, right? Perhaps.
1st – Know your biases
“Cognitive biases make our judgments irrational. We have evolved to use shortcuts in our thinking, which are often useful, but a cognitive bias means there’s a kind of misfiring going on causing us to lose objectivity.”
Do you have a hiring trend? Are you unconsciously hiring based on your preconceived biases? The answer is yes. Biases aren’t always conscious, meaning we don’t always know we are doing it.
We have biases based on age, gender, race, sexual preference and more, and the way to avoid these biases affecting our judgment, we must understand ourselves better and become highly aware of the language we are using.
2nd – Transference
Transference refers to the way we act towards people in the present, based on our experiences from the past. For example, you may have had a great experience working in data entry and you enjoy the role very much because it suits your personality and skill set. You may also find that you transfer these desires onto your applicant, and you avoid asking fundamental questions to establish whether this is the right role for them.
Transference can also lead you to unconsciously repeat a past relationship of yours onto one of the present, ie: does this 20-year-old woman remind you of your daughter? In a scenario like this, you could be redirecting your feelings of this significant relationship onto the applicant – whether that is good or bad. Does your 20-year-old daughter have a tendency to not show up for work? Are you making this assumption about your applicant before seeing their attendance record?
3rd – Leading Questions
A leading question is a question which subtly prompts the respondent to answer in a particular way, whether that is negatively or positively.
If we, as recruiters, have already transferred our desires or past experiences onto the applicant or made an unconscious bias; it is common for recruiters to go on the use leading questions to reaffirm our preconceptions.
Although biases based on past experiences can be useful, it important to remain objective.
Example of a leading question: “How much did you enjoy performing data entry tasks in your previous role?” Here it is assumed that your applicant actually enjoyed performing data entry tasks in their previous role, and the applicant is more likely to reaffirm your assumptions and tell you what you want to hear.
In order to get an honest answer from your applicant, you can frame the question in a more open-ended way, such as: “can you share with me your experience whilst performing data entry tasks?”
The harsh reality is that the applicant may have responded positively to your questions just to get the job and may use this job as a stop gap whilst they continue their search for the job they actually want.
By asking leading questions, you are essentially feeding the candidate an answer that may lead you to pigeonhole your applicant into a particular stereotype.
How to avoid this?
Ask exploratory, open-ended questions that give you a holistic understanding of your applicant’s skills and preferences.
I use the “Miracle Question” in the opening stage of the interview process which gives applicants the opportunity to think about an unlimited range of possibilities for change. It moves the focus away from the role you are recruiting for, in order to gain a better understanding of your applicant’s motivations.
For example: “Suppose you went to sleep tonight, and woke up tomorrow morning and by some miracle you had landed your dream job… what would that be and why?”
After receiving the response, probe further into why this career is so appealing to them and then move on to compare the role you are recruiting for with this dream job.
- What are the differences and similarities?
- Will this job help them achieve their ultimate goal?
- How far in the future do they want to be in this dream job and how close are they to achieving it? (This will help you to assess the longevity of your applicant in your particular role.)
How is this going to save recruiters/hiring managers money?
If the applicant is the right fit for the job in terms of skills and experience, and you have gone further to determine if the job is the right fit for the applicant; you mitigate the risk of that applicant moving quickly from that job onto something else that aligns more with their motivations and values.
To put it simply, if you have less turnover in staff because you understand the person, more than just the resume, you save time and money and even increase productivity and morale within the workplace.
To find out your unconscious biases, click here.