CEO and Co-Founder of Hiretual, the AI-powered Candidate Search and Data Hub, that helps recruiters source top talent up to 10x faster.
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In March, the U.S. economy added over 900,000 new jobs — a stark difference from a year ago. As post-pandemic hiring surges continue, employers have a chance to strengthen their company’s innovation, revenue and workplace culture. How? By hiring talent from underrepresented groups and communities who endured the brunt of pandemic-induced unemployment.
Today, more companies are publicly committing to diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives, especially at the enterprise level. Yet, across all the S&P 500 companies, 85% of top executive ranks and 64% of entry-level roles are held by white workers. If these metrics are any indication, the outlook of workplace equality in the United States is not where it should be. As more businesses look to achieve workplace equality this year, they will have to overcome a significant barrier to successful DE&I recruitment: unconscious bias.
To overcome this human-created barrier in recruitment, teams should leverage AI-powered technology that can spot and reduce unconscious bias throughout the hiring process. By doing so, employers can achieve workplace equality and build an inclusive workplace culture that aligns with a genuine commitment to seeing everyone succeed.
Are companies doing enough to stop unconscious bias?
The answer is no. A standard solution for addressing unconscious bias in the workplace has been bias training programs, despite the uncertainty surrounding its positive implications. One meta-analysis looked at 426 studies of anti-bias training and, at best, found “weak immediate effects.” While this doesn’t mean long-term bias training won’t be beneficial, it doesn’t help address bias that impacts immediate DE&I recruitment efforts. Instead, hiring teams should leverage advanced technology, starting in three specific stages of recruitment.
1. Right The Wrongs Of Biased Communication
When hiring teams begin their intake meetings with managers, everyone should align their goals and expectations for unbiased communication. At all communication stages, recruiters can leverage AI-powered tools that spot non-inclusive language to help identify and remove unconscious bias.
• Job descriptions: The language of these descriptions can dramatically impact the number of underrepresented applicants, especially women candidates.
• Outreach emails: Assess analytics to monitor the drop-off percentage of diverse candidates at each touchpoint to observe where language may need to be revised.
• Interview questions: It’s easy to ask non-inclusive interview questions that make underrepresented candidates feel isolated or uncomfortable without you even noticing. Create a structured interview process to evaluate interview responses according to specific criteria that are set consistently for all candidates of that particular position.
• Onboarding process: Beyond hiring, in-office communication must contain open channels and employee resource groups to help underrepresented candidates feel safe voicing discomfort. This dialogue is crucial to workplace culture and long-term hiring success.
2. Refine The Strategy Behind Targeted Searches
With artificial intelligence and machine learning, recruiters can automate targeted searches for candidates from underrepresented groups without compromising the integrity of job-specific qualifications.
Although the search process is simple, the strategy behind those searches must create equitable change. For instance, Hiretual product data showed that 67% of our customer’s women searches were focused on software engineer roles. It’s good to see more interest in women engineers, but teams need to consider what this means on a larger scale. If teams are hiring more women software engineers, does that boost equity and inclusivity if they are reporting only to male engineering managers?
While this is one example, these are the types of questions employers should ask when assessing diversity at all levels of their organization. DE&I recruitment is more than hiring for more entry-level positions or promoting one underrepresented candidate to a senior position to fill a quota.
Once you solidify your strategy, explore how AI tech can help remove barriers or surface-level problems during hiring. One of the most prominent barriers is a time-consuming sourcing process, which AI can help combat by optimizing the sourcing process for underrepresented talent.
3. Create An Equal Screening Process
There are too many studies and stories about employment decisions being made based on factors unrelated to job qualifications. To avoid biases that lead to these unfair hiring practices, employers can use AI tech that helps during the recruitment process to hide names, images and other bias-prone information from applicant profiles. As a result, recruiters are able to focus solely on the qualifications of candidates when screening for talent.
Now, some have made well-intentioned arguments that features like these sweep larger issues under the rug by keeping recruiters from dealing with them head-on. And they’re right: In the long-term, employers have a responsibility to build a culture where employees no longer have to rely on technology-driven features and are ready to deal with those problems head-on. Until then, these tools are a meaningful starting point for promoting diversity hiring, filling diversity gaps and reducing bias among employees.
Continuing To Improve
When asked about how technology can empower people and change people’s lives, the late, great Steve Jobs explained, “What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.”
I have full faith that employers around the world will continue their efforts to achieve workplace equality. My hope is that with help from well-leveraged technology, this goal will be achieved. However, it’s up to all of us — not technology — to be the permanent solution to ending issues of racial bias, maltreatment and inequality.
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