5 Powerful Tools for Mitigating Bias (Take Note of No. 5)

In recent years, we have observed a long-overdue mindset shift in many companies regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). 

If you are not weaving DEI into the fabric of your business, you are putting your company at a disadvantage. In addition to the values imperative, if you struggle to attract and develop talent from diverse backgrounds, those vast talent pools will become increasingly difficult for you to access down the line.  

Many well-intentioned companies are falling short of their DEI hiring goals, despite their earnest intentions. And unconscious bias — judgments on individuals or groups we pass without our conscious awareness — is a root cause.

Here are a set of five actions you can take to mitigate some of the most problematic sources of bias we frequently see:

1. Watch your language. When creating your role definition (both external job descriptions and internal scorecards), steer clear of any phrasing or imagery that’s focused on a particular demographic group (for example, sports or battle metaphors, which can carry gender bias). Use tools like Textio to help you find the subtle ones you have missed.

2. Kill the qualifications. Most qualifications are proxies for the actual results you need in the role. Focus on the results and competencies you need, not how many years of experience (or what kind of academic degree) you think correlates with those factors.

3. Specialize your interviews. Ask each interviewer to focus only on certain elements of the role rather than forming a holistic judgment. If you ask an interviewer for a “hire/no hire” recommendation based on a single interview, they will incorporate their instincts and biases. There isn’t enough time to do otherwise.

4. Standardize your  process. The research is clear here — structured interviews (that is, standard question sets used across candidates) not only deliver more accurate assessment but also limit the degree to which interviewers can tip the scales toward candidates they like (consciously or not).

5. Take lots of notes. We all have a tendency to make snap judgments about whether we like a person, regardless of demographics, which can lead us to form a hypothesis and bias our remaining questions. A great way to overpower this instinct is to simply get curious and take notes. Taking lots of notes not only keeps your brain busy on data-gathering (rather than judgment-forming), but it also creates a fact base that the entire interviewing team can review objectively after the interviews.

Making progress on DEI hiring requires a lot of inner honesty. And it requires a multifaceted effort that looks well beyond hiring (development, promotion, performance management, and more). 

Mitigating unconscious bias alone is not sufficient — but it is certainly necessary.

This post was originally published on LinkedIn. 

Jordan Burton has 15 years of experience as an executive assessor and interviewing trainer, working with top VC/PE investors and high-growth startups to help them hire the best of the best. He has trained over 3,000 executives and investors on hiring and interviewing skills. He leads Talgo's business development initiatives, managing relationships with Sequoia Capital, TH Lee, Palantir, Chainlink Labs, and over 50 venture-backed startups.

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