Let’s get real: we spend much of our time online. We basically live here for a living.
Due to rapidly evolving technology, we’re lucky enough to be able to work pretty well anywhere—and that opens doors to global remote work opportunities. But, too often, job applicants face discrimination throughout the recruitment process.
This article examines the many types of hiring bias remote job seekers may face. It’ll give your team everything you need to know to spot (and stop) hiring bias, including red flags to watch for in yourself and your colleagues when evaluating candidates.
Bias Is Already Common In The Workplace
Recruiters are inherently driven by human psychology. We seek to understand why people think, feel, and act as they do so we can understand if they would be a good for their role and the company. When hiring remotely, it can be easy to try and rely on our own intuition when choosing a candidate.
Applying the understanding of biases can help us become better recruiters. Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to perceive unconscious bias in our decisions, so what can we do to change this?
Types of Hiring Biases
Hiring bias can be either conscious or unconscious, but all biases should be mitigated in recruitment processes. Here are some common biases that may pop up in your quest to hire great employees.
Race and Ethnicity Bias – Judging people based on their race, nationality, ancestry, or place of origin. Closely related to this bias is race-based hair discrimination, when people with afros, braids, or dreadlocks are unfairly denied work because of their natural hair texture or an ethnic style.
- Gender Bias – A preference or prejudice toward one gender over another. The odds are still stacked against women. Research has shown that if there’s one woman candidate up against three male candidates, she has 0% chance of being offered the job. Gender stereotyping in recruitment also includes pregnancy discrimination.
- Sexual Orientation Bias – Discrimination against applicants based on an actual or assumed sexual orientation. The LGBTQ2+ community often struggles with being accepted in the workplace. Whether an applicant is heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, or asexual, it shouldn’t matter so long as the candidate has the necessary skills to do the job well.
- Age Bias – We sometimes make unfair assumptions about someone based on their actual or assumed age. Older candidates may have upskilled to learn new technologies and strategies, but many hiring managers overlook this and focus instead on younger candidates.
- Disability Bias – When individuals with a disability or perceived disability are treated differently than other candidates for that reason. Disability discrimination can occur even when the disability is not obvious (visual, auditory, and learning disabilities, for example). Sixty-two percent of white-collar, college-educated employees with disabilities identify their disability as “invisible.”
While the above hiring biases are among the most frequent, other forms of biases can pop up as well, including:
- Commonality Bias – Favoring candidates who have things in common with you, placing more emphasis on your similarities than their skill set. This is a surefire way to limit diversity and inclusion at work, which should be celebrated!
- Conformity Bias – When interviewers unknowingly change their mind to side with the majority of people.
- Beauty Bias – Subconsciously believing the way a person looks is correlated to how well they’ll perform in the job. Conventionally attractive candidates are often awarded more career opportunities.
- Halo Effect & Horn Effect – The halo effect creeps in when interviewers become biased about a “positive” aspect of a candidate, overemphasizing that piece of information. The opposing horn effect causes interviewers to fixate on a perceived “negative” aspect of an applicant that is not related to the individual’s ability to do the job.
Watching for Warning Signs of Discrimination
Regrettably, candidate discrimination can rear its ugly head at any point in the recruitment process.
Pre-Screening
Bias can pop up in the initial screening stages if applicants are dismissed due to information that appears on their resume. Name bias is a perfect example of this. The reality is Mohammed doesn’t typically receive as many callbacks as David or other people with “white-sounding” names.
Interviewing
Hiring bias can arise in any interview format. For example, during a phone interview, an employer may judge someone based on the sound of their voice instead of their answers and credentials. Nowadays, however, there are lots of tools to interview remote candidates seeking knowledge-based work, and video interviewing has largely replaced phone interviews at some organizations. Still, the issue persists.
Whether it’s a recorded, one-way video interview or a live video interview, prejudice can enter the minds of hiring decision makers. This is no different than during in-person interviews. But, thankfully, there are more safeguards within video interviewing than the traditional interview process.
For one, video interviews can often be recorded, creating a permanent digital record of how the interviewer(s) interacted with each candidate. Interview questions can even be digitized to ensure every applicant is given the same opportunities to make a case for why they’d be a good fit for the position. Uniform questions can be used in conjunction with standardized rating rubrics to unify hiring teams’ applicant evaluation. This is especially useful if you’re one of the many teams working remotely that wish to minimize hiring bias.
Hiring Remote Workers in a Digital Age
Each and every one of us has biases ingrained within our thinking. While it’s impossible to completely remove them, as we become more aware of these biases, we can start to challenge unfair and discriminatory thinking that can enter the best-intentioned remote hiring processes.
With more than 80% of employers expecting to make wider use of remote work and to digitize work processes, it’s arguably the best time to be a remote worker. There’s no shortage of work opportunities. Now that you know which biases to watch for, you can employ critical thinking to create a more unbiased experience when recruiting remote workers to join your team.
Sean Fahey is an award-winning business leader, serial entrepreneur, and CEO of VidCruiter, one of the fastest-growing remote recruitment companies on the market. He holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Florida Atlantic University and, after years of first-hand recruitment experience, he’s passionate about sharing what he knows so others might find the same level of success he has.
