Posts

How AI Can Stop Unconscious Bias In Recruiting

/ /by

A major feature of AI for recruiting is its ability to stop unconscious bias. 

A recent lawsuit reminds us why we need to avoid bias during hiring: Palantir, a software startup, is paying $1.7 million to settle a racial discrimination lawsuit with the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP).

Similar to EEOC guidelines, as a federal government contractor, Palantir cannot discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or against military veterans.

The Department of Labor accused Palantir of disproportionately eliminating qualified Asian applicants for engineering positions. The lawsuit alleges Asian applicants were routinely eliminated in the resume screening and telephone interview phases despite being as qualified as white applicants.

As just one high profile hiring discrimination case among many, this latest lawsuit drives home why compliance matters.

A lot of the blame for discrimination during hiring is placed on unconscious bias. Unconscious biases are “automatic, mental shortcuts used to process information and make decisions quickly” to which “everyone is susceptible.”

In other words, unconscious bias is an ingrained human trait. That’s why some experts believe stopping unconscious bias requires an non-human solution: technology.

Here’s how AI for recruiting can help you avoid unconscious bias during hiring.

What unconscious bias looks like in recruiting

Research has found that resumes with English-sounding names receive requests for interviews 40% more often than identical resumes with Chinese, Indian, or Pakistani names.

The Palantir Asian discrimination case is a real-life example of this type of bias.

Other common biases in recruiting include:

  • Similarity attraction effect: This is the tendency for people to seek out others who are just like them. “Opposites attract” turns out to be a myth: we tend to like individuals who are similar to us. Research on hiring practices has found that employers prefer candidates who are similar to themselves in terms of hobbies and life experiences, even though these similarities aren’t related to job performance.
  • Confirmation bias: This bias occurs when people favor information that confirms their beliefs and ignore or discount disconfirming information. Confirmation bias is one of the reasons why hiring managers ask different questions to different candidates during an interview. Because they tend to ask questions that confirm their unique beliefs about each candidate, this often results in comparing apples to oranges.
  • Halo effect: This bias occurs when we assume that because people are good at doing activity A, they will be good at doing activity B. In recruiting, the halo effect occurs when the hiring manager likes a candidate and uses that as a basis for assuming he or she will be good at the job rather than objectively assessing their skills and abilities.

Why unconscious bias is so hard to eliminate

The best-selling book Thinking, Fast and Slow explains the dual systems theory of the human mind. System 1 is fast, instinctive, and effortless. System 2 is slow, deliberate, and effortful.

Unconscious bias is a product of System 1 thinking. Because unconscious biases affect our thinking and decision making without our awareness, they can interfere with our true intentions.

Unconscious biases are so hard to overcome because they are automatic, act without our awareness, and there are so many of them: Wikipedia lists more than 180 decision making, social, and memory biases that affect us.

How recruiting AI reduces unconscious bias

AI for recruiting is the application of artificial intelligence such as machine learning, natural language processing, and sentiment analysis to the recruitment function.

AI can reduce unconscious bias in two ways.

  1. AI makes sourcing and screening decisions based on data points

Recruiting AI sources and screens candidates by using large quantities of data. It combines these data points using algorithms to make predictions about who will be the best candidates. The human brain just can’t compete when processing information at this massive scale.

AI assesses these data points objectively – free from the assumptions, biases, and mental fatigue that humans are susceptible to.

A major advantage AI has over humans is its results can be tested and validated. An ideal candidate profile usually contains a list of skills, traits, and qualifications that people believe make up a successful employee. But often times, those qualifications are never tested to see if they correlate with on-the-job performance.

AI can create a profile based on the actual qualifications of successful employees, which provides hard data that either validates or disconfirms beliefs about what to look for in candidates.

  1. AI can be programmed to ignore demographic information about candidates

Recruiting AI can be programmed to ignore demographic information about candidates such as gender, race, and age that have been shown to bias human decision making.

It can even be programmed to ignore details such as the names of schools attended and zip codes that can correlate with demographic-related information such as race and socioeconomic status.  

This is how AI software in the financial services industry is used. Banks are required to ensure that their algorithms are not producing outcomes based on data correlated with protected demographic variables such as race and gender.

AI still requires a human touch to stop unconscious bias

AI is trained to find patterns in previous behavior. That means that any human bias that may already be in your recruiting process – even if it’s unconscious – can be learned by AI.

Human oversight is still necessary to ensure the AI isn’t replicating existing biases or introducing new ones based on the data we give it.

Recruiting AI software can be tested for bias by using it to rank and grade candidates, and then assessing the demographic breakdown of those candidates.

The great thing is if AI does expose a bias in your recruiting, this gives you an opportunity to act on it. Aided by AI, we can use our human judgment and expertise to decide how to address any biases and improve our processes.

This post was originally published on Ideal.

Photo Credit: thierry.T Flickr via Compfight cc

Compliance: Why It's The Only Fix For Candidate Experience

/ /by

Candidate experience is one of those terms recruiters just can’t seem to shut up about. But unlike the blizzard of buzzwords mostly designed to sell consulting services and content marketing, it’s one that we should be discussing more. The reason is (unlike, say, employer branding), candidate experience actually is a concept that has real impact on real people and real recruiters every day.

Forget, for a second, the normal argument about business value and brand equity that seems inexorably intertwined with the candidate experience conversation. It’s actually kind of sad that we need to frame basic courtesy as a business case. Forget, also, the fact that many of the issues around candidate experience stem from bad technology and process, not necessarily bad recruiters.

Recruiting’s Problem Child

Candidate experience is perhaps the only issue every recruiter seems to agree on, with minimal dissent. We bicker all day about minutiae like in-house vs. third party, or when’s the best time of the day to send a job-related tweet — but no one disagrees with the fundamental facts that candidate experience counts, and that what we’re doing to fix it isn’t working.

The data generated by initiatives like the Candidate Experience Awards and products like Mystery Applicant provide valuable benchmarks. However, meaningful metrics and actionable insights simply reinforce a hypothesis upon which everyone already agrees, but treats with apathy more often than action.

Candidate Experience Petition Change.org US Dept of Labor

See the Candidate Experience petition at Change.org

Who Can Fix Candidate Experience?

It’s time to reframe the candidate experience discussion. We need to move from identifying the problem (we know it exists) and pinpointing its causes (the “why” is really irrelevant), to what companies actually can do about it. But that seems unlikely, because this issue is so big, and employers have been getting it so wrong for so long. What’s more, the HR industry seems more concerned with candidate experience as a commodity instead of an issue that demands conscious, meaningful change from the inside out. Instead, an improved candidate experience must start with the candidates themselves – and we’re all candidates, eventually.

Recently, I surveyed various professional networks and career-focused social media groups about this topic. Although the methodology was informal and unscientific, the results are noteworthy. For example, 80% of candidates (and about 50% of career services professionals and coaches) have never even heard of the term “candidate experience.” That low Q score likely skews high, considering the source – primarily active candidates who also engage about their searches on social media. Interestingly, this same group of non-mystery applicants also seems convinced that searching for jobs is a pain in the ass, applying online takes too much time, and they’ll likely never hear back from employers or recruiters who receive their application.

We’re not going to solve this issue overnight. But the first step (one that too often seems overlooked) is simple. Candidates need to recognize that it doesn’t have to be this way, and make their voices heard. We’ve done a good job of “managing” — and diminishing — candidate expectations to the point where they’re essentially minimal. But if job seekers demand better — if candidates say that this isn’t the way hiring should be — then employers will eventually listen. But how can we be sure they’ll actually do something to improve the status quo?

How You Can Help, Starting Now

Compliance is a sure bet. That’s why I established a petition over at Change.org calling for the U.S. Department of Labor – the same feared entity which keeps so many HR generalists so busy – to create specific guidelines and specific penalties for candidate experience.

Because in HR, it’s hard to change a mindset. It’s far easier to change the law. So please sign the petition now and make your voice count. I welcome your revisions, suggestions and/or comments.

Image Credit: Change.org

Compliance: Why It’s The Only Fix For Candidate Experience

/3 Comments/ /by

Candidate experience is one of those terms recruiters just can’t seem to shut up about. But unlike the blizzard of buzzwords mostly designed to sell consulting services and content marketing, it’s one that we should be discussing more. The reason is (unlike, say, employer branding), candidate experience actually is a concept that has real impact on real people and real recruiters every day.

Forget, for a second, the normal argument about business value and brand equity that seems inexorably intertwined with the candidate experience conversation. It’s actually kind of sad that we need to frame basic courtesy as a business case. Forget, also, the fact that many of the issues around candidate experience stem from bad technology and process, not necessarily bad recruiters.

Recruiting’s Problem Child

Candidate experience is perhaps the only issue every recruiter seems to agree on, with minimal dissent. We bicker all day about minutiae like in-house vs. third party, or when’s the best time of the day to send a job-related tweet — but no one disagrees with the fundamental facts that candidate experience counts, and that what we’re doing to fix it isn’t working.

The data generated by initiatives like the Candidate Experience Awards and products like Mystery Applicant provide valuable benchmarks. However, meaningful metrics and actionable insights simply reinforce a hypothesis upon which everyone already agrees, but treats with apathy more often than action.

Candidate Experience Petition Change.org US Dept of Labor

See the Candidate Experience petition at Change.org

Who Can Fix Candidate Experience?

It’s time to reframe the candidate experience discussion. We need to move from identifying the problem (we know it exists) and pinpointing its causes (the “why” is really irrelevant), to what companies actually can do about it. But that seems unlikely, because this issue is so big, and employers have been getting it so wrong for so long. What’s more, the HR industry seems more concerned with candidate experience as a commodity instead of an issue that demands conscious, meaningful change from the inside out. Instead, an improved candidate experience must start with the candidates themselves – and we’re all candidates, eventually.

Recently, I surveyed various professional networks and career-focused social media groups about this topic. Although the methodology was informal and unscientific, the results are noteworthy. For example, 80% of candidates (and about 50% of career services professionals and coaches) have never even heard of the term “candidate experience.” That low Q score likely skews high, considering the source – primarily active candidates who also engage about their searches on social media. Interestingly, this same group of non-mystery applicants also seems convinced that searching for jobs is a pain in the ass, applying online takes too much time, and they’ll likely never hear back from employers or recruiters who receive their application.

We’re not going to solve this issue overnight. But the first step (one that too often seems overlooked) is simple. Candidates need to recognize that it doesn’t have to be this way, and make their voices heard. We’ve done a good job of “managing” — and diminishing — candidate expectations to the point where they’re essentially minimal. But if job seekers demand better — if candidates say that this isn’t the way hiring should be — then employers will eventually listen. But how can we be sure they’ll actually do something to improve the status quo?

How You Can Help, Starting Now

Compliance is a sure bet. That’s why I established a petition over at Change.org calling for the U.S. Department of Labor – the same feared entity which keeps so many HR generalists so busy – to create specific guidelines and specific penalties for candidate experience.

Because in HR, it’s hard to change a mindset. It’s far easier to change the law. So please sign the petition now and make your voice count. I welcome your revisions, suggestions and/or comments.

Image Credit: Change.org