Unmasking hiring biases [2/2]: The Usual Suspects. 10 common biases in hiring and how to mitigate them

In the realm of hiring and talent acquisition, cognitive biases can subtly and significantly influence the interviewing process, often leading to skewed assessments and potentially flawed hiring decisions. Cognitive biases are systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, causing conclusions about people and situations to be reached in an illogical or unfair manner. Personal preferences about the candidate’s previous employer, current team composition, urgency to fill the role, and a long list of other mental shortcuts impact our judgment and can unconsciously shape our perceptions and decisions. Understanding and mitigating these biases is crucial for creating a fair, objective, and effective interviewing process, ensuring that the best candidates are chosen based on merit rather than unconscious prejudice. 

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In the first part, we explored fundamental practices for identifying and mitigating biases.

Unmasking Biases: A Comprehensive Guide to Improving Hiring Decisions [1/1]

In this part, we will see a comprehensive list of common biases explained in detail and specific strategies for interrupting them

Common biases in hiring and specific identification and mitigation strategies

1. Stereotyping, Education, Experience, and Cultural Bias

Description

Making broad assumptions about groups of people without considering individual differences leads to oversimplified views. This includes judging a person or situation based on previous experiences with someone with similar characteristics and believing that our beliefs, culture, or processes are the "correct" or "normal" ones.

Examples

• "He is from university X. You know what standards they have…”

• "I don’t want to hire people from X kind of company."

• "He worked at Google. Definitely, he is a good candidate."

Mitigation Strategies

• Use multiple sources to build objective assessment criteria and establish alignment on the requirements.

• Collect both supporting and dissenting data when designing assessment criteria.

• Challenge assumptions to draw out facts, evidence, or examples.

• Ask follow-up questions when you hear generalizations or stereotypes.

• Question your doubts about someone's abilities by evaluating actual anecdotes.

• Challenge assumptions and seek facts and evidence.

• Reflect on how your personal experiences and cultural norms shape your perceptions, and ask follow-up questions when encountering generalizations or stereotypes to try to invalidate your own perspective.

2. Halo/Horn Effect

Description

Attributing a general impression based on a single characteristic or a first impression. The halo effect is the tendency to form a positive impression of someone based on one favorable trait, while the horn effect is the tendency to create a negative impression based on one unfavorable trait.

Examples

• Halo Effect: An exceptionally well-dressed and articulate candidate is perceived as highly competent in all aspects of the job, even without thoroughly evaluating their skills and experience.

• Horn Effect: The interviewer perceives a candidate who arrives late as lazy and unmotivated.

Mitigation Strategies

When you see yourself jumping to conclusions very quickly or fast-forwarding some interview questions, challenge yourself:

• Can I get evidence that the specific behavior is consistent and not a one-off?

• Have I created a general opinion based on a particular thing?

• Can I ask questions to try to prove any of my assumptions wrong?

3. Descriptive and Prescriptive Bias

Description

Descriptive bias involves interpreting information based on how things are supposed to be, often influenced by stereotypes, while prescriptive bias involves enforcing norms and expectations about how things should be or how individuals should behave. When someone goes against those norms, they may be viewed negatively.

Examples

• The interviewer believes that women should be nurturing and collaborative, and therefore rates a woman who didn’t show strength in teamwork and empathy negatively while not holding male candidates to the same standard. This prescriptive bias enforces assumed gender roles and expectations, potentially disadvantaging candidates who may possess other valuable qualities relevant to the job.

Mitigation Strategies

• Am I starting my interviews with a blank slate, abstracting myself from what I can assume from the candidate?

• Do I have calibration standards that apply to any candidate for the role and level?

4. Similarity, Affinity, and In-Group/Out-Group Bias

Description

It is common to prefer people with similar interests, skills, or cultural backgrounds who are like us or remind us of ourselves. We put those in a favorable “in-group” and everyone else in a less or not-favorable “out-group.”

Examples

• "I don’t think that person is a good fit."

• "I don't think she'd understand us."

• "They had a poor communication style" to a candidate from a different country based on their accent.

• The candidate uses the same programming languages I love.

• The candidate lived in the city I used to live in.

Mitigation Strategies

• Would I provide the same feedback if the person belonged to a different demographic group or had different experiences?

• Am I overly focusing on specific aspects of the candidate’s background or personality?

Challenge yourself to get more data:

• What answers did they provide that helped you draw that conclusion? For example, If communication was poor, why would you say so? Can you point to specific reasons? Are you influenced by the fact that the individual has a different native language?

• Is the candidate just saying or doing things in different ways that may seem unfamiliar to you but not necessarily worse?

• Is the fit about a clash with your existing team members or the company as a whole? Can those specific particularities be learned? For those of us who have been in the company for a while, remember that you also had to adapt when you joined.

5. False Consensus Effect

Description

Overestimating the extent to which their beliefs, values, opinions, or behaviors are typical and shared by others. This bias leads people to assume that others think and act the same way they do, often resulting in a distorted perception of social norms and consensus.

Examples

• An interviewer strongly values a highly competitive work environment and assumes that all top candidates also prefer and thrive in such an environment. During the interview, the interviewer might frame questions and interpret responses through this lens, assuming candidates who prefer collaboration or a more balanced work-life dynamic are less committed or ambitious. This bias can lead the interviewer to favor candidates who share their competitive values, potentially overlooking highly qualified candidates who might excel in a different but equally effective work environment.

Mitigation Strategies

• Acknowledge the potential for this bias and reflect on personal beliefs and assumptions.

• Prepare a calibration guide before the interviews and ensure it is validated and broadly used to get a more certain idea of what the actual consensus is.

6. Distance Bias

Description

Distance bias reflects our instinct to prioritize and trust what is closer to us, whether in terms of physical proximity, time zone, or temporal immediacy. This bias can influence relationships, decision-making attention, and perceptions of performance, as individuals working in the same location or office often develop stronger bonds and may be viewed more favorably compared to those who are further away.

Examples

• A manager favors a team member they see daily in the office over a remote colleague.

• A candidate is preferred because he lives in the same city or the interviewer has common friends.

• During evaluations, employees in the same time zone receive more positive feedback than those working remotely from different time zones.

• A leader gives more critical projects or tasks to team members located in the same building, believing they're more reliable due to their physical proximity.

Mitigation Strategies

Reflect on whether proximity influences your perceptions and strive to value distant colleagues equally.

• Do I have a closer personal connection with this person than any other?

• If you already work together, does the frequency with which I see a person influence my perception of others more distant?

• Would I value others more if they were closer to me?

7. Recency Effect and Availability Bias

Description

Placing greater emphasis on or giving more attention to recent events and observations over those from the near or distant past (recency). Depending on the information that is most easily and quickly recalled (availability). Making decisions based on the most recent or readily accessible data and anecdotes rather than gathering comprehensive information.

Examples

• "The last/first candidate was the best one."

• "I don't want to work with this person on this; last time, he made a big mistake."

Mitigation Strategies

• Take notes from candidates and compare everyone against your calibration guide—make sure you have one— and not against each other.

• Don't make up your mind on the spot.

• Ask follow-up questions to probe and challenge the candidate and yourself.

• Can you find examples from the past that invalidate your last perception positively or negatively, or am I overemphasizing last achievements or failures?

• Are you looking at a comprehensive picture? Do you have evidence that good or bad behaviors are consistently repeated over time?

• Did you give yourself enough time to consider all relevant information before making a quick decision?

• If you are taking several interviews on the same day, get breaks to release your cognitive fatigue or information overload.

8. Sunk Cost Fallacy

Description

Refers to the tendency to continue investing in something or someone (a project, task, employee, strategy, decision) based on the cumulative prior investment (time, money, resources), despite new evidence suggesting that the cost, moving forward, outweighs the expected benefits. It's driven by a desire not to waste the sunk costs, even if continuing doesn't serve the best interests of the project or the individual.

Examples

• "I know this is taking longer than expected, but we are almost there."

• "Even if it is not a priority anymore, we have made significant progress; we should just go ahead to avoid frustrating the team."

• I'm not sure about the candidate, but given the two months in the process and the time of so many interviewers and recruiters, I think we should just close it and send an offer.

Mitigation Strategies

• Are we making an informed/calibrated decision or trying to avoid conflict or the perception of loss?

• Do we have quantitative reasons for continuing? Is this still aligned with our objectives?

• Are there conflicting opinions in the group that can open our eyes to unseen aspects?

• For projects, prepare your Business Requirement Document documents to incorporate reasons to pursue and not pursue an idea beforehand, with relevant context and data, acceptance/exit criteria, and a clear stop loss.

• For employees/candidates, create role leveling and calibration guides so you have clear criteria for hiring and not hiring beforehand. Do the same for the probationary period and performance reviews, and drive your unregretted attrition processes.

9. Affect Heuristic

Description

The affect heuristic is a mental shortcut in which people make decisions and solve problems based on their emotions and feelings rather than on objective analysis and facts. This heuristic plays a significant role in how we assess risks and benefits in various situations, often leading to quicker, but sometimes less rational, decision-making. Specific feelings and perceptions come from the gut and are prone to unconscious bias. The candidate may remind the interviewer of someone else or a past situation, or it may be something built about specific traits.

Examples

• "I just felt a good vibe from her right away, which makes me think she’d fit perfectly into our team."

• "He seems really confident and likable, so I believe he'd handle the job's challenges well."

• "Her presence was a bit imposing, and he made me feel uneasy."

Mitigation Strategies

• Ask for specifics about what actions or statements or actions prompted these observations. What specifically did they say or do to make you say that?

• Did other interviewers feel the same way?

• Try to probe yourself to identify if there is a reasonable root for your feelings that are not related to the candidate.

10. Conformity Bias, Groupthink, and Social Cohesion

Description

Conformity bias occurs when individuals adjust their opinions and behaviors to align with what they perceive as the group consensus. In workplace settings, this can lead to a culture where new or differing ideas are less likely to be expressed or valued, particularly if the emphasis on fitting into the existing culture is strong. Groupthink and social cohesion are team dynamics closely related to conformity bias. These dynamics can significantly impact decision-making processes within teams, often in ways that compromise the effectiveness and creativity of group outcomes, preventing innovative ideas and progress. Groupthink prioritizes group harmony over critical evaluation, leading to poor decisions when dissent is suppressed to maintain cohesion. Social cohesion strengthens team bonds and can enhance collaboration and satisfaction, but it may also prevent the expression of diverse or critical viewpoints, leading to unchallenged and potentially suboptimal decisions. Both dynamics highlight the need for managing teams in ways that balance unity with the encouragement of diverse opinions and critical discussions to mitigate the effects of conformity bias.

Examples

• The hiring manager is inclined to hire, so everyone is inclined

• Most people didn’t like the candidate, so I won’t be the one trying to defend him even if I saw great potential

• The interviewers like a specific approach from the candidate; based on my background, I know it is wrong, but they won't understand, so I don’t mention it.

Mitigation Strategies

• Create psychological safety to allow open discussions among the team and remove the potential risk of conflict or feeling like an outlier by avoiding penalizing when it happens.

• Explicitly accommodate those challenging group-thinking and opening up perspectives.

• Proactively seek input from all team members.

• Be intentional about starting with lower-ranking or less senior people so they can express their opinions without getting biased by the leader, feeling that's what needs to be followed, or feeling discouraged to speak up if they have opposing opinions.

Conclusion

Cognitive biases are systematic deviations from rationality, influenced by personal preferences, team dynamics, and urgency to fill a role. These biases can significantly impact the hiring and interviewing process, skew assessment, lead to unfair and irrational judgments, and result in flawed hiring decisions.

Understanding and mitigating these biases is crucial to ensuring a fair and effective interview process. This will allow candidates to be evaluated based on merit rather than unconscious prejudice. For that, you should make a proactive effort to understand the specific common biases and strategies to interrupt them.

Do you know others that are not mentioned? Let me know!

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