Be aware of your bias and challenge it

You have bias, even if you think you don’t.  So do I.   I want to say I accept each and every individual just for who they are, and I really strive to act this way, but I’m also aware that I don’t always trust certain people the way I trust other people.   We are bound by society and by law to be ‘color blind’ in the hiring and selection of candidates for jobs, or the promotion process once they’re inside the firm, but certain people don’t get presented to higher management with the same fervor and vigor that others do, sometimes resulting in what my grandmother used to call “damning with faint praise”.   (“Yeah, Lakisha is pretty good at her work, but Emily, she’ll knock your socks off.”)

The Emily-Greg vs. Lakisha-Jamal study shocked me when I first read it.  You should take the time to read it, too.  Perhaps you think it doesn’t apply to you.  My first reaction was that I’ve long worked in middle-America markets and we just don’t think the way people in Boston and Chicago think, period.  Not just about colorblindness, but about so many other things like politics and education, morals and values.  Therefore I certainly didn’t think we would treat individuals of varied backgrounds any differently than anyone else.

Yet I’ve taken the opportunity to re-read this study and they have done an excellent job erasing as many variables as they can.  The results are astounding:  with resumes identical to one another but only the names changed, 50% more of the callbacks went to white-sounding names.  We’re not talking about a 5% or 10% difference of a relatively small number of candidates, we’re talking about 50% difference over thousands of resumes.  Plus, increasing the skills and qualifications on the resumes had far less impact on their success than just changing the names!  I pause to think about my firms’ hiring practices: a lot of managers don’t want to get too scientific, they want to pick who they like, or they make up their mind really quickly without a whole lot of data collection between who they want to hire vs. who they don’t, etc.  Others in the interviewing process often bow down to the wishes of the hiring manager, and typically HR doesn’t want to be the only one in the room channeling potential bias or nay-saying, job after job.

Additionally, really, what else have you done to improve your pipeline to help counteract these potential biases?  Do you target schools or universities that have a stronger minority population?  Will you build and support an internal program to provide equal advantage to those who are perceived as different?  In one of my assignments, my team worked really hard to create a Maintenance Trainee Program that could build up qualifications of women interested in maintenance.  We worked with a vendor to develop an assessment that would target aptitude rather than skills, knowing that it was the program’s job to build up the skills.  The program was open to anyone, but we specifically encouraged women to apply for entrance into the program.  We had two early successes early on, refuting the conventional wisdom of “women don’t want to do maintenance, look at how few enroll in maintenance schools” or “women aren’t any good at maintenance”.  Now, culturally, we had a different concern later as they integrated into the workforce, but that’s another challenge to overcome, and equally subtle as well.   When challenged with an EEOC audit, the auditors were very impressed with the progress of our program and commented on this several times.  More than that, we surprised ourselves with the outstanding potential of this type of program.

Don’t think that your team doesn’t have biases, no matter how unspoken (or even unaware) they may be.  Search out those biases, and take opportunities no matter how small to support and promote and encourage people of all types and kinds within your organization.  Take a critical look – a real look – at your Affirmative Action Plan, dive down into the numbers and look at the names on the roster checklists, so you are aware of areas where you can do better.   Diversity of life and background is a very good thing, not just because it’s a popular buzzword or program but because it’s the right thing to do and it’s strategically good for your firm on so many levels.   Take it upon yourself to make this kind of a difference.

Employers: Optimize your time at the Career Fair!

A couple of years ago, working hard to develop a new internship program for my firm, I joined our campus recruiting team at a large Midwestern university career fair.  There were 8 of us – four in the “front line”, two of us “back line”, and two at-large, and our booth was visited by more than 350 prospective candidates.  By the end of the day we had more than 45 candidates in our “Yes” file and only 16 interview slots for the following day, and we found ourselves getting confused over who were the best of the 45.   Recruiters, have you ever found yourself mixing up candidates in your mind?

• One of the hardest parts of managing a career fair is organization.   After you have collected all those resumes, remembering which ones were the best is tough duty.  Two tips: a) “front line” interviewers should pass the best candidates back to a second interviewer to compare, and b) arrange that everyone on the team has a stack of sticky notes to identify as an “A”, “B”, or “C” candidate.  Jot down a quick note to jog your memory later: “guy who just got his pilot’s license”, “just returned from overseas assignment”, “blue suit”.  Stick the note on the back of the resume as you introduce the candidate to the second interviewer.  “Back line” interviewers should talk to the candidate and then file that resume in a file or box listed as “Yes”, “No”, “Maybe”, out of view of the candidates.
  • From a practical viewpoint, most “Maybes” wind up as “No” unless it’s been a really slow day (you have a limited number of interviewers and time slots to fill).  So encourage your team members to make a firm call for “Yes” or “No”.

• If you can, make sure an advance team prepares and presents an Information Session about your company prior to the career fair (this is typical to college campus career fairs).   An Info Session is an excellent way to see which students are truly interested and willing to go the extra mile to learn about your firm.
  • Bring free food and giveaways, and spend extra time after the session getting to know students.  Worth every minute.

• Make sure all of your career fair team members have had interview training.  You should discuss the legalities around hiring practices and questions, and you should also agree on the knowledge, skills, and abilities to evaluate for the particular open jobs you have.  You should discuss how much time you can spend on each candidate, role play with a prior career fair team member the introductory discussion, and how to move along an unsuccessful candidate (giveaways are nice in this regard).
  • You should tell all candidates that you don’t make your decision regarding who goes to the next step until the end of the career fair, anyway.  So moving them along without a commitment to interview is no big deal.  

• Your booth setup should include your company name, the kinds of jobs you are seeking to fill, and the location of those jobs.  Having this information well presented will save time for the front-line interviewers and candidates as well.  Detailed job description on a printed page is a great handout to allow candidates to understand job specifics.
• Booth location: if you expect a lot of traffic, ask for electrical outlets for your booth.  It’s typically no extra cost, and in most venues it will guarantee you a site along a wall (the outside track of the fair), where a higher number of candidates seem to make their first pass.
  • From a traffic and candidate flow perspective, dead center in a career fair is not the best place to be.  

• Wear comfortable shoes, for you will be standing all day, and dress in the manner that you normally dress at work, because it’s best that candidates see you as who you are.  Select company team members that have good interpersonal skills rather than just the title that he or she holds.

• My opinion on technical qualifications is that the candidate should have the bare minimum required for the job and we should fully expect to train them in the way we use the skill (we will retrain them anyway).   Don’t push for the guy who is the subject matter expert (certainly not at this career level), particularly if his interpersonal / team skills are suspect.
  • Rarely in my career in HR management have we seen an early-career employee exit due to lack of technical skills.  We train them.  Failure factors following probation are almost always interpersonal, team, or leadership issues.

• Have an interview guide prepared with behavioral-based questions and a numbered scale for results (for the follow-up interviews).  Especially if you have two or more separate interview rooms running simultaneously with different teams, calibration is difficult so this helps candidate selection.

• Bring along a Recruiting Box, holding:
  • Campus interview guides, enough for all team members for the number of interview slots you have been allotted
  • One-pager about your firm (200 copies)
  • One-pager about each job for which you are seeking candidates (200 copies)
  • Business cards for (only) your lead recruiter (500)
  • Mints for interview team members
  • Sticky Notes (2 pads for each team member)
  • File folders:  Full Time (“Yes”, “No”, “Maybe”), and if appropriate Intern (“Yes”, “No”, “Maybe”); you can break these up by job too if you would like
  • A box of pens
  • Duct tape or clear packaging tape
  • (Outside the box) One clipboard for each team member
  • (Outside the box) At least one case of water bottles
  • (Outside the box) Whatever goodies / logo items you have to give away

This information is very practical, but where is the strategy part?  First, campus teams should recognize that they are the face of the firm at the university.   A good reputation on campus helps attract better candidates.  Similarly, team members that have strong interpersonal skills, a good understanding of the firm and its roles, and a good career fair plan tend to attract better candidates.  The interview training helps create the dialogue and linkage to the company’s employment needs (through job competencies and hiring expectations), and with good organization the team creates the link through to the right candidates.  Every strong candidate hired brings the quality of the firm up a notch.  Do this every time, every campus.  That’s strategy.

Good luck, and happy hunting!!