When people group together to decide on a business hiring plan - scoping out skill and headcount gaps for their teams, deciding on core competencies, etc - ideally they are planning to hire the candidates who best fit those skill sets.

Unfortunately, the reality is that candidates are sometimes selected based on qualities unrelated to the tasks required in the job. It’s an important and highly relevant topic of discussion in today’s world - from horrifying stories of outright racial discrimination on the news to social media posts about indisputable pay gap data, it’s clear there is plenty of work to be done in order to cut racism out of hiring for good. One of the most foundational activities a company can do to create a more diverse and inclusive working environment is to remove racial bias from the employee recruitment process.

Racial bias in hiring processes can occur throughout the recruitment cycle; the job description itself may include language biased against people of different races. Before even meeting with a candidate, their application may get rejected because of an unfair judgment based on their race or ethnicity. Once candidates enter the interview process, hiring teams may be making unfair assessments because of racial bias in job interviews. 

Here are just a few examples of what racial bias can look like in hiring processes:

1.) A job description includes “Master/Slave” to describe database infrastructure
2.) A candidate is viewed less positively after an interview because of their accent
3.) A recruiter assumes a candidate is less educated based on how their name is spelled

The language used and the way information is processed and interpreted throughout the recruitment cycle are just a few places bias can slip into hiring processes and influence hiring decisions, even when the hiring team is not consciously or intentionally being biased.

The consequences of allowing racial bias to influence a company’s hiring process include poor employee retention rates, low diversity profiles and low employee satisfaction. While some executives may not think of these metrics as key indicators of success in the business, without retaining strong employees or developing teams with diverse experiences, a company risks costly recruiting expenses and even potential missed targets and deadlines.

The key to removing racial bias in hiring lies in how hiring teams are training and operating. By conducting continuous training and interview coaching with a dedicated program around DE&I (diversity, equity, and inclusion), you are more likely to reduce bias in the hiring process. The challenge with this workflow is that you can only proactively strategize prior to an incident or reactively course correct once you’ve identified racial bias occurring (which also requires constant monitoring to identify).

This is why Pillar’s Interview Intelligence platform exists; to automate monitoring for bias in real time and provide live coaching and training to interviewers. Companies using Pillar are improving candidate experiences, reducing employee turnover, and removing bias from the interview process.

If you are interested in reducing the risks of racial bias in your organization’s hiring process, feel free to check out our guide to 4 Ways Interview Intelligence Impacts DEI here.

Discrimination In Hiring Process

Racial bias is a term used to describe how racism influences thinking. Racial discrimination is a term used in hiring processes when racism influences actions. There are many consequences of racial discrimination in hiring processes - including legal and financial repercussions. Cases of discrimination in the hiring process should be taken very seriously (for obvious humankind reasons, in addition to avoiding extreme risk to the business). 

The best way to remove racial discrimination in hiring processes is to understand what racial discrimination is, what the laws and regulations are around it, and what the best practices are for managing situations when it arises. 

Take the time to get educated and then partner with your human resources team to roll out a training program. That way, all employees are aware of discrimination policies and have the opportunity to learn how to remove racism from the workplace by doing their part.

Once you have implemented an initial training program for removing discrimination, continue to survey candidates and new hires on their experience with your team in order to monitor and identify potential areas for further improvement. Unfair hiring practices examples can be found in many businesses - by keeping tabs on what it looks like, what the laws are, and how to avoid it, you will set yourself and your colleagues up for better success in the long run.

Pillar’s Interview Intelligence solution automatically monitors and surfaces potential areas of racial bias in the interview process while providing real time coaching to your interviewers in order to course correct as they go in addition to reducing the risk of a biased hiring decision.

For more ideas on how to remove bias in hiring, check out this article on 6 Ways to Combat Interviewer Bias here.

Systemic Racism In Hiring Process

According to a Harvard Business Review article from 2017 on discrimination in hiring statistics, hiring discrimination against Black Americans has not improved in the last 25 years. Due to a long history of racism in the United States, systemic racism in hiring processes has been prevailing, in spite of more and more conversations around improving DEI in the workplace. Black Americans are not getting hired because of race, and as a result companies are losing out on quality talent.

By addressing racial bias in hiring processes, companies can begin the important steps to finally improve these statistics and hire the right candidates, based on skills and not race. In order to remove racial bias from recruitment, companies need to do at least these 5 things:

1.) Acknowledge that racial bias may be influencing hiring
2.) Understand where racial bias is entering the recruiting process
3.) Develop and implement DEI and anti-bias training programs for employees
4.) Monitor employee satisfaction and engagement to identify further areas of improvement
5.) Continuous and ongoing training for employees (this is not a “one and done” task)

In order to improve the hiring process, it’s worth noting that companies need to have a strong, unbiased, and supportive infrastructure that is able to set future diverse hires up for success. Otherwise, companies will continue to see employee turnover and ongoing challenges with racial bias.