Implicit bias can greatly impact the reliability and validity of a selection process. Just this last week I found myself being implicitly biased when my group was making a hiring decision for our HR simulation. However, since we were in a team setting and discussing our thoughts, it greatly reduced the impact of the implicit biases I had. My teammates were able to acknowledge that I was being biased and we were all still able to decide who to hire based on skills. After reading the implicit bias materials I reflected on what sort of other implicit biases I may have. In the article from Scientific American, it discusses how implicit bias is a tendency and is widely studied because everyone goes through it. Reliability can be impacted because implicit bias can introduce inconsistencies in candidate evaluations. If an HR department has multiple interviewers, each interviewer could evaluate potential new hires based on whatever bias that person may have. Validity can be impacted because implicit bias can cause an interviewer to overestimate or underestimate a candidate’s ability or potential. Implicit bias also has the potential to distort the interpretation of selection criteria. Interviewers or hiring staff may be unaware of what biased assumptions about what would be a good “fit” for a job or the company’s culture and lead to excluding candidates. Even though everyone is impacted by it, I think decisions made in groups during a selection process can greatly reduce impacts on reliability or validity. Implicit bias could also be mitigated by implementing bias awareness and training for HR staff and hiring staff.
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