Implicit Bias – How do you score?

Implicit bias is the subconscious attitudes and prejudices one has due to prior influences throughout their life, and it is an ongoing concern in the process of recruiting, interviewing, and selecting applicants in all fields. Implicit bias can harm the firm’s ability to select the right applicant, and it can also negatively impact the applicants, who may be on the receiving end of the bias, and have therefore been unintentionally discriminated against by the firm.

So how do we undo this implicit bias, and how can we tell if we’re biased? When conducting an interview, it is a widely held belief that an unstructured interview approach, and a tailored set of questions for each applicant, is the preferred method, however this method is less accurate, and more likely to be biased, than its counterpart, the set question interview method, in which each applicant receives the same questions. This can reduce bias and assist the firm with finding the best applicant for selection.

Now, how do you know if you’re biased? I wondered the same, and I took Harvard University’s Project Implicit test, in the Career and Gender category. This test found that I had a slight bias towards grouping men and career, and women and family. This rings true in my own life, and there were a variety of other options in Project Implicit that are worth trying! Once we know our weaknesses and biases, then we cam begin working to eliminate them, or at least be aware of the implications on our selection processes.

References:

Project Implicit. (2011). Harvard University. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/