Personality-focused recruitment “fraught” with bias
Recruitment trends that increase focus on a candidate’s personality and presentation are compromising organisations’ abilities to source top talent, organisational experts warn.
Most employers are now familiar with the concept of unconscious bias, but Australian Human Resources Professionals (AHRP) psychologist and international facilitator Glenda May says she is “really anxious” about emerging practices that not only allow for unconscious bias, but encourage it.
A new practice in the public sector, for example, asks candidates to write 500 words about why they’re the best applicant for the job.
The approach, which reduces the focus on key selection criteria and emphasises a candidate’s background, presentation and personality, is “fraught” with risk, says May, because it makes it even easier for selectors to let gut feel and affinity bias (the attraction towards ‘people like us’) compromise their decisions.
Using video interviews in the early stages of recruitment should also ring alarm bells because it increases the possibility that factors such as attractiveness, gender, ethnicity and personality will influence an applicant’s chances of success.
The process is particularly problematic if the ability to present well is not even a role requirement, because it will favour extroverted personalities, May says.
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