How the top executive search firms in Asia are tackling unconscious bias present in recruitment?

An unconscious bias is nothing but unintended preferences of a certain set of people formed due to socialization of their personal experience and representations of different groups using media. The experience act as a social filters that define the assessments and judgments that an individual makes.

The recruiting managers working with the top executive search firms in Shanghai do possess the best of intentions when it is about hiring the best talent for the client organisation. However, there are instances where they do not succeed. There can be many reasons behind this, unconscious bias being one of the most significant of them. Here are the best ways to outsmart unconscious bias:

· Practice blind hiring

Blind hiring is a recruitment tool where the personal details of the candidate i.e. age, gender, height, location, cultural background and ethnicity are hidden and the selection is done based on the experience, expertise and skills of the candidates. This strategy is particularly used by the top executive search firms in Beijing for the purpose of promoting diversity and inclusion in the organisation.

· Understand the biases

Even thought the recruiters dialing with the hiring process in the top executive search firms in Asia are conscious decision makers, but they are still human and are bound to fall in the unconscious loop caused by the personal biases. This requires recruiters to be honest and remain aware of their own biases and use a systematic approach for finding a solution to ward off the bias at the time of conducting hiring campaigns for the client organisation.

· Fighting the first impression

As we all know the first impression is formed in the first 100 milliseconds and this leads to the formation of an unconscious judgment much before the conscious thoughts. The damage, thus that will happen will take place even before the blink of an eye. Recruiters can also fall in this trap. To outsmart this, the recruiters are often seen reminding themselves constantly about not being guided by the first impression and making sure to dust it away from their memories.

· Defining the inner focus

Once the recruiting managers are aware of their own biases, they take counteractions to reduce the biases present. For instance, if the recruiter is a gender biased individual, then counteraction can be taken in the form of thinking about successful and influential women leaders working in different organisations. The counteractions help in training the inner focus and thus gradually give excellent perspectives and redefine the assumptions as well as perceptions of the recruiting managers. Surrounding yourself with positive words help in eliminating the negative biases present in the mindset.