In addition to finding the right person for the job, many companies are focused on finding the right person from a more diverse pool of candidates than they may have accessed in the past. It’s already been proven that having a diverse and inclusive company culture is not only good for employees, it’s also good for the business. Because of this, companies are increasingly searching for tactics for ensuring diversity. One of these tactics? Blind hiring.

What Is Blind Hiring?

First, before we answer the question “what is blind hiring,” it’s important to take a minute to understand what hiring bias is—the thing that blind hiring is meant to avoid. At its core, hiring bias is when an interviewer comes to a decision about an interviewee based on preconceived notions—or biases. There are several different hiring biases that someone might exhibit, either consciously or unconsciously, including confirmation bias and affinity bias, both of which can negatively affect diversity at a company.

Unfortunately, even the most well-meaning interviewer can exhibit hiring bias—even after unconscious bias training. We are all human, after all. That’s where tactics to avoid bias come into play, especially during the beginning of the hiring process—tactics such as blind hiring. 

Blind hiring is the practice of stripping out characteristics from resumes and cover letters that might imply identifiable characteristics—such as gender, age, and race. Other details that may be scrubbed during this process include college attended and degree level. 

These characteristics aren’t related to whether or not a person is qualified for a job—but because of inherent unconscious biases, they might affect an interviewer’s initial assessment. While blind hiring can’t eliminate bias, it can help reduce it and ensure qualified candidates aren’t inadvertently taken out of the interview process too early.

How To Hire Strategically

Now that we understand the dangers of hiring bias and the importance of blind hiring, let’s talk about how to implement it. One of the most effective ways is to use a software solution specifically designed for the purpose of removing characteristics from resumes. Some of these tools include Pinpoint and Textio.

Another way to adopt blind hiring is through AI-powered and programmatic recruiting. By using PandoLogic, you leave certain decision-making that may have human biases up to software. PandoLogic’s algorithms are not considering those characteristics like gender, age, or race when targeting qualified applicants. Additionally, PandoLogic recently acquired AI-driven conversational tool Wade & Wendy. This means that your first touchpoint with a candidate can remain personal but stripped of human bias. Learn more about the acquisition and what it means for PandoLogic’s all-in-one recruitment solution here. 

While it’s unlikely you can be blind to the candidate during the entire interview process, there are some other methods for helping to reduce hiring bias that is effective when paired with blind hiring. One crucial method? A structured interview process. When you have a structured interview process that relies on guidelines rather than vague gut feelings, you can more accurately assess how qualified a candidate is. So while blind hiring is a specific method, the general mindset behind blind hiring—above all, to focus on qualifications—is an important mindset for hiring diversely.
PandoLogic’s programmatic recruiting solution can help you implement blind hiring and processes for reducing hiring bias that works for you and your organization.