Why is Bias so Hard to Eliminate in Hiring?

(Article from the Swyg team)

Bias in hiring is a big problem, but it may not be what you think it is. What people usually think of when they hear the word ‘bias’ is social judgment, prejudice, racial profiling, stereotyping, etc. These are huge challenges, however they are only a small subset of what psychologists call “cognitive bias”.

In this article we’ll dig a little deeper into the science behind cognitive bias. Understanding where bias really comes from is key in figuring out how to reduce biases. But, just as crucially, to understand where and when it may be impossible to remove them entirely. In this article, we’ll make the case that the root cause of bias is so integrated into our physiology that asking a person not to be biassed is like telling a person to never feel sad or upset.

Because of this, if we want to eliminate bias in recruitment, we cannot simply rely on awareness or training. This is why in many cases anti bias  training doesn’t work [1]. We have to build new processes that are fundamentally less sensitive to human bias. At Swyg we have some ideas about how to approach this - but more about that later.

You can read the whole blog post here.