There are many biases that can influence a recruiter or interviewer when hiring a candidate: choosing the least bad candidate rather than the one the job needs, using useless hiring methods just because they are popular, or overrating small, insignificant first impressions before digging deeper into the candidate…
Hiring a good employee is an art, and it takes talent. Unfortunately, not every recruiter has that talent.
We have also covered some curious things that could affect whether you get hired and that are beyond your control. This time we look at 3 biases that are more common in job interviews than we think. Because they are unconscious, few people realise they are affected by them, yet they influence the choice of candidate and therefore hurt perfectly capable applicants.
In an ideal world, an interviewer would assess candidates solely on their professional qualifications and everything that person could do for the company. But in practice (in the real world), the best candidate for the job is rarely the one who gets hired.
1. The interviewer gravitates towards people who are like them
This is pure psychological mechanics, and not just in job interviews. It applies to our personal relationships too.
The tendency is based on the similarity-attraction hypothesis: we identify with others when we see our own qualities reflected in them. And for someone with high self-esteem, those “qualities” could be belonging to the same political party, supporting the same football club (Barcelona or Real Madrid), or even carrying the same model of phone or watch, or having the same haircut.
People tend to think that if they hire others just like themselves, they will quickly have a company where everyone shares the same ideas and thinking. Some recruiters believe that is company culture, when in fact a company needs a wide range of personalities to succeed as an organisation: the creative maverick to create, the disciplined salesperson to sell, and the solitary numbers enthusiast for the accounts.
That is why we always advise candidates to look for a connection with the interviewer early on. Do that, and they will have won part of the interview.
(Read: 6 mind games recruiters may play during job interviews)
2. Ethnic and gender stereotypes
Let’s be realistic. In Spain, a Black person will still find it hard to get a management position in a company. As soon as they walk through the door, they will have a 95% chance of being turned down.
The same happens with certain jobs: various studies have found that an interviewer is more likely to hire a male candidate for a job related to maths or finance.
And it works the other way too: for a receptionist job, a woman is hired instead of a man in 90% of cases. There are gender stereotypes for everyone.
(Read: 11 things you should never say in a job interview)
3. When the recruiter sees the candidate as a threat
This bias is more common than we think. In companies where there is real promotion, and where competitiveness and results are rewarded as the way to climb the organisation, a manager might be reluctant to hire someone more competent than themselves.
By nature we are wary of anyone we perceive as a threat to our status, because hiring them would be like acting against our own interests. In other words, the manager will look for a candidate who is good for the company, but not so good that they could take the manager’s job.
That is why many companies in the United States are experimenting with “blind auditions”, where candidates are first judged on their skills, not on where they studied, where they grew up or whether they are men or women. To do this, they use software that asks candidates to solve challenges to prove they are qualified for the job they are applying for.
As a result, at companies that were reluctant to hire women for certain roles, it turned out that in the blind audition women proved to be the best suited for the job.
Further reading
- 12 reasons you didn’t get the job that nobody will tell you
- 10 things you shouldn’t do before and during a job interview
- 3 terrible job interview questions that interviewers should stop asking
Featured image: NASA Langley Research Center / NACA Langley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
