Why blind hiring can be a great idea

Many HR professionals who take part in their companies’ recruitment and hiring processes likely know about blind hiring – the practice of stripping identifying details out of applicants’ resumes and cover letters so they can evaluate each candidate strictly on their professional merits. However, many companies do not institute blind hiring despite a number of the benefits it may be able to provide. As a result, they may be opening themselves up to unconscious biases that end up affecting the company in the long run.

Studies and anecdotal evidence alike suggest that one of the biggest benefits of blind hiring is that it makes a company’s workforce a lot more diverse, according to Recruit Loop. When removing identifying information from the evaluation process, companies become far more likely to hire minorities and women, though some of this depends heavily on the industries in which they operate. Even apart from that increased diversity, evaluating candidates based solely on their objective merits is a great way to simply get more talented and well-qualified people into the company on an ongoing basis.

Evaluating candidates based only on their qualifications can go a long way for companies.

A closer look
Furthermore, when businesses can come up with solid plans for dealing with their corporate culture – that is, finding candidates who comply to similar molds of how they prefer to work, be it via collaboration, siloed efforts, etc. – will likely be able to find more candidates who actually do fit within that ecosystem, the report said. That, in turn, will only serve to increase the value of all such hires because new workers will be able to slide seamlessly into existing operations.

The idea of blind hiring is proving increasingly popular these days because of the increased focus on diversity in many walks of life, and the understanding that it can often improve a workplace in terms of both operations and culture, according to Slate. However, some companies push back against the idea because it requires them to admit they may have some amount of bias in their hiring practices, which can be uncomfortable to address, even if it’s subconscious and by no means intended. In certain professions, where impartiality is part of the job, this may be a particularly difficult hurdle to overcome, but HR experts believe it’s an important one.

Getting it right
When companies move to institute blind hiring, it’s important to have processes in place that ensure everything goes smoothly, according to The Job Network. For instance, assigning all applicants anonymous ID numbers so they can be talked about with ease and tracked through the hiring process is a great jumping-off point, because when used in combination with pre-employment testing and for all documentation submitted to the company, it becomes easy to develop a good picture of that candidate’s qualifications even despite the lack of personally identifying data.

Companies should always strive to continuously assess their hiring practices and other operations so that they can keep improving as time goes on, and avoid the complacency that can sometimes creep into the onboarding of new hires. By doing so, they may improve many aspects of their operations they may not have even previously considered.