When it comes to hiring, the goal of every HR team should be to find the best candidates for required roles in the organization. This means reviewing and validating skills, experience, references, and the person’s overall ability to perform the required responsibilities.
However, according to the University of Toronto, “resumes of minority racial queues like Black or Asian names get 30 per cent to 50 per cent fewer callbacks than otherwise equivalent resumes.” Search bias in hiring is a reality, and even if it’s subconscious, a person’s own biases can play a role in who is chosen. These real-life hiring discrimination examples demonstrate how frequently these choices are made despite the push for change.
Inequality in the hiring process, even after decades of research and millions of dollars spent on bringing it to an end, is still a very real thing, but there are ways to help reduce its prevalence in your company.
Hiring Discrimination Examples
One common way that bias can occur in the hiring process is when your HR staff starts looking at a candidate’s social media directly. They can’t control their subconscious bias and can’t undo what they see. Here are some common examples of how this practice can be troublesome:
- Age – an HR employee does a quick search of a candidate’s social media, sees that they are young, and decides that they can’t have the knowledge or experience based on their age.
- Family status – far too often, women are still passed over when they have children, and if an HR employee sees young children on someone’s profile, that could lead to biased hiring.
- Religious beliefs – if your HR employee holds any opinions based on religious beliefs, even if those are unconscious, this could impact who is selected.
- Sexual orientation – as with religious beliefs, if the HR employee looking has any sort of bias based on sexual orientation, that can surely influence a hiring decision.
- Race – again, as with religious beliefs or sexual orientation, any bias on behalf of the HR employee could impact who is chosen.
In all of these cases, the person being chosen (or passed over) has not been selected because they’re the best candidate for the role. This should never happen. Yes, a great deal can be learned from a candidate’s social media, but it has to be done properly. The only safe way to avoid these hiring discrimination examples is with a social media background check.
Social media background checks remove the human element and provide an unbiased analysis of someone’s social behaviour based on careful parameters. These in-depth checks flag things like drug use, hate speech, violent behaviour, bullying, and toxic language. All of these are appropriate factors to consider when hiring.
Other ways to avoid these hiring discrimination examples (and search bias in general) include:
- Conducting interviews using a multi-person panel. Even two people involved can help avoid hiring bias.
- Having a set of interview questions prepared in advance, ones that focus solely on the job’s essential duties and occupational requirements.
- Creating an answer guide that highlights what you’re looking for, rather than deciding how to assess them after they’ve been asked and answered.
Your HR personnel may not intend to discriminate against another person based on things they see on social media, but these hiring discrimination examples prove how easily even unconscious bias comes into play. It’s time to remove that ‘biased’ element. Triton Canada gives you access to an in-depth social media background check that flags only relevant information, nothing that could create inherent bias in the hiring process. Get yours fast, online, 24/7. Visit www.tritoncanada.ca.
