Running a business is like maintaining the engine of a sophisticated - and delicate - motor vehicle. All of your employees are parts of that engine. Put the wrong part in the wrong place, and the engine doesn’t function as well as it should. The better the parts, the more performance you’ll get out of your engine.
That makes the job of a recruitment manager a vital one. Outside those who have direct control over a company's finances, nobody has more potential to affect the well-being of a business than the person deciding who does and doesn't get the opportunity to work there. That's why, for some people, blind recruitment is an idea they'd never dream of considering.
It’s easy to see why blind recruitment can be an off-putting concept if you’ve never tried it before. By denying yourself the chance to see what you currently consider to be vital information about a candidate, you might assume you’re turning the entire recruitment process into a gamble. Gambling fine as a hobby - many people spend their free time and money playing mobile slots at a casino- but slot games are precisely that; a game. There’s nothing wrong with staking or betting your spare money on the outcome of a slot game in the hope of pocketing a jackpot - you’re aware that you’re as likely to lose as you are to win. While there are no guarantees with recruitment, you’d like to feel that you have slightly more control over the odds with hiring a candidate than you do spinning the wheels of a casino game.
There are, however, several potential benefits that can come with blind recruitment, which we’ll explore here.
What Is Blind Recruitment?
If you've never come across it before, we'll explain it to you simply. Blind recruitment is assessing the resume of candidates without being given specific demographic data. Typically, the data that's removed is the name, address, and gender of the candidate. Details of previous employers, and educational institutions attended, may also be removed in some cases.
The idea is that the potential for unconscious bias is removed before the interview stage. Candidates are therefore assessed on their skills, and the quality of their resume. The process opens companies up to the possibility of recruiting someone they may otherwise have overlooked. It doesn’t force you to offer those candidates a job - it just gives you the chance to assess their qualities in person, rather than denying yourself that chance because of something you’ve seen on paper. Again, this might sound like an alien concept if you’ve never tried it before, but more and more large companies are giving it a try. Here’s why.
It Costs Less In Time And Money
Screening candidates for a job isn't a fast process - especially if you've attracted a lot of applications for a particular vacancy. Someone has to sit and sift through the resumes, reading lots of (often irrelevant) detail, and screening against facts or qualities you do or don't want to see. Someone has to be paid to do that work, and they also have to spend their working time doing it. With blind recruitment, you'll only have a limited amount of information to sift through. You could look to interview only those who have a particular qualification, or a particular stated skillset. Once you've identified a desirable number of candidates who seem to meet those criteria, you can stop and offer them face to face interviews to determine who would be best for the job. As the process feels impersonal (because you're not looking at people's names or personal details), it's easier to arrive at a decision more quickly. With recruitment, faster is also cheaper.
It’s Better For The Candidate
Recruitment is a two-way process. You're looking for someone to come and sell themselves to you as the best person for the job you're offering, but a competent and highly qualified candidate is also looking for the best company for themselves. How your company comes across at all stages of the recruitment process forms their first impression of the business, and will ultimately determine whether they accept a job offer from you. Because you're asking for less written detail - and bearing in mind that nobody likes completing long application forms - you'll give the impression of being more accessible, and therefore friendlier. With blind recruitment, practical tests and assessments are often used as screening instead of identikit questionnaires. You get the chance to see your potential recruit 'in action,' and they get a feel for how your business operates. Everybody is happier.
It’s Better For Diversity
We live in an increasingly litigious society. The last thing any company wants to find themselves in the press (or in the courtroom) for is a perceived discriminatory recruitment process. The most common form of discrimination in recruitment is that which is based on age; it still happens frequently in the UK despite being outlawed for years, for example. If you're unaware of the age of the person you're considering as a candidate, you can't possibly be accused of discriminating against them. The same applies to the potential of discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, disability, gender, and sexuality. In the modern workplace, when it comes to a recruitment, it might be a case of 'the less you know, the safer you are.' Going through the blind recruitment process should mean that you're seeing the candidates who are best qualified for the role you're offering, regardless of who they are, where they come from, and what they do in their personal life. Doesn't that sound like a better approach for both you and them?
Blind recruitment is often mistaken for 'positive discrimination,' which is intended to increase the percentage of candidates scene from a specific background. They're not the same thing. Blind recruitment, when executed correctly, is the safest way to locate a candidate based purely on the skills they offer to you and your business. That's why it might be time for you to consider giving it a try.