Building a Blind Candidate Screening Program

Evidence clearly shows that blind candidate screening removes bias from the hiring process and can be an important part of Diversity and Inclusion initiatives. But even if you’ve decided to move forward with blind screening (and even if you have some good tools to help you), the question remains: where to start?

In case you haven’t heard about blind screening, it’s a process in which the people at your organization who make the decisions about whether to advance a candidate or to pass on them are unable to see that candidate’s identity information. The decision makers cannot see the candidate’s gender, race, ethnicity, age and so on, and therefore must make advance-or-pass decisions based solely on the candidate’s qualifications. Blind screening makes bias impossible, so it can be a great cornerstone for diversity hiring initiatives.

The fundamental issue is that blind screening requires a change in your hiring process, and that comes with risk. What happens if good candidates are screened out? What happens if the staff is unwilling to adjust to the new process? How can we be sure it’s truly a blind screening process?

Design Your Blind Screening Workflow

You will need to decide what constitutes the right approach for your organization when trying blind screening. Will your pilot program (see below) involve hiring for a specific position, or serve as pre-screening in order to create a pool of qualified candidates?

Remember, in order for it to be blind screening, you will need at least two roles:

1. The Screener, who cannot see the identity of the candidates, must make the decision whether to advance the candidate (possibly to an interview or pre-screened status) or to pass.
2. The Administrator, who can see the identity of candidates, but cannot make screening decisions about them. This person will be empowered to contact the candidate if necessary, but should never be able to pass or advance them.

There must be a knowledge firewall between these two roles — the identity of the candidate cannot “leak” to the Screener, or your blind screening program will be compromised.

Start Small

Don’t immediately kick off a wide rollout of blind screening across your organization, instead start with a pilot program, hiring for just one position. This will let you test out your new process and tune it accordingly, ensuring that it’s as good as possible before initiating a wide deployment.

While the pilot program is running, you’ll need to look at issues like:

• Do the blind screeners have enough information about the candidates to make an informed decision?
• Have you ensured that the people making advance-or-pass decisions cannot see the candidates’ identities? (If not, it’s not really a blind screening process).
• Is the process quick and painless enough that you can move a candidate through it in a timely manner ? (To ensure that you can respond quickly to candidates you want to interview.) Have you made sure that it’s not overly burdensome to the screeners?

Running a pilot program lets you work out the kinks in the process, tweaking it until it’s solid and ready for wider deployment.

Build Consensus

You will need buy-in from the organization in order for the blind screening to be a success, especially from hiring managers and other HR staff. Again, the pilot program can serve you here. By fixing mistakes early and moving on to chalk up some wins with the pilot, you’ll be able to answer questions, address objections and provide evidence of success to make a case for a wider rollout.

To build consensus, it may also be important to restate first principles. Let everyone know why blind screening is important, and how it can contribute positively to a D&I effort. It may also be a good time to point out that not only is increasing diversity within an organization the right thing to do, evidence is mounting that it makes your organization stronger.

All organizations should use blind candidate screening when initially evaluating potential hires. It removes bias (including unconscious bias), and overcomes an obstacle to making Diversity and Inclusion work within your organization. By carefully designing your blind screening process, and rolling it out in a deliberate manner, it can become fully embraced by your staff, and make your organization ever stronger.