Berks & Beyond Blog

What do doctors, hiring managers and referees have in common?

They’re all guilty of implicit bias.

Implicit bias is a form of prejudice that occurs when someone consciously rejects stereotypes and discrimination, but also holds unconscious negative associations in his mind.  Implicit bias does not mean that an individual is hiding his racial prejudices – he literally does not know that he has them.

While the measuring of unconscious biases might seem inconsequential on the surface, it takes on new meaning when we see bias’ impact in the real world.  Studies show that doctors are more likely to prescribe life-saving care to whites, that managers are more likely to hire and promote members of their own in-group and that referees in basketball might be more likely to subtly favor players with whom they share a racial identity.

These biases are incredibly difficult to control, because they form so early in life.  Social scientists believe children begin to acquire prejudices and stereotypes as toddlers.  Children as young as age three learn terms of racial prejudice without really understanding their significance.  They form attachments to their own groups and develop negative attitudes about other racial or ethnic groups.  Over time, most children acquire a full set of biases that become the foundation of stereotypes, prejudice and, ultimately, discrimination.

Also known as hidden or unconscious bias, implicit bias has become a hot topic of study for psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of Washington.  Researchers at these institutions have created Implicit Association Tests, or IATs, to measure the prevalence and degree of unconscious bias.

IAT research is relevant for HR and other hiring managers, because of its application to the hiring process.  While interviewers may believe that they’re impartial, unconscious biases may affect their attitudes toward candidates of other races – and ultimately their hiring decisions.

How do you manage these potential hiring biases if you’re not sure they even exist?  Knowledge is power.  Take the Implicit Association Test,  part of the Project Implicit Harvard research study.  Scores are not a definitive assessment of your implicit thoughts or feelings, but should provide opportunities for self-reflection.

Ensure great Hires with Berks & Beyond

Direct placement services like Berks & Beyond have the resources and expertise to quickly and cost-effectively deliver candidates with skills, experience and behavioral traits to succeed in your organization.  We use professionally trained interviewers, skills-specific testing, thorough background checks and satisfaction guarantees to ensure the success of your next hire.

Hiring decisions are critical to your company’s success.  Logically, you should do everything in your power to make sure your candidates are upstanding, law-abiding citizens with spotless criminal records, right?

Maybe, maybe not.

While it may be reasonable for you to not want to hire an axe murderer, you need to be careful about your company’s criminal background policies.  They could cost you dearly.  In fact, Pepsi Beverages recently agreed to pay $3.13 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over alleged discriminatory background screening practices.

The case centered around Pepsi’s policy to not hire applicants on a permanent basis whose background checks revealed an arrest that did not lead to conviction for positions at their factory.  The EEOC said that 300 black applicants were denied permanent employment due to arrests that did not lead to convictions.

The policy was deemed discriminatory because there was “reasonable cause to believe that the criminal background check policy formerly used by Pepsi discriminated against African Americans in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

Some experts predict that these types of enforcement actions will only increase with time.  So what’s a responsible employer to do?

In some cases, criminal background checks are a necessary part of business.  Too often, candidates give incomplete – or downright false – information, because they know that certain facts about past actions may disqualify them from consideration.  If you do choose to conduct a background check to get more information about an applicant, use these common-sense tips:

• Get the applicant’s consent in writing – before you check anything.  Explain clearly what you plan to check and how you will gather information.  This gives candidates the opportunity to remove themselves from consideration before embarrassing details are discovered, and it prevents applicants from later claiming that their privacy has been violated.
• Make sure your inquiries are relevant to the job in question.  If you are hiring a security guard who will carry a weapon, it’s reasonable to want to check for past criminal convictions.  If you’re hiring an administrative assistant, however, a criminal background check may be unwarranted.  As a reminder, Pennsylvania only allows employers to consider felony and misdemeanor convictions to the extent that they relate to the applicant’s suitability for a specific position.
• Apply your policies consistently.  Conduct the same checks for every candidate who makes the “final cut” and is being considered for a certain job.
• When in doubt, consult with your attorney.  It’s smartest and safest to work with an attorney when reviewing and/or changing your criminal background check policy.

Minimize Your Employment Risks with Berks & Beyond. 

As our temporary and contract employees’ employer of record, we assume all employment-related risks.  When we send you temporary employees, rest assured they are thoroughly screened and authorized to work for your organization.

To make staffing safer and simpler for you, Berks & Beyond chooses to participate in E-Verify.  Since 2007, every employee we’ve placed has been screened with this system.  Want to learn more?  Contact Berks & Beyond today.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  effective interview methods significantly increase your odds of hiring a top performer.

But just how, exactly, do you do this?

A few months back, I posted Five Tips to Help Improve Your Hiring Process to get you started.  As promised in that post, here are a few more strategies to help you eliminate interviewing biases, inconsistencies and inefficiencies – and ultimately hire better:

1. Minimize interviewer inconsistency.  If you can’t personally conduct every interview, you should train interviewers to enhance consistency.  Interviewing styles and effectiveness vary greatly, depending on personality, confidence and amount of formal training.  Some interviewers excel at asking questions; some are great ambassadors for your company; some are very detail-oriented and systematically process responses.  But unfortunately, few are strong in all these areas.  To improve consistency, require interviewers to cite specific candidate statements to back-up their evaluations and/or conclusions.  Train them to support their ratings with examples – rather than recording opinions, impressions or hunches.
2. Ask the recruit why he wants the job.  Our current job market is flooded with the type of applicant who indiscriminately shoots off résumés in response to any posting that matches his keyword search – all in desperate hope of landing any type of interview.  If a recruit can’t tell you why he wants to work for your organization, you probably don’t want him on your team.
3. Make a good first impression on the candidate.  While you are evaluating a candidate, the candidate will be sizing up you and your company.  Increase the likelihood that a top performer will accept your job offer by making a positive first impression:  respect the candidate’s time by being on-time and prepared for the interview; supplement the interview with written or on-line information about the company and/or position; allow time for follow-up questions (a candidate needs to learn about your organization, culture and the available position at the same time you’re learning about him).
4. Plan multiple interviews.  Always conduct at least two interviews (three for higher level positions).  Why?  Recruits may be able to fool you in one interview, but the chances of them misrepresenting themselves successfully across multiple interviews are greatly diminished.  In addition, a more rigorous process will help weed out those candidates who are apathetic and/or unreliable.
5. Hold a post-interview review meeting.  Establish a formal process for finalizing the interview process and making a hiring decision.  Provide a form interviewers can use to summarize each candidate’s interpersonal skills, cultural fit, competency evaluation and technical knowledge.  Give each interviewer equal time to share feedback and make recommendations.  The primary decision maker/hiring manager should give the last report, after which you can begin open discussions about a hiring decision.

Incorporate these suggestions with the tips in my last post, and you’ll be well on your way to better hires in 2012.

Ensure Great Hires with Berks & Beyond

If you lack the time, resources or desire to hire on your own, Berks & Beyond is here to listen and help.  Our direct placement services quickly and cost-effectively deliver candidates with skills, experience and behavioral traits to succeed in your organization.  We use professionally trained interviewers, skills-specific testing, thorough background checks and satisfaction guarantees to ensure the success of your next hire.

Want to really improve the quality of your hires?  Then make like a Boy Scout and “be prepared.”

When it comes to interviewing, preparation is critical.  Failing to do so can lead to a host of interviewing problems, including:

• Biases - quick judgments can interfere with assessment quality and accuracy.
• Inconsistencies - lack of structure and process may compromise interviewers’ abilities to determine the best candidates.
• Inefficiencies - inadequately trained interviewers are likely to ask improper questions and use poor evaluation techniques.

The result?  Ineffective interviews that ultimately yield – you guessed it – bad hires.

But by preparing ahead of time and using more effective interview methods, you dramatically increase your odds of hiring a top performer.  So before a single candidate arrives for an interview, use these tips to create a more structured, consistent process that ensures hiring decisions are based on relevant, sound information – and not merely first impressions:

1. Analyze the position to be filled. Assess what the ideal candidate will need in order to be successful in the position.  Consider:  skills, knowledge, type of experience, core competencies (e.g., decision making, customer responsiveness, problem solving, etc.), attitude, corporate culture fit and even interpersonal style.
2. Define the job. Develop a thorough job description, including the key roles and responsibilities.  Review performance evaluations of top performers in this role and ask existing team members what it would take for the new hire to succeed.
3. Develop standard interview questions. Use the requirements created in the previous steps to make a list of standard interview questions.  Ask these same questions of all applicants for the position.  Before interviews begin, determine ideal/acceptable responses for each question, to increase objectivity and improve the accuracy of your ratings.  The structure you create now will yield better quality judgments once the interviews are over.
4. Identify additional details needed to select the best candidate. Before interviewing, review additional information you will need to collect or verify, such as:  proof of certifications or licensures, records of educations, lists of references, etc.
5. Establish clear standards for non-verbal cues. Body language, eye contact, posture, appearance and other non-verbal cues all impact the first impression a job candidate makes.  But while these cues can be helpful in making a decision, they are also easy to manipulate and prone to subjective interviewer bias.  To avoid these biases and personal judgments (especially when multiple interviews are involved), establish clear standards for non-verbal cues which are appropriate for your corporate culture and employee/customer expectations.  Once you ascertain that a candidate meets your minimum standards, you can shift attention to the true substance of his responses.

These are just a few of the things you can do to improve your hiring process.  Look for future posts with more tips for hiring better.

Ensure great Hires with Berks & Beyond

Direct placement services like Berks & Beyond have the resources and expertise to quickly and cost-effectively deliver candidates with skills, experience and behavioral traits to succeed in your organization.  We use professionally trained interviewers, skills-specific testing, thorough background checks and satisfaction guarantees to ensure the success of your next hire.

Planning to hire in 2011?

As optimism creeps back into our market, many small- to medium-sized businesses plan to increase their direct headcount.  If yours is among them, avoid these roadblocks to hiring success:

• Not pre-screening candidates.  Many hiring organizations skip this step, assuming that the interview process will weed out unacceptable candidates.  But in their attempt to streamline the process, these companies are wasting valuable time interviewing people whom they’d never hire.  Pre-screening allows you to eliminate candidates:  without basic knowledge and experience levels; outside your salary limits; with long-range goals that are not aligned with your company or available position.
• Relying solely on interviews to evaluate candidates.  Research has shown that the typical interview only increases the likelihood of selecting the best candidate by less than 2%.  Why?  Most managers don’t structure their interviews or develop scoring weights to pre-determine the best answers.  Additionally, candidates say what interviewers want to hear in order to get hired.
• Relying on general “good guy” criteria.  Most companies want to hire good people, but merely being a good person (i.e., enthusiastic, hard working, self-motivated, etc.) is not a predictor of job success.  A potential employee may have the best attitude in the world, but if they don’t have the job skills and experience you need, they can’t hit the ground running.
• Not investigating candidates’ backgrounds.  Sure, checking references, verifying work history and conducting background investigations are time- and labor-intensive.  But with résumé fraud on the rise, you must protect yourself from desperate job seekers who feel compelled to lie in order to get hired.

Tips for Heading-Off Hiring Mistakes

• Evaluate candidates on skills critical for job success.  Create a position analysis to select the skills most vital to your available job, and develop interview questions (and weighted responses) to identify and evaluate those skills.  The more structured your interview process, the less likely you will be to hire someone just because he’s similar to you or because he’s a “good guy.”
• Do more than talk.  To increase hiring success, develop several methods, in addition to the interview, for evaluating candidates.  Obviously, those methods will vary greatly based on the type of position available.  But as long as the tests and tasks you assign are directly related to the job at hand, your extra effort will provide a wealth of relevant information to help critically evaluate and compare candidates.
• Enlist the help of a hiring expert.  Staffing and direct placement services like Berks & Beyond have the resources and expertise to quickly and cost-effectively deliver candidates with skills, experience and behavioral traits to succeed in your organization.  We use professionally trained interviewers, skills-specific testing, thorough background checks and satisfaction guarantees to ensure the success of your next hire.

These days, with a greater number of candidates vying for the same openings in your company, you may find yourself having to say “No” more often.  Needless to say, writing rejection letters can be an unpleasant and stressful part of the hiring process.

But even when you can’t offer a job applicant the position, you can still end the interview process on a positive note.  Here are some quick tips for writing candidate rejection letters in a constructive way, to build good will with candidates and position your company as an employer of choice:

• Send out the rejection letter promptly.  If you’re certain you will not be hiring the individual, let him know that he was not selected as soon as possible.  Even when the news is bad, your timely follow-up will convey a high level of professionalism.
• Always use formal company letterhead for a rejection letter and never handwrite it.
• Address your candidate by name.  Further customize the letter with the position for which he applied, as well as a supportive comment about the applicant’s qualifications, experience or enthusiasm.  Although a rejection letter is basically a form letter, your candidate shouldn’t feel as though it is.
• Be direct, but gracious.  Make it clear that there were other candidates more qualified for the job, but do so in a respectful way.
• When appropriate, encourage further action.  If the candidate is a good culture fit, and may be qualified for other openings with your company, say so.  Encourage him to stay in touch and apply again.
• Always end on a positive note.  Thank the candidate for applying and interviewing.  Wish him good luck in his career development.  Remember, this may be the final impression this individual has of your company – make sure it’s a favorable one.
• Close the letter formally with “Sincerely,” or “Best wishes,” and sign your name.

Don’t want to write rejection letters? 

Call Berks & Beyond, a leading Central and Southern PA staffing firm, with your direct placement needs.  We’ll handle every step of the process – from recruiting to testing and initial interviews - and only present you with the most qualified candidates.  If you decide not to hire an individual we refer, just let us know and we’ll take care of the rest.

Superstars.  Overachievers.  High performers.

Whatever you call them, you know your company’s success depends on hiring and retaining them.  The following list will help you identify what sets the best and brightest apart:

1. They have found their focus.  High performers know their strengths and have found an expression for their talents in the workplace.
2. They are forward-thinkers – about projects and their own careers.  To thrive, they need to know how what they’re doing now will impact the future.
3. They are accurate appraisers – of peers, projects, and themselves.  They can spot talent in co-workers and chinks in their competitor’s armor.  Likewise, they recognize their own weaknesses and strive to improve them.
4. They are self-managers.  Research has shown that high performers consciously apply a systematic approach to every project they tackle.  This disciplined approach makes them more organized, productive, and fulfilled.
5. They are intrinsically motivated.  While money is undoubtedly important, high performers are fueled from within.  Their need to attain personal and organizational goals is often as great a reward as compensation.
6. They are optimistic.  High performers see the glass as half-full.  They tend to treat obstacles and setbacks on the job as temporary and therefore surmountable.
7. They respect other high performers.  Rather than focusing on hierarchy, high achievers operate within a society of mutual respect.  As a result, they will lend a hand to others with talent and help them flourish.
8. They are results-oriented.  These individuals won’t sit quietly and do a job just because they’re told to.  Top performers need to know how their efforts affect the organization’s “big picture,” and measure their efforts in terms of bottom-line results.
9. They take risks.  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” is a personal mantra among high performers.  They do their homework, accept change easily, and are calculated risk-takers.

Berks and Beyond’s staffing professionals are experts at identifying high achievers who will perform well in your organization.  We offer a variety of recruiting and staffing services to deliver the best and brightest for you.