The illusion of fairness
Or the stuff that people tell me as an external consultant 🙄
I get to speak to lots of people, and a recent conversation blew me away, so much so I wanted to share it with you.
A colleague has been applying for roles, and for a particular role she:
Spent a number of hours on her application, including a detailed cover letter addressing the needs of the role.
Then an hour on a zoom interview with the recruitment consultant.
Then was asked to complete video responses to some questions online.
Then on learning she had been shortlisted she needed to drive over an hour to the “confidential” location for the in-person interview (only learning later why it was “confidential”).
Then an hour in the interview.
Then an hour driving home.
It was a panel interview, which on the surface looked to be a carefully put together diverse group of people.
There were four people on the panel. The hiring manager, a white man. A Southeast Asian woman. A woman who may have been indigenous to the country, and a white man with some physical disabilities. My colleague also knew a bit about their backgrounds. Three of the people came from different functions in the organisation and had different lengths of service. The fourth person had been working as an external consultant and knew the operations well. This could be an organisation that takes diversity & inclusion seriously, I thought to myself while being told the story.
Now while you can’t judge diversity completely on how someone looks or even their background my response so far was that in terms of having diversity of thought, which comes from diversity of experiences it seemed like it would be a fair and well thought out panel. When I worked internally in a Diversity & Inclusion leadership role, and also in my work as an external consultant, this is the kind of interview panel I would recommend. Top marks to this organisation, I thought.
But then what happened?
Four candidates were interviewed, two with the industry experience of the organisation, and two with, let’s say, more commercial experience. The two candidates with the industry experience of the organisation went through to the next round. This is probably not that unusual, and most organisations would have a preference for industry experience, except for the recruiters saying they were open to industry experience.
But the person who secured the role? They had worked with the hiring manager at another organisation, the same organisation that two of the other panel members had also worked at. And now the “confidential” interview location makes sense.
My colleague had spent around 8 hours of their own time, plus fuel on this process, with an expectation that the process might be fair, but despite the carefully constructed “diverse” panel, it really wasn’t.
I felt really sorry for my friend. They were just part of the process to provide a different background to consider but when it came down to it, the bias of the hiring manager and some of the panel came into the final decision. This is affinity bias, the tendancy for us to favour people who have a similar background. Well, that’s how it looks from the outside doesn’t it?
So do you have actual fairness in your organisation? Or just the illusion of fairness, like in this example?
Lisa xx