Let’s talk about Risk Aversion Bias and its implications for inclusive and intentionally bias-free recruitment.
We usually think of risk aversion within the context of investing money or gambling (or maybe extreme sports!); however, throughout my time in recruitment, I’ve observed this bias influencing an entire recruitment lifecycle.
The simple psychology of risk aversion means that we have a bias for a sure outcome over a gamble with a higher or equal expected value as hiring managers or recruiters. This type of bias is also completely natural and understandable. The costs of a poor hiring decision are estimated to be at least 30% of the employee’s first year’s earnings, not considering the impact on culture, morale and productivity.
In short, risk aversion bias isn’t going away anytime soon, so it’s important to highlight how it influences our hiring behaviour.
Unchecked, this bias causes us to be disproportionality focused on minimising risk versus maximising potential when assessing candidates for a role.
During interviews, we will give candidates more space and attention to allay our concerns than allow them to evidence their skills and knowledge.
We create incredibly long job descriptions and advertisements with lengthy shopping lists of criteria, alienating many great potential candidates from applying.
We become overly obsessed with career breaks, gaps in CVs and job movement as an immediate red flag that something must be wrong. We will probably reject their CV at the application stage. However, suppose they get through to an interview. In that case, we will go into ‘horns’ mode, giving them a more challenging interview than all the other candidates.
We allow culture fit to drive our hiring decisions, even though culture fit = are you like us? We subconsciously ask the question, will you acclimatise quickly to our culture? Living safely knowing that we will never need to acclimatise to someone different and perpetuating the cycle of homogenous hiring.
There are solutions to managing this type of bias; here are a few things to think about.
Like all biases, you need to check them at the start of the process and acknowledge that you may inadvertently overlook incredible talent by being too risk-averse. Can you afford to be doing this in a marketplace with a talent shortage?
Agree on the minimum criteria for the role and only advertise for that; this will considerably open up and diversify your talent pool.
As best you can overlook career gaps and career movement that triggers your risk-averse bias. Focus every interview on giving the candidate space to evidence their skills and knowledge. Don’t deviate from the structure and questions you’ve used for other candidates. If you still have concerns at the end of the interview, address them then.
Focus on culture add rather than culture fit. Culture fit will reinforce your bias and encourage you to hire someone similar to all the other people you’ve hired. Imagine what could be achieved by hiring someone different who brings something you’re missing. You’ll receive new perspectives and ideas, and there will be less groupthink and more creativity.
