In the hiring and recruiting world, a timeworn issue that many candidates face that has been brought to light is the bias seen in the hiring process.

The most common type of bias that is experienced and displayed in the hiring process is affinity bias, which is having a more favorable opinion on someone that resembles oneself based on aspects like race, identity, language, or hometown. 

This has a large effect on the workplace, as this lack of diversity in hiring creates a pipeline to an overly uniform workforce. This environment lacks the input of different perspectives and halts potential growth.

Although many businesses and individuals are pushing for diversity, roughly 85% of board members and executives are white men. Further, A study by Harvard Business Review showed that when there is one female applicant among four candidates, she has a 0% chance of landing the job.

These statistics may feel discouraging, but there are ways to help and small changes that can be made to create a more inclusive and non-biased recruiting environment. These changes include asking yourself where bias has a chance to show up, creating more objective questions, and formulating your own opinions on candidates before consulting with peers.

Additionally, an important thing to remember is that eliminating bias doesn’t just integrate itself into the hiring process, but the talent acquisition aspect as well. By recruiting from a variety of different backgrounds as far as universities and talent pools, candidate selection is already more promising.