Simply stating you want to improve your diversity recruiting is not enough. There are at least 11 types of unconscious biases found commonly in society today. These biases range from age, physical attractiveness, gender, race, and even the spelling of name. There is no person on the planet that is immune from having unconscious or implicit bias from time to time. However, the objective for those conducting HR duties is to create a structured and consistent recruitment process that removes any possibility of unconscious bias interfering with the hiring of individuals.

Steps to Reduce Bias in Hiring

The following seven steps can help to reduce bias in the hiring process.

Check the Job Description The wording in a job description can subtly encourage or discourage different candidates. See the Inclusive Job Descriptions guide for more information. Also, diverse candidates are less likely to apply to jobs for which they don't meet all of the qualifications, so be sure to only list essential skills required and list others as nice to have but not required.
Check the Outreach Plan Evaluate if you cast the net wide to begin with
Evaluate Every Resume The Same Way Identify what criteria you will review in a resume and be consistent. Create a blind-resume review process (i.e. ask a person who is not part of the interview process to redact certain information from incoming resumes. This person should remove names, educational attainment dates, and names of any groups or organizations that provide hints as to the candidate's race or gender).
Identify What You Want Before the Interviews Begin Implicit bias can lead us to rationalize why we preferred one candidate over another, so it's important to identify behaviors that are relevant to the position before interviews begin. It is also critical that interviews do not begin until there are two or more qualified women as well as two or more qualified people from other underrepresented racial/ethnic groups.
Select A Diverse Interview Team This will help you to gather diverse perspectives. Assign each interviewer an area to focus on during the interview.
Stick To A Script During Interviews Interviewers naturally create a warmer or more casual climate for candidates they perceive as "in-group" members. This natural instinct to reach for common ground can advantage certain groups by making them feel at home and can also unintentionally lead minority candidates who feel like outsiders to experience more stress.

Tap Into Diverse Talent Pools

Venture Capital has a diversity problem beginning at its pipeline.

With tech hubs in the Bay Area, NYC, and Boston accounting for 45% of global VC funding, many promising ideas in less conspicuous places (funneled by less conspicuous universities) go unnoticed. Our goal is to connect with student organizations, woman and BIPOC professional communities, and job boards to tap into diverse talent networks. Please see some of the resources below for your future hires:

Technical Talent Job Boards

LinkedIn Recruiter Premium

Other Minority Job Boards:

Diversity.com: https://diversity.com/