The Oregon Caregiver SPRING/SUMMER 2022 www.ohca.com 28 SPONSORED CONTENT employers are not sure where to start, partner with organizations that serve historically marginalized communities. Build relationships with these organizations, as well as strong minority applicants who may be great candidates for future positions. 4. Hide unnecessary candidate details during screening. Remove candidate names, pronouns, geographic locations, school names, years of graduation, and photos from resumes and application materials before the initial screening begins. Research shows that this type of information, which can suggest race, nationality, age, gender, or socioeconomic status, can cause those hiring to make unconscious assumptions and alter the degree of scrutiny they apply when screening candidates. 5. Expand the interview pool. Interview a wide selection of candidates, including those with nontraditional backgrounds and transferable skills. 6. Focus on objective standards. Before conducting interviews, establish objective selection standards that focus on essential requirements that leave room for recognizing the transferable skills of nontraditional candidates. Tailor interviews to assess candidates against these standards. Require decision makers to provide objective, non-discriminatory reasons for why they are selecting one candidate over others. These steps help to reduce unconscious bias, while at the same time preventing overemphasis of diversity factors. 7. Use standardized, nondiscriminatory processes and evaluation tools. Create a list of interview questions that are focused on job requirements and do not run afoul of non-discrimination laws, and evaluate candidates against the same set of criteria. 8. Educate screeners, interviewers, and decision makers. Help those involved in the selection process to understand how their unconscious bias can cause them to disregard underrepresented or nontraditional candidates too quickly, and provide techniques for reducing this bias. Educate them on the legal risks associated with recruitment, including unacceptable interview questions, appropriate criteria for evaluating and selecting candidates, and how to document their perceptions of a candidate in an objective way using non- »SPONSORED CONTENT, CONT. Unconscious biases can limit the ability to identify new recruitment sources and see the potential value of candidates with nontraditional backgrounds.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Nzc3ODM=