‘CV blind’ recruitment is a recent trend. Is it a viable way to find staff? Be careful, says our legal expert
Whether you have teenage children or not, it can't have escaped your notice that exam results season is upon us.
Debates about academic standards, eye-rolling at press photos of pretty teenage girls celebrating their results and anecdotes from successful businesspeople who failed all their exams are as much a part of the British summer as Wimbledon and disappointing weather.
But amid all the silly-season coverage, there is an important debate about whether exam results and other personal factors should be downplayed in the recruitment process – or even eliminated altogether.
A big recent trend in recruitment is 'CV-blind' recruitment, whereby key identifying features (such as name, age, and even qualifications) are stripped out of CVs at the initial stage of the recruitment process and instead aptitude tests (or other assessment tools) are used to determine which candidates should be invited for interview.
The idea is to eliminate (or minimise) conscious or unconscious bias in the shortlisting process and to hopefully increase the diversity of the workforce. This approach has proved successful at large employers such as EY (formerly Ernst and Young), where it had an immediate impact on staff diversity.
However, there are some important health warnings to bear in mind. First, this method does not eliminate bias altogether. If well-designed, it minimises bias at the shortlisting stage, but it does not remove the need for interviewing managers to be trained in diversity issues and to be aware of what questions may be inappropriate or unlawful.
Second, it needs to be implemented in a way which meets the organisation's needs. If particular academic or professional qualifications are key to the role being recruited for, there is little point in inviting a candidate for interview who won't meet those requirements.
It's also not the only (or necessarily the best) way of improving diversity. Some businesses have opted for 'contextual recruitment', which is a completely different approach – in this case, the organisation analyses a candidate's achievements against their background to determine whether their paper qualifications undersell their abilities (e.g. if they have achieved good grades at A-Level despite a deprived background).
Often firms using this approach use sophisticated bespoke technology to carry out this analysis (which means that candidates will need to be informed at the outset that their personal data will be used in this way).
Whatever recruitment strategy your business uses, the best way to minimise the risk of discrimination claims is to get the basics right.
Make sure hiring managers are trained on equality law and diversity, ensure that the recruitment process is clear, consistent and well documented and carry out regular reviews to ensure that it operates fairly.
And for all those with friends or relatives anxiously awaiting results – good luck!
