A product that works well is not enough for it to be good. It needs to look good as well. A working mobile application is not enough for it to be used. It also needs to have a beautiful design that will make it appealing for users to want to download and use it (for the sake of the example, please forget about all other factors like marketing, sales, etc.). If a website looks great, there is a greater chance visitors will return.
 
Let’s pretend that I work in a company with unfilled positions: as the HR manager, I write in the job requirements everything that I’m looking for (experience, location, availability and skills amongst others). I’m writing the content that I expect to find in the job candidates when they will be interviewed. But… what about the design?  
I am referring to the physical appearance, the age, the ethnicity, race, etc.
We all know that, unfortunately, people nowadays are still biased and affected by appearances and that “there are no second chances to make a first impression”. Interviews are subjective and interviewers are human (and humans are biased).
 
I don’t want to get into employment prejudice/gender inequality and all of those delicate topics. Actually, I want to present the opposite. Companies are finally starting to understand that they are missing out on huge talent and potential by sticking to a specific type of employee. That’s why they are starting to embrace employee diversity. But what’s the best way to achieve this? A trend that is (very) slowly becoming more popular amongst employers, especially in the tech world: blind interviews (by doing them online for instance) and anonymous résumé screenings.

What does this entail? It’s all about eliminating any part of the application process that can trigger a biased behavior (e.g. name, high school, grades and address). The reality is that if we are really looking for talent we can’t expect to find it in a résumé. A way of finding it could be by requesting applicants to do online tasks as part of the application process and make decisions based on their performance. For example: asking candidates to create a marketing campaign, designing a logo, preparing a sales pitch, solving a coding challenge, etc.  There is no need to look 

at a person’s eyes in order to see that they have done a good job. GapJumpers and Unitive are some of the startups working on such technologies.

My dream (and I hope many others’ dream) is a bias-free recruitment process, and I believe that this new trend is taking us a small step closer to achieving it. 

(for more posts please check my blog)