Recruiters: Are you aware of these 5 cognitive biases?

We all have largely unconscious mental processes that can influence our perception of reality. These cognitive biases enable us to quickly assess situations, but they can also lead us to make poor decisions. This includes recruiters!

How we think can influence what we think and lead to errors of judgment and poor decisions. These cognitive biases affect us all, even recruiters. These mental shortcuts stem from social influence, preconceived ideas, or motivational factors. While we cannot avoid them, we can learn to recognise them and lessen their impact on the way we make decisions.

In the world of recruitment, there are five cognitive biases to which recruitment professionals are mostly likely to fall victim. They have been identified below by Patrick Leguide, founder of Central Test.

‘Naivety' bias

While emotions have a role to play in our decision-making process, they should not take precedence over critical thinking. "This cognitive bias can affect inexperienced recruiters in particular. They can be won over by the easy manner of certain candidates and forget to check whether the candidate's words match his accomplishments," says Leguide. The Central Test founder believes that weighing intuition and fact against each other is an art that comes with experience.

‘Entomologist' bias

Being the opposite of naivety bias, entomologist bias influences recruiters who totally disregard emotions and judge candidates on pure facts. Leguide says, "They look at the future employee's technical skills, experience and education, but neglect his personality and interpersonal skills."

Confirmation bias

This tendency causes us to seek information that confirms preconceived ideas and hypotheses. A recruiter might interpret certain information in his own way and, for example, minimise a candidate's shortcoming as a result. The Central Test founder makes this recommendation: "In order to counter this tendency, recruiters must set priorities early, thus keeping them top-of-mind during the recruitment process." When a dealing with a particularly charismatic candidate, a recruiter must remember to ask questions that are not merely intended to reinforce his own convictions.

Projection bias

Projection bias goes hand-in-hand with confirmation bias - it is a tendency to be attracted to people who share our values, way of thinking, and psychological state of mind. A recruiter may tend to select a certain candidate because of their similarities. "This is not necessarily negative," explains Patrick Leguide, "What is important is whether or not the company has a real need for someone like the recruiter for the vacant position."

Stereotyping bias

We all have own beliefs and assumptions, and we unconsciously tend to associate a set of characteristics with a certain group. Leguide gives this example: "Some recruiters still tend to think that a candidate who just graduated from business school or from a prestigious establishment will possess all of the required skills."

Many other cognitive biases exist. Trying to master all of them would be in vain. In order to reduce their impact, recruiters can be assisted with tools that help them rationalise their decisions. For example, they could use personality tests and role plays. "Tests can help recruiters deal with emotional elements more objectively," says Leguide.

Finally, the right person must be ‘recruited to recruit'. Human resources personnel must be aware of cognitive bias in order to counter it.