Everyone wants to hire the most qualified candidates, but the most familiar hiring practices tend to value personal opinion over facts. And, as comfortable as we all are with our own opinions, extensive research reveals how pervasively our personal opinions lead to unintentional bias, missed missed opportunities and outright hiring mistakes. (You'll see in the research that outdated hiring practices often result in hiring people who are demographically similar to their hiring manager.) And the advent of entirely virtual interviews scrambles the hiring decision in new ways.

Hiring managers urgently need better tools to make hiring decisions, but it's difficult to change a widely accepted business practice like hiring (even if we recognize that it routinely delivers bias and failure as an outcome). That’s the quest we’ve been on since we developed the Results-Based Hiring^® Process more than a decade ago, and we’re still learning. We’ve learned that cookie cutter solutions don’t work, but a handful of enduring principles do. (Admittedly, it took us nearly 10 years and over 500 searches to sort out those differences.) Because of our commitment to advancing social justice, we’re making our interviewing practices public for the first time on this blog and in free public webinars

Evidence-Based Interviewing℠ practices offer a decision-making structure, and a series of behavioral nudges that elevate the discussion of facts and reduce the importance of opinions in hiring. Collectively, these changes reduce the impact of bias, leading to more successful hiring decisions. The practices are courteous to candidates and respectful of the hiring manager’s expertise. They are practical and solidly grounded in peer-reviewed research. In other words, it’s easy to make a compelling case for using this approach and now it doesn't cost anything to try. The practices are not unique to a specific organization, industry, career level, or functional area. Hundreds of our clients have successfully adopted and used these practices. (That’s how we know that any recruiter or HR professional can learn and apply them, because we’ve seen it done so often.)

We recognize that we are imperfect messengers, but we did want to share what we’ve learned in case it helps you on your own journey toward better hiring. We respect that many others know far more than we do. We’re still learning. Please consider this a work in progress.

Here is our initial list of topics for your consideration:

Evidence-Based Interviewing℠ topics:

• Even with bias prevention training, outdated hiring practices usually result in hiring people demographically similar to their hiring manager. Here’s how to break that cycle: Principles of Evidence-Based Interviewing^SM
  
  
• If you are serious about eliminating bias from your hiring practices, look closely at how you assess “cultural fit” in the interview: How to Assess Cultural Fit Without Perpetuating Bias
  
  
• Hiring managers prefer pedigree, candidates who went to great schools and worked at well-known organizations. Here’s the problem with that: How to Select Resumes Without Perpetuating Bias
  
  
• Reference checking does a poor job of predicting the success of a new hire. Here’s how to make them more useful: Evidence-Based Reference Checking
  
  
• Here’s what we’re learning and how we’re challenging other recruiters to do better: My Journey to Eliminate Systemic Bias in Recruiting

Additional topics:

• A Modern Approach to Diversity Recruiting
• Avoiding the Pitfalls of Virtual Interviewing
• What Should You Expect from a Modern Executive Search Firm?
• An Evidence-Based Approach to the Executive Search and Hiring Process