Breaking Groupthink Bias with Citizens Advice Wirral and Applied

Citizens Advice Wirral is an independent charity and member of national Citizens Advice, based in Birkenhead, United Kingdom. Their dedicated team of trained advisors provide free and confidential advice and support to residents in the Wirral area, helping them navigate a wide range of issues such as debt, housing, employment, and consumer rights.

“We give people the knowledge and confidence they need to find their way forward - whoever they are, and whatever their problem.”

The charity joined Applied in 2023 and launched their first role on the platform 5 days after signing up 🎉

They went on to hire 12 people within their first six months and maintained an average candidate experience rating of 8.6/10 (ratings are submitted once an applicant has submitted their application).

“Absolutely loved this style of application! I think it's great to be considered on how you would respond to certain situations, rather than my qualifications (which aren't too shabby either!) but I think you can get a better idea of a person this way.”
- candidate feedback

Additionally, the charity took an average of 19 days to hire in the first half of the year, which is fantastic given the global average time to hire is 44 days.

The team at Citizens Advice Wirral has found that the Applied platform has helped them to reduce unconscious bias within their hiring processes, and Carol Johnson-Eyre (Chief Executive Officer) said that the hiring tool has been “simple and easy to use”.

The primary user, Tracy McGinn (Head of Advice and Casework/Deputy CEO), told us that hiring tended to look very traditional before adopting Applied. 

The recruitment process began with creating a job description for a specific role. Interested candidates submitted an application, where they would match themselves with the person specification and provide standard personal and background information. The hiring team then reviewed these applications anonymously, removing all identifying and equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) data. Each team member would then score the applications independently on a spreadsheet, and the cumulative scores determined the top candidates who were subsequently invited for interviews.

During the interviews, the hiring team posed predetermined questions to the candidates. Following the interviews, the team collectively discussed each candidate's performance, and each team member would give individual scores based on the candidate's answers. These scores were recorded in a spreadsheet, and the candidate with the highest cumulative score was ultimately appointed to the role.

After interviewing candidates, the collective discussion of their performance introduced the potential for Groupthink Bias within the hiring team.

Groupthink Bias is a psychological phenomenon wherein a group prioritises consensus and harmony over the critical evaluation of ideas or alternative viewpoints. In the context of the hiring process, team members may avoid challenging the dominant opinion or withhold their genuine perspectives to maintain a sense of unity. Additionally, there might be a tendency to defer to a more senior team member, potentially stifling the diversity of thought within the group. 

By not eliminating the chance for Groupthink Bias, concerns may go unraised, and the team may miss opportunities to identify the most suitable candidate for the role. It highlights the importance of fostering an environment that encourages open dialogue, diverse perspectives, and individual input to ensure a more thorough and unbiased evaluation of candidates.

To ensure fairness in hiring processes and avoid Groupthink bias, it's crucial to have a structured interview process. The Charity uses Applied's interview feature and best practices to ensure that all candidates are treated equally and that hiring team members follow the same steps.

Before conducting interviews, the Citizens Advice Wirral team decides which work tests or scenario-based questions to ask and creates a scoring guide. These predetermined questions help all interviewers score candidates based on the same criteria and understand what they are looking for in a candidate. 

The Applied platform enables interviewers to score each question during the interview, reducing the likelihood of judgmental errors. Alternatively, team members can score candidates as soon as they leave the interview. By sticking to the structured interview process, candidates' total scores reflect a balanced account of their performance.

Although the Citizens Advice Wirral team was already committed to inclusive hiring practices, joining Applied has allowed them to automate hiring stages, securely store all their hiring data in one place, and receive positive feedback on their new process. When we asked if there had been any time-saving benefits, Tracey told us, “We have really seen the benefits at the shortlisting stage and find the feature on Applied that estimates the time commitment for each panel member based on the number of applications to be really useful!”

The Citizen’s Advice Wirral team also highlighted that there has been a decline in applications for charity jobs across the industry, a sector-wide challenge. However, their experience has taken a positive turn since adopting Applied. They have enjoyed a continual volume of interest in their roles and organisation and have been pleased with the calibre of candidates applying.