CV Screening: 4 Ways to Make Your Process More Fair and Predictive

What’s wrong with traditional CV screening practices?

FACT: Humans are prone to unconscious bias.

It doesn’t matter how pure your intentions or well-trained you believe your ‘recruiter instincts’ to be…

If you’re human, you’re subject to biases, whether you’re aware of this or not.

Bias, in itself, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We use mental shortcuts and associations to make quick, subconscious decisions in our everyday lives - a bit like being on autopilot.

However, problems begin to arise when we look at people-based decisions.

Our tendency to gravitate toward the familiar, draw instant conclusions and then look to confirm our assumptions means that those from underrepresented backgrounds get disproportionately overlooked by a typical CV screening process.

This is why the average CV review takes just 7.4 seconds.

We tend to make snap judgements about candidates based on anything that ‘jumps out’ at us - whether it be a degree from a top university or experience at a big-name organisation.

Whilst this CV screening strategy is generally accepted as the norm - 100+ years of research tells us that this just isn’t the most accurate means of spotting genuine talent.

Not only are education and experience weaker predictors of future job performance than you’d think, but they’re also heavily influenced by socioeconomic factors.

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How to reliably predict job performance without giving up CVs completely

Here at Applied, we believe that although they’re far from the perfect measure of job success, sometimes CVs are necessary…

But this doesn’t mean we can’t use them in a more ethical and effective way. 

There are a few proven, cost-free tweaks you can make to reduce biases and ensure your CV screening process is a more accurate predictor of who will perform best on the job.

The practices below can either be used independently or (for the most predictive results) in combination with one another.

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1. Structure your CV screening process

One of the most critical issues with traditional CV screening is that the process is largely unstructured.

With no set criteria or game plan, hirers will wait for something to catch their attention.

To get more out of your CV reviewing, try giving yourself a list of questions to score CVs against.

• Does this person's experience show the skills you're looking for? 
• Have they been promoted in past roles? 
• Have they achieved measurable results in their previous roles?
• Does this person have experience in a similar work environment?

Although not a perfect science, this will make the process as objective and structured as possible, with data to back up your decision-making.

Rather than letting instinct dictate who gets shortlisted, structured CV screening will allow you to focus on factors that are actually predictive of future job performance.

For each of your questions, try scoring candidates on a scale of yes - somewhat - no.

This will give you enough data to make more informed decisions.

The Applied Platform now includes our CV Scoring Tool. Score candidates using our Focus Questions - specifically designed to make CV screening more ethical, predictable and efficient.

2. Anonymise candidates to reduce bias

Since we know things like names, photos and dates of birth can all trigger unconscious biases, the best way to reduce bias is to simply remove this identifying information from CVs.

In one of the earliest experiments, orchestras were able to double the number of women making it through auditions just by doing them from behind a curtain.

Here’s the key information that should be anonymised:

• Name
• Photo
• Date of birth
• Address
• Hobbies