Why are you biased in your recruitment decisions ?

Dear reader, I know you are rational. I know you make decisions in an efficient and unbiased way.

But in fact you are not. You are biased. And you make decisions emotionally and rationalise afterwards. And I know it is difficult to change your mind. So, dear reader, if you have not completely given up on the idea of reconsidering your position, watch the video below: :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D\_HPiaAx\_QA

Now, let's imagine how you would have felt if you had seen the French women's team play for the first time, as shown in this video. And not the French men's team. Would you have been as excited? Personally, I'm sure I wouldn't have.

I can still hear the scepticism in your voice. ‘But no, I'm never the victim of my biases! I'm a completely rational person. And I know how to choose a good candidate by looking at their CV and conducting interviews. I've even set up case studies to be super confident.’.

Sorry, dear reader. You're being fooled by your biases and your brain. And you have in front of you someone who is able to read you and give you the answer you want - which is also a bias because you didn't define the answer you want to get before meeting your candidate. If you still don't believe that your brain can be manipulated, also watch the video below. And this is just a short video, I'm not talking about a salesperson who would read your reaction to their answers and adapt.

[video width="700" height="400" mp4="https://curio5ity.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ssstwitter.com\_1690112229733.mp4"\]\[/video\]

But where do our biases come from?

Our decision-making biases come from our evolution. Let's imagine that in the cave age, one of our ancestors went out to look for food. And, living in a cave, decided to put an end to his prejudices. So he set off and, crossing a clearing, he saw a creature approaching Instead of jumping to conclusions - and yes, he had decided to put an end to his prejudices - he thought carefully: ‘It is thick and its tail is short, so it is not a wolf. It is bigger than a coyote but smaller than an elk. It is black, has long claws and can stand on its hind legs I will conclude that this animal is probably a bear and that I should run away’.

I will let you imagine the rest... Let's just say that the genes of this ancestor would not have survived long...

Prejudices are extremely functional (and potentially life-saving) approaches that our brain has developed over thousands of years. Unconscious or implicit, our cognitive biases help us get through the day and make thousands of quick decisions without having to think about them. Our brain is perfectly adapted to quickly filter enormous amounts of information, unconsciously prioritising, categorising and summarising our surroundings. This served us well for millennia, when our unconscious biases helped us avoid being eaten

But in these days and ages, they are working against us. Because we have retained these biases - whatever you may think, once again dear reader, you are very biased - and so we think we are making rational decisions. But this is far from the case. We are not in a position to make the right decisions. This is obviously the case in the recruitment of salespeople. We make these decisions emotionally, subject to numerous biases

One of them is shown in this video with female sports players rather than male sports players.

And if you fall under the effect of bias, gender bias, you're not going to think to yourself: ‘Oh, this candidate isn't interesting because she's a woman.’. No, definitely not. You're going to think: ‘She's good but the other candidate has {more experience} / {has worked in a company like ours} / {any rational reason to rationalise your bias}

Once a month, tips and strategies to drive sales excellence: 

[convertkit form=6890803]

The solution ?

For effective sales recruitment, the solution is:

1- Start a recruitment process by assessing the skills of candidates without meeting them. This allows you to assess the willingness to sell of your candidates and assess the attitude, which is more important than the techniques . Or you can take a free trial here.

2- Set up an analytical recruitment process, in particular by developing structured scorecarded interviews in which each candidate is asked the same questions, in the same order, with the quality of the answer defined.

If you haven't completely abandoned the idea of understanding how to set up predictive recruitment processes, free from bias, contact me for a conversation (unbiased of course). Or you can download the self-assessment that allows you to identify possible gaps in your recruitment process.