How to reduce unconscious bias in your recruitment process

If you find that applicants applying to work at your school mostly come from 1 demographic, think about where you're advertising roles. Are your vacancies only reaching certain groups of people? 

To make this more diverse, you could: 

• Look for local social media groups in which you could advertise roles, especially those focused on non-white demographics
• Advertise in print and online newspapers for various communities, like The Voice (a national black weekly newspaper) – but note that this might be more expensive than advertising locally
• Ask parents at your school to pass on your job adverts if your school community is diverse – they might know people interested in applying 

Please note that the inclusion of commercial products in this article doesn't constitute an endorsement from The Key. 

Candidates are likely to visit your website at some point during their application. Consider how you can show that your school celebrates diversity and aims to be as inclusive as possible.

For example, upload your anti-racism action plan (if you have one) to your website. 

Make sure that you include your school's commitments to diversity and equality in your job adverts. 

You can't make your practices fair by simply saying you are committed to equality, but you can reassure and attract candidates by highlighting the existing values and work that you do to counter discrimination.

This might be by:

• Stating that you are an equal opportunities employer and you are committed to diversity in your hiring practices
• Including your school's values which include diversity, fairness and equality
• Sharing a link to your equal opportunities policy

Make sure to mention that you will make reasonable adjustments for candidates with disabilities. This is a legal requirement under the Equality Act 2010, but you can go the extra mile to reassure candidates that you'll support them by including this information at the start of the recruitment process.

Appoint a staff member to do this – to ensure fairness, this person shouldn't be involved in the shortlisting process or be part of an interview panel.

For each application you receive, the staff member should:

1. Make a copy of it and redact any identifying information (name, photo, place of birth, gender, nationality, religion, ethnicity, etc.)
2. Keep the original copy so applicants' details don't get lost at the end of the process
3. Send the anonymised version to whoever is shortlisting candidates

It should take about 10 to 20 minutes to anonymise each application, depending on its length, so make sure you're allowing plenty of time for this. If you get lots of applications for a role, you may want to appoint more than 1 person to anonymise CVs.

Introduce a scoring grid to make your shortlisting process as fair and objective as possible. Download our shortlisting grid to help you do this.

Your scoring system should be clear and straightforward, and you should only shortlist candidates based on: 

• Criteria taken from the person specification 
• Skills and experience outlined in the application that are relevant to the job in question 

By doing this, you'll be able to show: 

• Decisions were based on relevant criteria and evidence
• You’ve considered each candidate fairly
• That a candidate wasn't shortlisted because they didn't meet a shortlisting requirement

You could ask everyone on each interview panel to spend 30 minutes reading up on unconscious bias.

If the panel understands concepts like the 'halo effect' (e.g. where an interviewer unconsciously allows an applicant's positive qualities to underplay any negative qualities), and you have a short reminder session before interviews, they'll be more equipped to identify and check their unconscious biases.

If you want to go further than the last step, you could arrange for at least 1 person on the interview panel to receive unconscious bias training. That person will then be more likely to spot instances of anyone appearing to go by 'gut feeling' to make hiring decisions.

Prioritise the training for the person who makes the final decision on recruitment, and/or the person who leads on anti-racism in your school. They can then share their expertise with other decision-makers in recruitment.

How to arrange the training

Contact your local authority to see if they can support you with this, or put you in contact with a training provider. If your school has a union representative, they might be able to organise training in your school. Ask your union rep to reach out to the union to see if training is available.

Just like with shortlisting candidates, you should make sure your interview decisions are based on evidence – it's easier to slip into choosing candidates based on their ethnicity (or how similar they are to you) if you don't have a process that measures skills objectively.

If you aren't already, use a person specification to set competency-based questions that you can measure each candidate's answers against.

Once the interview is over, discuss with the other panellists what you've picked up on. In this way, you'll more likely be able to challenge your own, and anyone else's, potential biases towards a candidate based on the evidence in front of you.

For more tips on how to do this, take a look at our guidance on holding interviews. You can also use our interview questions for senior leaders, support staff and teachers to save time.

Job interviews should be focused on finding the candidate most suitable and qualified for the job. Questions that ask candidates' personal lives may reveal irrelevant information that can lead to unconscious bias.

It may also be illegal to ask about a candidate's health or disability. You can only ask about this if you are:

• Making sure they can carry out a task that's essential to the role (for example, if a caretaker is able to climb a ladder or use necessary equipment)
• Finding out if a candidate can take part in an interview or what reasonable adjustments they need during the recruitment process
• Actively looking to recruit more staff members with disabilities (for example, a teacher with a hearing impairment for deaf pupils)

This is set out in government guidance on disability rights.

You have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to support candidates with disabilities during the selection process under the Equality Act 2010. 

There's no formal definition of 'reasonable', and this will depend on your school and what you're capable of providing, according to ACAS.

This might look like:

• Providing a large screen for a candidate who is visually-impaired to complete an interview task
• Making sure that the building you hold interviews in is wheelchair-accessible, or allowing a candidate with a mobility impairment to interview remotely
• Allowing for sufficient rest breaks between interview tasks for pregnant candidates

Always ask a candidate what adjustments they need, rather than assuming.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has more information and examples of reasonable adjustments – it's written with existing staff members in mind, but you can still use it to improve your hiring practices.