- Name the biases that most affect recruitment, marking and promotion
- Explain why awareness training alone rarely changes behaviour
- Change one decision process so bias has less room to operate
Fast thinking, imperfect shortcuts
Bias is not a character flaw, it is a by-product of fast decision-making. The brain fills gaps with patterns, and those patterns come from everything you have ever been exposed to.
The ones that cause most damage at work:
- Affinity bias - warming to people like you.
- Halo and horns - one strong impression colouring everything else.
- Confirmation bias - noticing evidence that fits your first read.
- Attribution bias - their mistake is character, yours is circumstance.
- Name and accent bias - a decision made before the content is read.
Why awareness is not enough
Knowing you have biases does not remove them. Sometimes it makes things worse, because people feel absolved once they have done the training.
What works is changing the process so bias has fewer gaps to fill:
- Score against criteria written before you see the candidates or the work.
- Mark blind where you can, and mark question by question rather than script by script.
- Two reviewers on high-stakes decisions, scoring independently.
- Structured interviews, same questions, same order.
- Check the pattern afterwards. Who gets the stretch projects, the benefit of the doubt, the second chance?
You are shortlisting. One applicant went to your old university and you instantly like the application. What is the most useful next step?
5 questions. Pick an answer to see whether it is right and why.
1.Affinity bias is:
2.Which is most likely to reduce bias in shortlisting?
3.Marking question by question across all scripts helps because:
4.'Their mistake is carelessness, mine was a bad week' is an example of:
5.The best evidence that your process is fair is:
Pick one decision you make regularly. What single step would make it fairer?
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