Recruitment Bias in Human Resource Management

Recruitment bias this process is the significant topic in human resources management which
deals with the recruitment process of people. There are various ways through which
Recruitment bias takes place in the form of unconscious bias effect.
In the workplace, these biases can affect the various decision processes of human resource
recruitment in an organisation as recruitment, hiring, promotion, job advancement
opportunities, retention and evaluations. The various ways in which recruitment bias occur
are skin colour, gender, age, height, weight, religion, disability status or even where an
individual is educated. An unconscious bias occurs when our brain automatically makes
judgments about people and situation based on previous experience and judgement
(Behavioural economics, 2016).
In hospitality industry women are facing an inequality battle deeper than we can imagine.
As it is a white male dominated industry and it is changing slowly but the scope of change is
vast. Male female ratio in the hospitality industry has a huge difference than any other
industry. Studies have suggested that the promotion ratio is ten times more of male as
compared to female in the hospitality industry (Sonic Jobs, 2018).
Risks of unconscious bias
Unconscious bias brings negative consequences and can result in conscious bias and
discrimination. Which result in discrimination with the people, workforce diversity is
minimised and it adds negative business culture.
Having a diverse workforce enables an organisation for the development of business and
legal reasons. Management and HR should focus on having a diverse workforce at work. As
it is proven that the employee are more effective and their performance is superior to other
organisation that lack in workforce diversity. Having a diverse workforce brings people from

different ethnic backgrounds having a different experience. That brings innovation & opinion
to the organisation. (Carnes, M., Devine, P.G., Isaac, C., Manwell, B.L., Ford, C.E., Winston,
A.B......et al., 2012)
The organisation has a legal perspective which ensures that they should follow the
ombudsman guidelines to avoid discrimination at work place. Ombudsman theory states the
employer does discrimination during the recruitment process with the potential employee that
may lead to litigation (Devine, P.G., Forscher, S.P., Austin, A.J., Cox, W.T.L., 2012)
Types of unconscious bias
Various researches have conducted in the field of social psychology and behavioural
economics which reveals the kinds of bias done at the workplace by the human resource
department during the time of recruitment in an organisation. Explanations of the terms used
to describe the kind of biases are given in the text below (Australian Public Service
Commission, 2014)
Beer test
This is one of the most common recruitment decisions, and it evaluates people who are
likable and easy to work which result in bias take place as this aspect neglects the skills of
other potential employees who in physical appearance are not more attractive, that bards an
organisation to recruit talent to an organisation. It is a human tendency to like people similar
to them or to make them part of their group. This can lead to hiring an employee who just
meets the requirements of a job over a more qualified potential employee. This might result
in reducing the organisation growth due to lack of expertise. The beer test in general, reduces
diversity of the workforce in an organisation in becomes an obstacle in the path of
development of the organisation (Wright, 2014).

Availability Heuristic
Accessing people with the most recent experience you have, availability heuristic bias here
bigger picture is neglected and more credit is given to the most recent performance. As the
mind is charged with the most recent experience and have a more significant effect on people
while making a decision (Recruiting Daily, 2018).
Confirmation bias
It takes 4 minutes usually for the human mind to decide whether he like some person on not,
after this time it recruiter sticks to his option and avoids altering his opinion. In recruitment
process, confirmation bias is the leaning of people towards some person to remember
information according to their perception and neglect the data that does not match to his
knowledge (Recruiting Daily, 2018).
Endowment effect
This affects based on the idea that people attach more value to the things they own or the
resources they have. It is often noticed that people add more value to an identical object
which they own. In an organisation can be noted that managers and HR values the talent of
their current staff in an organisation. This results in creating a limiting in the perception of
hiring a candidate for suitable for the job in an organisation. This makes people reluctant to
hire new staff and human resource recruitment team hire the employees who have a similar
skill set as the employee in the organisation (Recruiting Daily, 2018).
Groupthink
When a group or team members brings harmony together at the workplace that leads to the
phenomenon of what we called as ‘groupthink.’ It also can be referred to a decision made by
the unity of the group, where the individual accepts the group decision by not going to his/her