Step 5: Embed EDI Criteria in Your Recruitment Process

Once you have created your job ad and before reviewing CVs, you should create a hiring grading system or rubric with your hiring team or Committee to evaluate candidates CV/resumés and interviews. Ideally, you would complete this process prior to posting the job ad, in case your rubric creation process motivates you to change something in the job ad.

The creation of the hiring rubric is one of the most important steps in debiasing the recruitment and selection process.

This section will:

• Explain what a hiring rubric is and why it is a helpful debiasing technique;
• Discuss the inherent biases associated with many of the traditional metrics of hiring;
• Suggest EDI criteria and metrics that can be used to debias some of the traditional hiring metrics;

Performance Bias and Hiring Rubrics

Performance Bias occurs when criteria are used that favours dominant group members over non-dominant groups.

What the research says

Performance and abilities are overestimated for individuals from high status groups, e.g. male or white candidates, and underestimated for those from low status groups. For example, a study found that a white sounding name was equivalent to about 8 more years of experience (Bertrand, M. & Mullainathan, S. (2004). Another study showed that organizations run the risk of not promoting or rewarding the right people — employees who deserve greater compensation or to hold a higher position, due to performance biases (Wysocky, 2022).

How Performance Bias May Impact the Screening and Evaluation Process

When a particular applicant far exceeds the minimum criteria required for the position, a hiring team or committee may inadvertently raise the bar against which all other candidates are screened. This ‘moving goal post’ may unfairly omit other qualified applicants from being considered during the screening process.

To Minimize Performance Bias

Prior to reviewing applications, create a rubric to track which applicants meet or exceed the criteria as outlined in the advertisement and apply the rubric consistently.

A hiring rubric lists a number of criteria that the Committee will use to assess candidates. It also guides Committees in assigning scores to each criteria. A well-constructed hiring rubric makes it easier to differentiate between an “average” and “good” candidate or a “good” and “excellent” candidate.

Biases in Traditional Hiring Metrics

Many traditional metrics in the hiring process are susceptible to significant bias. When we evaluate candidates based on criteria like awards, quality of work, writing and language skills, and reference letters, it’s important to consider the biases prevalent within these metrics.

Biases in Traditional Hiring Metrics may include:

Discretionary awards

Men (particularly white men) are more likely to put themselves forward for a discretionary award. A track record of such awards should not necessarily elevate such a candidate above one who does not have a track record of discretionary awards (Raftery, 2003).

Assessment of Work Quality

One form of racial bias with respect to work quality is Indigenous bias. The historical experiences of Indigenous peoples (in Canada and elsewhere) include racism, colonization, oppression and marginalization, and systemic barriers to self-sufficiency and mainstream opportunities that have had significant negative impacts on well-being (Allan & Smylie, 2015). Indigenous bias can be explicit or implicit and often arises from assumptions regarding “quality, merit, value, relevance, importance, success and competence”. Therefore, in addition to the potential stereotyping or discrimination based on race/ethnicity or culture, the work of applicants who are Indigenous may not be fully understood by hiring teams or committee members. Thus, it is also critically important for committee members to be aware of historical experiences of Indigenous peoples, the federal aims of developing respectful relationships (the Truth and Reconciliation commission) and the openness to fairly assess applicants or candidates who are Indigenous. 

Bias in Evaluation of Writing Skills

Studies show that the work of underrepresented candidates is often scrutinized much more than majority candidates. In one study, for example, hiring managers were much more likely to identify errors in a candidate’s work when the candidate had a name that is associated with a racialized person. Dominant group members are much more likely to be presumed competent. Again, even when racialized candidates made the same number of errors in a project or assignment as a white candidate, the white candidate was presumed to be competent, while the racialized candidate was not given the same benefit of the doubt (Reeves, 2014).

Letters of Reference

Studies suggest that women are more likely to receive reference letters that use feminine-coded language like “compassionate” to describe their work rather than action-oriented verbiage like “accomplishment,” “achievement,” or “successful.” White applicants are also more likely to be described using standout or ability keywords like “exceptional” or “best,” while racialized applicants are more likely to be described as “competent.” Reference letters and reference check calls for white candidates are often longer than letters for racialized candidates (McSweeney, 2019; Ross, 2017).

Career Interruptions

Candidates from equity-deserving groups – especially women, racialized folks, and persons with disabilities – are more likely to experience career interruptions like parental leaves, caregiving leaves, and medical leaves (including leaves for mental health). Candidates are legally entitled to these leaves, and they cannot detract from the assessment of the candidate. It is important to remember that candidates can have similar impacts over different periods of time.

Discrimination in the Workplace

It’s important to remember that the inclusion climate of a company is directly correlated with professional success (Sliter et. al., 2014). If an equity-deserving candidate has a particular workplace where their performance suffered, it is worth considering the candidate within the totality of their record. It is possible that blips in performance are caused by a number of equity issues, including the extent to which the workplace was inclusive.

Developing a Hiring Rubric

As a Committee or hiring team, it’s important to discuss the categories you wish to assess candidates on and how you want to weigh these categories. You would also want to have a conversation with your Committee about what an “excellent” versus “good” versus “satisfactory” candidate looks like in these categories.

You can find an example hiring rubric linked here.

Bringing an EDI Lens to the Hiring Rubric: Checklist

• Have you had a discussion as a team about what criteria you want to evaluate and what specific metrics you will look for?
• Have you had a discussion as a team about the ways you’ll evaluate applicant excellence that don’t solely rely upon traditionally biased metrics?
• Do you have a portion of your evaluation score dedicated to EDI knowledge? This could come from an EDI statement that candidates submit, answers to EDI questions in an interview, or other elements of EDI service.
• Do you have a portion of your evaluation score dedicated to community involvement? This could come in the form of interview questions about candidate’s community service or involvement with relevant community organizations.

While these are all suggestions that may embed an EDI lens in the hiring rubric, the most important conclusion is that you have these discussions with your committee. Every committee should have in-depth conversations about how they bring an EDI lens to their evaluation of candidates.