How does unconscious bias make you loose great employees?

At some point in my life as a young person, I discovered that I was not like every other kids because I could not express my ideas by means of speech. Even until now, despite my amazing improvement, I still have crises moments where I cannot complete a sentence or I just can’t express a clear 1 million dollar idea that I know I am the one person on earth who has it.

Today, I have 14 years of solid experience as a bilingual recruiting sourcer, researcher, talent mapping specialist and headhunter, having worked with the best large companies, completing projects for them across all African countries, Europe and the Middle East, down to North and South America. However, in those 14 years, getting a job offer or contract did come easily. Every one of them came with serious sweat or just by the grace of God – a feeling that makes you say: “Oof! thank God, I made it!

In my professional life until today, I have always landed great interviews due to my undeniable experience, qualifications and expertise, but the majority of them yielded no job offers because of the unconscious bias of the job interviewers caused by my speech impediment that would automatically disqualify me over other well-spoken candidates. One international company in Washington DC in 2019 approached me and set up interviews. The first round was exciting due to the flaw of my ability to provide answers to the interviewer, who ended up telling me that I am the person they desperately needed. Then at the second round, I could not even complete a sentence to answer simple questions about me and the job. Finally, they chose another candidate that was a better fit according to their email, knowing that the first interviewer had clearly told me on the phone that I was the super star until that second round of interview.

This example, among many, clearly shows that they believed that my inability to speak flawlessly like other candidates and themselves is a proof I could not do the job. Very funny! So by definition, unconscious biases, also known as implicit biases, are social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness (Source: diversity.ucsf.edu). many people that conduct interviews, when they are not provided training or tools to adjust automatic patterns of thinking, and ultimately eliminate discriminatory behaviors, mostly make hiring decisions based on their personal biases.

It is sad that many companies talk about transformation, diversity and talent attraction, but if a diverse workforce is so important to your company, how do you make sure diverse talent are not excluded because of unconscious bias? How do you ensure that all those who interview prospective employees translate these into their decision making irrespective of whether a candidate cannot answer the questions you ask due to their inability to complete sentences? And how do you know a candidate is naturally stuttering or is just nervous or is unable to answer your questions?

That company in Washington DC new I was the potential person to solve the problem for which they interviewed me because my experience clearly showed them that I was the advisor they needed, but because they made my speech impediment speak louder that my experience, qualifications and expertise, they chose someone else over me. Yet, they so praised how much they are a strong believer in diversity. That made me laugh until today.

If they were really a diverse company, so why did they let my stuttering influence their judgement when they had the past and present references that could confirm my track record? I am not a qualified HR professional, but from observation and common sense in my years of experience in talent acquisition, and this is my personal opinion, the best candidates are not always those who speak and convince interviewers the most, but those who have a proven track record of delivering on projects or jobs. Is it culture fit that you are looking at? Well, no parents have ever interviewed which child should qualify to come into their family because they worry about if such a child will fit into their family culture and values – no. They share their values and make sure the new child fits into the families’ culture.

Stammering and its effect to the ability of a candidate to be successful in an interview should not be a disqualifying criteria to the hundreds of interviewers like those I have mentioned above. The fact is that, despite their tried and tested hiring processes and sound decision-making, they still experience poor performance of some of the great candidates that they once hired. If your great choice of great candidates and company culture fit were so great as it is believed in most companies in the world today, why do the same candidates, despite making a counter offer, still leave your company after months of employment because they got a better offer some where else? They should stay with you because they fit in your culture, right? Why do their top-rated candidates still resign for better companies, working cultures and employee-experience? My favorite one is, how does the company in Washington DC explain my outstanding experience and expertise and the valued I added in my past companies, some of whom are as successful as them? How do they explain the great references that I have from my past clients and line managers I have worked with? So many questions to be answered.

Seriously, unconscious bias is the greatest enemy to the progress of disabled community of candidates, but also to the companies who employ the interviewers who make decisions based on their views of the candidates being interviewed. I beleive that companies should create new processes that are suitable for disabled candidates and employees. For years now, the same expectations that we have on candidates in general are the same criteria we have applied on candidates or employees with speech problems. If a candidate who has an outstanding work history can’t answer your interview questions the way you expect, why can’t you organize Project based Interviews to see how they will perform. According to an article published on the Southern Illinois University, project-based interviews differ from the traditional interview in that, instead of (or in addition to) submitting the traditional resume and cover letter and showing up for an in-person interview, the employer asks you to complete a specific assignment. How you perform on the assignment determines whether you make it to the next round of interviews or in some cases, if you are hired. The assignment could be an on-the-job project, a letter, a brief, a memo, a pleading, a legal research assignment, etc. So in the case interviewing a stumering candidate, the project-based part of the interview must cover what ever could not be obtained from the ability of the stuttering candidate to articulate or answer the questions asked by the interviewer.

Factually, I have always been very bad when it comes to job interviews, but the few companies that have given me a change have seen my outstanding work performance and the value I have added to the team and companies. I have been a great business partner, held stakeholders meetings, made presentations with senior managers and executive decision makers who implemented my business advice. In most of those interactions and meetings, my stuttering was very bad and the communication was full of stammering. But the focus was not on my speech disability or inability to do my job. The facts are here, I stutter so what? Life and business must continue, right? Some do not have legs to walk, others eyes to see, others again are bad road drivers. Do you tell them because they do not have that other aspects of their lives they cannot do the job that they had already done in the past?

Again, culture for me is not a problem at all but should be a contract agreement criteria. Every prospective and new employee must ask questions about the company’s culture and then decide if it is the type of environment they can fit in. If they can’t, then they have to end the interview or decline the offer of employment. If they confirm they are happy with how you presented the company’s culture to them and later the manager finds out that the candidate is not fitting in that culture, then it will be another situation where an employee is fired just like any other breach of contract.

We need to understand something about companies’ cultures. Your company’s macro and sub-cultures will determine whether your employees will be happy or unhappy about their time in your company, which in tern will positively or negatively affect the success of your organization’s retention strategy. In fact, a company’s culture drafted on papers is not always exactly translated in the real world for many reasons: There is an overall culture of the wider organisation that affects how your company’s brand is perceived internally and externally. It’s also sad that companies always tend to focus on their external views of their brand, rather than their internal views of their brand by over looking their employees negative experiences.

Employees also can indirectly create a culture within the team and make sure the senior manager encourages such a culture. For example, most employees are scared of disclosing their every day frustrations for fear of being bullied and fired in the most professional and legal manner by some of their line managers (internal powers). I once resigned from a position and company that I love until today just because I was trapped in the spiderweb of people gossiping all the time. They would speak against our line manager, while they appear nice before the person, and at the same time make sure that I am hated by our manager. Then they would come back to me to tell me how our manager hated me and wanted me out of business. It became so bad that I ended up making the biggest mistake of my life – breaching the contract and I got into trouble and resigned. So you can see that our team had a toxic culture that my manager had accepted because of unconscious bias – choosing to beleive some people than others because of how we perceive some groups of people.

So the wider organizational culture is a result of the different subcultures created by the work environment of each department of the company that, in turn, gets its culture from the type of environment developed by each team led by the senior manager, who creates and determines what type of culture every team member must have. So the sum of all these subcultures will affect the company’s employees experience. Let’s discuss this on another article.

As a recruiter, I have seen and heard of many great employees who resigned months after they were unhappy about the company’s culture despite the great and successful Pre-employment tests that confirmed the suitability of such prospective employees. Consider your own experiences as an employee, or ask some of your newly hired employees after 3 to 12 months about their personal employee experience? They will, if circumstances allow it, tell you. How do you explain this? This certainly means that recruitment or hiring decisions must not be biased or based on anything else, but on the ability of a candidate to handle the challenges of a positions. How should we measure this? well, That is why we have CVs and past references to confirm how well we delivered on our past assignments.