The REAL Threat Candidates Face When Asked To Show Up Authentically While Interviewing
💥This is #IncreaseDiversity, a weekly newsletter series sharing best practices for employers who want to implement effective diversity recruitment programs. To see previous editions, visit www.JenniferTardy.com. In the meantime, download our free guide, 10 Innovative Ways to Increase Workplace Diversity: Click Here. 💥
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Scientists could create the world’s safest vaccine, but if populations do not trust the safety of the vaccine, they will never line up to receive it.
I woke up the other morning with the above thoughts related to the national conversation around Black Americans and the general reluctance to take COVID-19 related vaccines. Because I understand that there is historical context, like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, for example, that has created distrust with not only the healthcare system, but vaccines in particular—this distrust makes complete sense to me. So when I hear well-intentioned statements like the one from Melinda Gates saying that Black people should be next to receive COVID related vaccines after healthcare workers, I brace myself for the firestorm I know will follow.
Image Credit: Statista.com
So, now that we are all thinking about distrust, I’m going to use today’s article to spotlight how this same distrust, forged from a long-standing discriminatory history, shows up today in the hiring process and creates a barrier to your company's ability to increase diversity.
Follow me for a moment, please...
"How do I get a candidate to be authentic, or show me their true selves during an interview?"
"How do I know that I am interviewing the real person and not who the candidate wants me to see?"
"Are there tools that I can use to get to the 'real' person to show themselves during an interview?"
When I am training hiring managers on diversity recruiting and inclusive hiring practices, these are the most frequently asked questions that I receive. Questions that you may have been wondering yourself.
Imagine—for a moment—your CEO making a pledge to increase diversity and inclusion at your organization. Your organization does the work to learn what they must start, stop and continue doing to create a better work environment. Then they open positions. They invite candidates to interview and quickly notice that candidates are still covering, not bringing their whole selves to the interview, and ultimately trying to show up as who they believe you want to see.
As a hiring manager, I understand how it could feel frustrating and confusing. But here's what I want you to know. If populations do not trust the authenticity of the commitment to do better, they do not feel safe. If they do not feel safe, they will never line up to take your invitation. In the context of interviewing, if historically underrepresented populations do not trust that it is safe to show you their authentic selves, they will cover during the interview.
"If historically underrepresented populations do not trust that it is safe to show you their authentic selves, they will cover during the interview."
History has shown that being authentic during an interview is risky. And to be clear, here is what the risk looks like to the job seeker.
Strike #1: If I show you who I am, I risk you not seeing me as “a fit” for your team. Marginalized candidates are seen as outsiders who are marked by difference and therefore, not perceived as a “fit” into your role and the team.
Image Credit: JonathanYabut.com
Strike #2: If I am “not a fit” for your team, I risk rejection from this job opportunity.
Strike #3: If I experience enough rejection, I risk becoming discouraged. Joining a population labeled by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics as discouraged workers is a real thing.
According to the BLS, discouraged workers are defined as persons not in the labor force who want and are available for a job and who have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months (or since the end of their last job if they held one within the past 12 months), but who are not currently looking because they believe there are no jobs available or there are none for which they would qualify.
Three strikes and they are out. This is the risk that, in particular, job seekers from historically underrepresented populations face when you ask them to show up as their most authentic self during an interview. And truthfully, though not the scope of today’s article, this risk persists even after being hired while trying to attain internal opportunities.
And so, what happens instead, is that job seekers find career coaches, like me, who show them how to navigate the bias baked into the hiring system in order to minimize the risk of the three strikes: not being seen as a fit, being rejected, and ultimately becoming discouraged. This is a real threat to a person looking for employment. Employment means more money in their pockets, more money in their homes to feed themselves and their families, and more money to support the communities in which they live. Who wants to risk all of this?
So, who changes first? Is the onus on the job seeker to change first by taking employers on their word, or is the onus on the employer to earn the trust of historically underrepresented job seekers?
In rebuilding trust, the onus is on the employer. It is your responsibility to earn the trust of job seekers interviewing at your company.
If your organization is seeking to create trust among minoritized populations in an effort to empower job seekers to bring their authentic selves to the interview, here are a few tips that can move the dial:
Tip #1: Check your resistance. Encourage your employees to do the internal work first. Learn about where you may feel resistance when it comes to individuals who identify uniquely to you. Learn about the biases that most commonly manifest during the interviewing process. Come up with a plan to get ahead of your own blind spots, even if it means having a hiring team that has permission to hold you accountable and even call you out. Need support, check out this article: The Hiring System Part III: How Career Coaches and Employers Can Support Keesha
Tip #2: Create a new track record. Show candidates that this is more than performative allyship. Create a new reputation and/or brand for your interview team’s commitment to end assessing a candidate’s personal affects and rather assess candidate’s skillsets. Candidate’s often check platforms like Glassdoor to learn about interviewing experiences at your company. As a matter of fact, according to Glassdoor, the majority of job seekers read at least six reviews before forming an opinion of a company. According to Zety.com, after finding a job offer, 64% of candidates said they research a company online and 37% said they will move on to another job offer if they can’t find information on the company. Also, 50% of candidates say they wouldn't work for a company with a bad reputation - even for a pay increase. The more candidates rave about their experience and ability to be themselves and still get the job, the more you will become known for your practices.
Image Credit: @drjotengii (twitter)
Tip #3: Explicitly and publicly state your company’s interviewing policies and commitments. It is one thing to share your organization’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, but as a hiring manager, what rules will you abide by during the interviewing process? Make a list and post this list both internally for employees and externally for candidates to see.
Tip #4: Train your interview team on the new interviewing policies. The team assessing candidates must know the commitments to which they are being held accountable, what they mean, how to carry them out. If they do not know, then they cannot be held accountable. If they do know, they can be held accountable for the outcome.
Tip #5: Openly invite candidates to bring their whole selves to the interview. Ensure candidates understand the work that’s been done to create an interview experience where candidates can be exactly who they are with no repercussions. Then invite them to give your company a try.
Just as trust is an enormous factor in our ability to get back to a COVID-19 free world, it is also an extraordinary factor in your organization’s ability to increase diversity. Trust should never be taken lightly and must be earned. Your organization must start the process. Once your organization begins to build the trust and make true systematic changes to the hiring system, you will then observe candidates showing up as their most genuine selves.
If you liked this article, you will definitely enjoy this one too: 3 Areas Bias (+ Inequity) Hide in the Hiring Process
Join the conversation in the comments. What tips do you have for organizations working to instill trust with candidates?
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