What Influences Your Recruitment Decisions?

According to the headline in a recent article in People Management (link below), the majority of young people think that nepotism influences hiring decisions. Take a look at the detail of the article and you'll find that there are also other more nuanced reasons that graduates think are in play, including physical appearance (which, interestingly, is rated by them as being more influential than ethnicity and nationality).

I would have thought that 'chemistry' is probably one of the biggest unspoken factors in recruitment decisions. Do you like the person? Do you like them enough to invest time and effort in training and developing them? If "pulling an all-nighter", are they someone who's going to be good for team dynamics?

Of course, the problem with this approach is that it leaves you exposed to unconscious bias. It is this "people like us" attitude which leads to groupthink and will, ultimately, result in stagnation of the team.

To avoid this, we must keep running unconscious bias training for our hiring managers and encourage them to build and retain diverse teams for the good of the business. Oh, and ban nepotism.

(Link to People Management article which inspired this blog: https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/news/articles/majority-young-people-think-nepotism-influences-hiring-decisions-warns-new-study)