The Subconscious Biases of Hiring Managers in the Recruitment Process.

By Jamison Barry.

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ but first appearances do make an impact. And not just first appearances, but also little details that could affect the way another person perceives you.

Whether or not you are older or younger, married or divorced, Buddhist or Muslim, people are prone to making snap judgements about you based on their own perceptions and beliefs.

While it is a common practice in areas of Europe to include a photograph of oneself in a resume, in Australia, it is a far less common practice. A study conducted by OneShift revealed that only 14 per cent of its user base included photographs of themselves in their resume. While that number reflects only its user base, it is telling about trends in Australian hiring processes.

So why do Australians not include photographs of themselves in their resumes? The answer is rather simple. In Australia, we have a number of anti-discrimination laws covering sex, gender, race, age, disability, and sexual orientation and each state has its own set of anti-discrimination laws. In Victoria, we have the Equal Opportunity Act, 2010, which to save you some time, is a 159-page document defining discrimination. In Part 4, Division 1, it covers:

Discrimination against job applicants.

An employer must not discriminate against a person—

• In determining who should be offered employment; or
• In the terms on which employment is offered to the person; or
• By refusing or deliberately omitting to offer employment to the person; or
• By denying the person access to a guidance program, an apprenticeship training program or other occupational training or retraining program.

The document in its entirety is saying: an employer has no right to discriminate against you on the basis of sex, gender, race, age, disability, and sexual orientation.

We don’t live in a perfect world, however. People are still discriminated against every day, but there are some ways to protect yourself.

First and foremost, don’t include a photograph of yourself in your application. Including your photograph in a resume can be off-putting to recruiters but it primarily increases your chances of being discriminated against depending on the recruiter’s personal perception of things like beauty, or in more extreme circumstances, their perception of your ethnicity.

Secondly, limit your personal information. It is all well and good to include a list of your hobbies in a resume if you wish to add some flavour to your profile, but try to avoid listing anything that identifies your religious viewpoint, your gender identity, your sexual orientation, or your ethnicity.

These are all ways in which someone can discriminate against you. The best way to protect yourself is to tailor your information, as truthfully as possible, to ensure that personal identifiers are limited.

However, make sure your social media profiles are relatively appropriate. Recruiters sometimes will do searches to check your profiles, so make sure to delete anything from your last night out on the town, just in case.

If you’re one of the few out there who believes that discrimination does not happen in the recruiting process, watch the video below about an American job-seeker and his struggle to simply get responses in the recruitment process.