How do I Overcome Unconscious Bias When Being Interviewed?

Our unconscious bias is always at work.  Try the following experiment.  Visualize a person for each of the following examples and jot down their gender, age, and appearance.

A successful professor.

A doctor.

The founder of a software company.

A married couple out to dinner.

Okay, let’s explore your answers.  How many of you visualized a successful professor that was a 28-year-old black woman? 

Was the doctor you visualized a female covered with tattoos, had spikey hair, wore jeans and sandals?

Was the founder of a software company a 59-year-old male with gray hair or were they in their teens or early twenties?

Was the married couple you pictured two gay men out to dinner?

Research tells us that those are probably not the images you came up with.  Chances are your images were closely aligned with your background, your gender, your beliefs, and life experiences. 

Now imagine that you are a 33-year-old white male seeking to hire a programmer with outstanding knowledge of Oracle in a young, progressive software company.   You find three excellent resumes. Each person has 10-14 years of work experience stated on their resume.  You invite all three to an interview. 

The first person that arrives is in their mid-thirties, a male wearing glasses and an unbuttoned shirt over a gray t-shirt and jeans.  He has a solid background in coding.  How do you feel?  Are you relaxed, are you uptight?  Is the person what you expected them to look like?  If they are, you probably are relaxed and eager to discuss the job opportunity with them. 

The second applicant shows up and they are a 60-year-old black male with white hair and a neatly trimmed white beard wearing a suit and tie.  You immediately ask them what role they applied for to verify if they are in the right place.  They give you their name, which is the name on the resume.  The look on your face betrays you as you unexpectedly blurt out, “I was expecting someone different based on the resume.”  You invite them in and start the conversation. 

You look at his resume and question why he only has 14 years of work history listed when he is “so old” in your mind.  He responds “I bet you’re wondering why I only listed 14 years of experience with Oracle programming.  I wanted to tailor my resume to the job and not include the years I worked in management at Oracle.  I helped them develop the code that is still used today, got to travel around the world with Larry and speak with top coders about the direction we were taking.” 

Your interest starts to grow, but multiple concerns creep into your mind.  “How will he fit in with our much younger team?”  How much longer will he plan to work?  What if he gets sick and can’t work?  Will he be willing to answer to a much younger boss?  Can I afford him?  Your anxiety level goes way up.   Just as you are about to eliminate him from consideration, he starts answering the concerns that silently ran through your mind. 

“I realize you may be concerned about how much longer I plan to work. Coding is my passion; it consumes much of my time!  I am in excellent health, I jog three miles each day, write the Oracle code warrior blog, and mentor a team of young code warriors I met while speaking at the Future Business Leaders of America conference.”  The pay is not a concern.  My primary interest in this job is to be a part of your team and share my extensive knowledge with them as well as learn from them.

Your eyes light up as you say, “I am a huge fan of the code warrior blog!”  I didn’t realize that you are that person.  You are smiling, your fear level has gone way down, and the conversation goes into high gear.  You forget his advanced age, race, and appearance and genuinely engage in a deep conversation. 

Your third candidate is a white female with a solid background.  The interview goes very well, but you can’t get your mind off the “old man.” You end your day reading his blogs and searching for more articles written by him.  You look him up on LinkedIn and notice he has 183,270 followers.  You extend the job offer to him and he accepts.  You introduce him to your team and watch the same disturbed reaction you had initially and smile confidently knowing that they too will soon overcome their unconscious biases and line up to get mentored by him.