Equal Opportunity & Blind Recruitment

Staff Writer


Table of Contents

Equal opportunity has become a buzzphrase in this era where equality, diversity, and inclusion heralded almost every media post, employment policy, and government policy. This notwithstanding, equal opportunity has its limitations; there are some factors that the principle behind equal opportunity cannot change. I will begin with a student's job hunt nightmare. 

Huan’s Job Hunts

Huan is a Chinese, who for her postgraduate studies at one of the prestigious universities in London. She read Graphics Design and Illustration in her first degree. She had 10 years of work experience in China before enrolling for her Masters in the UK. She completed her master’s with an excellent result, notwithstanding her struggles with the communicative English language. Of course, she had improved her writing, speaking, reading, and listening skills in the English language while studying.

After her master’s degree, she took a work visa to gain further experience in the UK. She was granted a two-year work permit. According to her, she made hundreds of applications in her area of specialization. She received many interview invites. But none of the interviews was successful. Already, she had used up six months of the two years as she sought a professional job. She had spent all her savings while trying to get a promising job.

Finally, she was advised by a friend who had a similar job-hunting experience to look for other types of jobs, such as waitressing, cleaning, factory work, or caring. She accepted her advice. At least, she got a job as a bartender in London.

In fact, she said that she loved the job because it helped her pay off most of her debts and was able to save a few pounds for her tickets back to China.

Achieving Equal Opportunity in a non-equal opportunity contest

Blind recruitment is the idea of selecting future employees based on their qualifications or experiences and not on their identities. Hence, job applicants are required to anonymize their applications before submission.

One of the reasons is to reduce the consequences of unconscious or conscious bias or prejudice that often creep in during the sifting of applications. Arguably, blind recruitment is aimed at encouraging equal opportunity for all and reducing discrimination or preferences.

As a way of fostering employment opportunities and ensuring that no section of the population is left behind, equal opportunity data collection is used as the basic principle of bolstering equality. Though the equal opportunity data section is not part of the main application, it is as important as the main application. Because in most application formats, an applicant must complete that section before they can progress with the main application.

In it, an applicant is asked to answer questions about their age, disability, gender, religion, sex, race, and even nationality. These are all protected characteristics. An applicant has options to answer, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘prefer not to say’.

Blind Recruitment – Bolstering Equality

Blind recruitment works because without it not many will get the opportunity for interviews. But how can blind recruitment work during the interviews? One thing is to be sifted for an interview; another is to sit for the interview. During interviews, there are some discretionary dynamics and personal predilections that go into it. For blind recruitment to be complete, there may be a need to get outsider interviewers than those of the same organization.

Anonymization of application forms can be categorized into three different themes:

Anonymization based on name tag - An applicant is required to remove their names, addresses (email address included), telephone numbers, immigration status, and other forms of identification.

Anonymization based on a social tag - An applicant is required to remove every identifying mark to the institutions they went to or trained and their interests in hobbies. 

Anonymization based on a natural tag - An applicant is required to remove any reference to their gender, ethnic origin, and age on the application form.

What does this mean? It means that the strangeness or difficulty in pronouncing or typing your names cannot be a condition of recruitment. Most often, when someone's name sounds different, they might be unconsciously biased against the sifting panel. But with blind recruitment, an applicant has some chances of being sifted for an interview. Of course, if they qualify for the position.

Whether you are a woman or man would not be a condition for recruitment or promotion or even becoming a top boss in any organization. You are protected, so long as you are qualified for the position. Blind recruitment and outsider interviewers have made it possible.

Many times, in some organizations’ job adverts they tend to encourage people from different ethnic groups or people with disabilities to apply for job positions in their organization. It appears as if it is only in those types of adverts that minority groups or people with disabilities have the chance for equal employment opportunities. Blind recruitment and outsider interviewers could close this gap.

Blind recruitment promises that an applicant may no longer be constructed by their names, classes, ages, or places of origin but by their experiences, suitability, or what they can offer to the organization or business.          

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